Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“Hamilton,” I replied. Thatcher had told me not to call him Maxon. To let him tell me who he really was. “What is going on?” I asked, careful to say exactly what I’d been coached to say.
His gaze shifted to Thatcher, then to another person in the room. I turned my head to see who it was. An attractive man with a black cowboy hat on his head and dark brown hair, pulled back in a man bun, peeking out from underneath it. He smiled at Thatcher but ignored me.
“You know what’s going on. They didn’t bring you down here without filling you in,” Maxon said, bringing my attention back to him.
“Yes, but I still don’t understand this. I thought … I thought you liked me.”
His expression softened briefly, but he covered it up almost immediately. “I do like you. Our relationship has nothing to do with the issue.”
I swallowed hard. “But you put a bomb in my car, Hamilton. You were going to kill me.” I managed to put the emotion in it that Thatcher had requested. I even bit my lip, like it was hard for me to think about.
He shook his head, his brows drawing together. “No. I didn’t put a bomb in your car. I was protecting you. I asked you not to leave the house, remember? I told you I would come get you. Take you to get groceries. I was on my way to you, but I was three hours out.”
I wanted to glance at Thatcher to check on how I was doing, but he had made it clear that I wasn’t to look at them. It would give me away. Make it seem as if I trusted them.
“You didn’t put the bomb in my car, but you knew it was there?”
He looked torn. As if he was actually upset about this. “There is a lot you don’t know.” He glanced at the other men. “Things they’ve not told you. Or have they?” His focus was back on me.
I blinked, as if fighting off tears. “They told me about the bomb and then made me call you, but that’s it. The next thing I knew, I woke up in a room they had me locked in, telling me that they had you. I wanted to see you. I didn’t believe you could do this.”
He glared at the other side of the room, but I didn’t dare look in their direction. I kept my eyes on Maxon. He had to think I was here for him.
“Why are you chained up? Did you hurt someone?” I asked.
He looked back at me. “They’re the fucking Mafia. This is what they do. You needed to keep your distance from them, but he didn’t tell you. He lied to you. Kept it from you. He let you keep his kid and never once told you whose house you were staying in. The danger you were in, just being there. It was driving me fucking insane with worry.”
“Sarah is my niece. She needs me,” I told him.
He winced as he tried to adjust his hands. “I know, but he will keep her safe. He won’t keep you safe though. He made you drive home, alone, in the middle of the goddamn night. Five hours on the road. If I hadn’t been watching you, then no one would have been there to make sure you made it home safe. He doesn’t appreciate all you do to help him with his kid. The least he could do was keep you safe too. But he didn’t.”
Not true. He saved me from you.
He had been watching me? The cold ice that settled over me made me shiver, and I hoped like hell I hid that from him.
“It’s me you need to trust. Not them,” he urged. “Whatever lies they’ve told you, I swear I would kill anyone who tried to hurt you.”
But the bomb. You keep forgetting you had a bomb put in my car.
“I want to believe you,” I told him. “But I don’t understand the bomb or any of it. They used my phone, Hamilton. They traced you and all the other stuff because of your number in my phone. When they made me call you.”
“You could have never gotten in your car, Oakley. I had the keys taken. I made sure it was locked. That there were no extra keys. I did it to force his hand. They took Tanner.” He shot a furious glare in their direction. “I was trying to save my friend. They kill people. I did what I had to do.”
“Do you have Tanner?” I asked them as if this were a shock to me.
Thatcher shrugged and ran his hand over the blade of a knife he was holding. “Not anymore.”
“Where is he? Tanner is my friend! He’s my friend Daphne’s boyfriend!” I really hoped I’d sold that.