Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 122242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
"I know you better than you think I do," he growls.
He's wrong though. He has no idea who I am or what I'm capable of. No idea what the last five years have been like for me or what I've done to survive. He has no idea how many people suffered because of me.
"Once you get what you need to take Nikolai down, you'll be on to the next case. If I'm lucky, I'll be free. If I'm not, I'll be right back where I started." I give him a sad smile. "That's how things work in my world. Don't ask me to believe things will be different when I'm the one who will have to live with the consequences if you're wrong. Don't ask me to hope for things that will just end up getting me hurt."
"Do you trust me, Faith?"
"Do I have a choice?"
He flinches like I struck him. Guilt prods at me, but I don't take it back. For both of our sakes, I can't.
Gunshots rip through the building, shattering glass all around me. People scream, pleading for help as music blares through the building. The sounds are so loud I want to clap my hands over my ears and scream for them to stop…but I'm frozen in place, unable to move as a bullet strikes Adrian in the cheek, knocking him off his feet. Another hits Lev in the chest, flinging him into an overturned table.
"Faith, get down!" Ilya yells at me.
A glass bottle explodes beside my head.
I drop to my hands and knees, crying out when a broken bottle slices my palms open.
Stop, I plead silently, crawling for safety as bullets continue to rip through the building. Please stop.
"Faith!" someone yells over the war currently ripping apart the bar. Strong hands wrap around my upper arms, shaking me. "Faith, conejita, wake up."
Wake up?
Am I dreaming?
I crack my eyes open and the scene around me wavers. Ilya's bar dissolves in distorted blurs. The floor beneath me isn't cement, but gleaming hardwood. It's not Ke$ha's voice ripping through the bar, but my own screams shattering the stillness of the night. And it's not Ilya staring at me from across the bar, but Octavio looming over me on his knees, his hands wrapped around my upper arms as he tries to calm me down.
I clamp my lips together, silencing my screams.
"Faith," Octavio whispers, the fear in his gaze melting to relief when I fixate on him.
He's really here, and I'm safe. I'm not at Ilya's. No one is shooting. No one is dying.
I'm safe.
"Octavio," I gasp, tears welling in my eyes and then spilling over too quickly for me to hold them off. Pure, unadulterated relief rushes through me in a massive flood.
His expression softens when he sees the tears spilling down my cheeks. "You were having a nightmare," he whispers, his voice like the soft wash of water over a riverbed. It's so soothing. So peaceful. "A bad one. Are you having them often?"
I nod, still trembling as adrenaline pumps through my system with each painfully uneven thump of my heart. "It felt so real," I whisper. My throat feels serrated and raw. "Like I was back there."
"In the bar?"
I nod again, blinking like that'll clear away the images that haunt me every time I close my eyes.
"Is that why you've been sleeping in the closet?" he asks, slowly reaching out to brush tears away from my face. His hand is warm against my chilled skin, his callused fingers gentle. I realize then that he's naked from the waist up, every inch of his muscular torso on display. A dark tattoo twines up his left upper arm in a tribal pattern, the end brushing his collar bone. His chest is hard, covered with a light dusting of dark hair. My gaze dances down the ridges of his abdomen to the matching trail of hair that disappears where his black lounge pants rest low on his hips.
His body is incredible, almost like an artist sculpted him of thick muscle and smooth brown skin. My entire body buzzes with energy like I've never felt before.
"Faith?" he asks, recalling my attention.
I jerk my gaze away from his body and refocus on his face to find him watching me intently, waiting for me to answer his question. I open my mouth to lie and tell him I don't know how I ended up on a pallet on the closet floor, but the way he's looking at me makes it apparent he already knows the truth. Lying would be pointless.
"When my mom would drink, I'd hide in the closet," I whisper, grimacing when my throat aches. More damning tears spill from my eyes, my internal barriers all but shredded by the nightmare. Old memories mix with new, tearing my heart into little pieces. "I guess I still feel safer here."