Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
I had more money stashed away than I had in years. It was a really good feeling. Safe. Even if I was trying to trust that York had the situation handled, that I wouldn’t need the emergency money again.
I spent my afternoon at a local nature center and park, walking the trails that Denny never would have been able to do with me, feeling old parts of myself slipping back into place. Muscles that had been tensed for years loosened. Stress that had been riding my shoulders for years eased.
I felt light and easy as I made my way to my car, smiling at a picture York sent of Denny’s ice-cream-covered face and fake tattoos. And his own arm where she had colored in his tattoos.
There was this sensation of rightness in my chest at it all.
It stuck with me through the cleaning job of a rental house that was already pretty spotless, so I threw in a deep clean of both fridges to make the time I was meant to spend there.
I drove to the owner, collected my cash, then made my way back to the apartment, deciding that I was going to take a shower and then go and join Denny and York for dinner.
Lasagna was a pain in the ass to make. Why not enjoy someone else’s labor of it if it was being offered?
Yep.
That was all it was about.
Not because I missed my kid.
And definitely not because I wanted to see York.
Nope.
Because I had that line in the sand. And I was going to stay on my side of it, dammit. No matter how much my body wanted me to leap over it and onto York.
I sighed as I made my way from the shower into my room, pulling on the cutest bra and panty set I owned—for no particular reason at all. Then hemmed and hawed my wardrobe. For the first time in my entire life, I wished I owned something cute and girly. A dress, even.
God, what the hell was wrong with me?
I grabbed a pair of biker shorts and my vintage, well-loved Yellowstone T-shirt, reminding myself that I didn’t need to be pretty for York. Because I wasn’t going to sleep with him again.
With that, I made my way back toward the bathroom to grab my phone.
I’d just closed my hand on it when the lights cut out.
My heart froze.
My breath caught.
It was just a blackout.
When I glanced out the window toward the next apartment building, though, it was lit up.
A blown fuse, then.
My hand was shaking as I slid behind the bathroom door and dialed York’s number.
If it was just a blown fuse, I could just pretend to be checking in.
But if it was not a blown fuse…
“Hey, Runa,” I heard in my ear before the door whipped forward, then slammed so hard into my face, I saw stars.
A cry escaped me as the phone fell from my hand, clattering to the floor, sliding just far enough to be out of reach.
“York!” I shrieked, praying the call hadn’t ended, that he could hear me, that he would come.
But before I could cry out again, a hand grabbed my throat hard enough to make my breath catch, then slammed my head back against the bathroom wall.
Pain exploded through my skull, and my vision swam.
Panic set in as my chest got tight, leaving me clawing at his hands, at his face.
No.
I had to focus.
No pointless scratching.
I needed to inflict actual damage.
That was how I’d gotten away last time.
I used one hand to map his face, then used the other to curl my hand, then drove the heel of my hand as hard as I could into the bastard’s nose.
There was a strange crunching sound, then a yowl of pain.
The hand fell from my throat, and I gasped in one breath, then another, trying to get enough oxygen to scream.
I wasn’t in some isolated rental. Or walking down an abandoned street.
I was in a fully-occupied apartment building in a busy area of Florida. Someone would hear me. Someone would come. If they wouldn’t come, they would call the police.
But before I could even breathe again, there was a blunt pain to my stomach. Once. Twice. Three times.
Punches. He was punching me.
But he seemed as blind in the dark as I was, hitting me in the center of my stomach. Painful, but not debilitating like my ribs.
I squeezed into the space near the shower niche, just needing to get out of the cramped space, get into the hall, get toward my bedroom.
Because sitting beside my bed was the very fancy little gun safe. All I needed was five seconds, my fingerprint, and then I would have what I needed to end this.
I had the home field advantage, especially in the dark, I reminded myself. I just needed to squeeze past him.