Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 120472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
We make our way back toward the grand entrance of the castle and I find myself lost in thought. “Can I ask you something?” I mutter, feeling as though I’m about to cross some invisible line that I was never aware of in the first place.
Curiosity sparks in his dark eyes as he watches me, and after a short pause, he nods. “What’s up?”
“I never really sleep well after drinking, so I woke up pretty early this morning and was just wandering around when I saw Levi. He was coming down those stairs that lead up to Snow White’s room and he seemed … off, like it’s tearing him apart having your mom here. He went back to his room after that, but he didn’t sleep, just played the drums all morning, like he was trying to forget her.”
Marcus lets out a heavy sigh and he stops me at the bottom of the stairs, not wanting to have this conversation anywhere closer to the castle. “Levi was young when she died, only four or five. He doesn’t remember her, not in the way that Roman and I do,” he explains. “I think he has one memory of her reading him a bedtime story a few nights before she was killed and he’s held onto that tighter than he’s held onto anything. Having her here now .. at least being aware of her being here, he feels like he’s let her down. We all feel like that, but it’s hitting him the hardest.”
“Shit,” I murmur, feeling as though there’s got to be something I can do to help him.
Marcus places his hand on my lower back and starts leading me up the stairs. “Roman and I,” he continues, “we have countless memories to fall back on, but all Levi has is that one bedtime story and her decaying body upstairs. I don’t blame him for trying to hold onto that.”
I nod, hating how much their pain hurts me too. “Why would your father do that to her?”
He shakes his head. “The fucking question of the century,” he mutters, not doubting for one second that he would get the information out of him if it’s the last thing he does. “We always believed that she’d been put to rest in the family tomb on my father’s property. Hell, every fucking year we’d break out of this hellhole and risk a trip to the tomb just to see her, but after all these years, she’s been left up in a lonely castle to rot. We could have helped her, buried her somewhere nice.”
“You will,” I tell him, “and after that, you’re going to make your father pay.”
“Damn fucking straight,” he says, reaching for the front door and groaning when it doesn’t open. “Fuck. I thought I left this propped open.”
My eyes widen, gaping up at the big castle. “How the hell are we supposed to get back in?”
Marcus steps back and scans over the massive building. “Never thought I’d be needing to break back in,” he mutters as his gaze travels to the far corner of the property and scans over the huge, overgrown maze that they chased me through only a few short weeks ago. “How do you feel about taking a little stroll through the maze again?”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, the idea making me want to break out into hives. “What are my other choices?”
“Going up through the cellars.”
“Shit,” I sigh. “Maze it is.”
We start making our way toward the massive hedges of the maze and I stare up at it, remembering just how daunting being on the other side of this thing was. Though it’s late afternoon, and with the sun shining, surely it won't be half as scary in there.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” I say, realizing that a second probing question to do with his mother probably isn’t a smart move, but hell, I’m already on a roll.
Marcus glances at me and raises his brow as he tries to figure out the best way to get us on the opposite side of this hedge wall. “Yes?” he says slowly.
“You know that first night when you guys dressed me up in that black gown?”
He narrows his gaze on me, not liking where my line of questioning is going. “What of it?”
“Was that really one of your mother’s old gowns?” I muse, nervously glancing up at him. “Because I know you guys are a bit fucked in the head, but getting off on a random chick wearing your mom’s old clothes is just weird.”
A howling laugh comes tearing out of him as he attempts to scale the side of the hedge. “Holy fuck, babe. How long have you been wanting to ask me that?”
I shrug my shoulders. “A while.”
He shakes his head as the branches snap under his weight and he drops back down to the ground beside me. “It wasn’t my mother’s dress,” he laughs, shaking off the shallow cut that starts at his elbow and trails all the way down to his wrist. “I don’t know who’s fucking dress that was, but it looked fucking good on you.”