Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
My heart leapt into my throat and adrenaline pumped through me as I grabbed her lead and tried to calm her. I didn’t say anything until I led the horse out of the trailer.
“Don’t spook a horse, you idiot!” I hissed.
“Where’s the fucking K?” Dax didn’t look like himself. The boyish good-looks disappeared, replaced with a menacing scowl. His hair was a mess, and his skin seemed sallow. Dark bags were under his eyes. Mine, probably too.
“In my office, I would assume,” I countered, with a shit ton of sass. “I just got back. You know, from driving straight through the night because you were with my grandfather?”
A sly smile spread across his face. “It got your ass back here, didn’t it?”
I didn’t respond to that. Nothing I could say would make a difference. All I’d do was show how much he got to me, how much he was controlling me. Hell, I felt like a puppet. His puppet.
“So get me in the office.”
“Seraphina’s been in the trailer all night because you’re a fucking asshole.” I pulled the keys from my jeans pocket, tossed them at him. “I’m putting her in the paddock. You get in the office yourself.”
I turned away, not waiting for him to respond. He had the keys if he wanted to get the drugs. As I opened the gate and led Seraphina through and into the tall grass, I heard him head toward the stable and no doubt my office within. I figured I had about a minute at most before he came back.
I pulled my cell from my pocket and with a racing heart and fumbling fingers, I found the photo setting, pulled up the video feature and hit record. I dashed to the trailer and set the phone down on the wheel well bump-out.
I grabbed a shovel that was affixed to the interior wall of the trailer used to scoop manure, but Dax came back out. “Where’s the shipment you got in Montana?”
My heart pounded so hard I was sure he could hear it. I wasn’t good at being tricky. Or sly. But I was smarter than him.
“The shipment of ketamine you made me order?” I asked, my voice clear and as calm as I could make it.
“Uh, yeah,” he said in a duh voice. “That one.”
“You called me last night from my own house, sitting with my grandfather. You threatened to harm him if I didn’t get back here right away.”
Dax narrowed his eyes. “So? Your gramps is fine. I didn’t do shit to him except eat some dinner. Too much fucking gravy.”
“So I left Montana last night a week early because of you. The shipment hadn’t arrived before I left. And I can hardly request it now. Not without an explanation. You’ve got plenty in your hands from the shipment you made me get before I left. What are you going to do with it all?”
He hoisted up his pants. “Sell it. You’re my supplier now, right, Charlie? I got you good.”
“How’s that?” I held onto the shovel handle, the tip of it in the ground.
“You’re part of the supply chain. In fact, the police go harder on suppliers than they do on peddlers of drugs. So you’re in this deep.”
I shook my head, even though I was quaking in my boots. “No. I’m not in this at all. I only started it because you threatened me.”
He took a step toward me, but I held my ground. “Try telling that to Mr. Claymore. Or the vet board. Or the cops.”
I made a mistake. I flicked a glance at the phone on the wheel well.
Dax glanced over and saw it, and then his pretty-boy face contorted into rage. He advanced on me. “You think you’re so smart? You’re recording this?” I lifted the shovel, ready to use it as my own weapon, but he was too quick. He wrapped both his hands around my throat, causing me to drop the shovel and claw at his fingers.
I choked, breath cut off, desperate thoughts flying through my head. How I should’ve swung the shovel before he came in close. How I shouldn’t have left Montana without talking to Levi.
Levi.
Fuck. I loved him. I loved him, and I’d fucked this up so badly.
Just then, a car came flying around the side of the stable and barely skidded to a stop. Right in front of us.
Dax was distracted by it and loosened his hold on my throat, allowing me to take in a lungful of air. I was distracted because I saw through the windshield it was Levi. He wasn’t a cowboy in a white hat riding in on a white horse.
No, he came to the rescue in a white sub-compact.
27
LEVI
Someone was choking my mate.
I was going to kill the punk.
Charlie had been using a shovel, a fucking shovel, as protection, but it had been rendered useless. Some guy had both hands wrapped around her throat. At least he had until I pulled up. In the moment of distraction, Charlie wrenched herself free and grabbed the shovel again. I could see the marks on her neck from the assault, knew that if I hadn’t arrived when I had, she’d be dead within seconds.