Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 123672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
I stumble and fall against his chest, his grip bruising around my arm. “You belong to me,” Crew growls.
“The fuck I do,” I spit, ripping my arm free of his tight grip. “Do you hear yourself right now? We fucked. It was fun. But that’s it, and considering the way you’ve been behaving ever since, I guarantee that was the last time you’ll ever touch me. You have no fucking right to me. You don’t get to message me at all hours of the night, demanding I come over, and you sure as fuck don’t get to kick down my fucking door and welcome yourself into my apartment. We’re over, Crew. Whatever the fuck you thought was going to happen between us is done. You’ve crossed a line.”
Crew clenches his jaw, and in a flash of lightning, he rears back before striking forward, his fist cracking against my jaw. I fall back, crying out in agony as I crash into Crew’s table with relentless momentum, my ribs instantly bruising against the sharp corner of the table as ink and equipment sprawl across the floor.
My face aches, and I grasp my cheek, almost certain my jaw is dislocated, and as I catch myself, stabilizing on my feet, I turn my horrified stare toward Crew, barely able to process what the fuck just happened.
He hit me. The one man who’s supposed to love me, who’s stood by my side since the day I stormed into High Voltage Ink at seventeen. The man who vowed that one day he’d be my forever. He broke my trust. Betrayed me, and now . . . He laid his fucking hands on me.
Never again.
My hands shake as Crew gapes at me, unable to believe what he’s done. “Ky,” he breathes, looking down at his closed fist in shock. “I didn’t mean . . . I swear, Kyah. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
Crew inches toward me, and I flinch, backing up a step, hating the traitorous tears that well in my eyes. “Don’t you dare come any closer,” I warn, spitting through my clenched jaw as the pain rocks through my face, but considering I’m able to talk, maybe it’s not dislocated after all, just fucking sore.
“Kyah, please,” he says, staring at me in horror. “It was an accident. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was just worked up, and you were saying shit and it . . . it just happened. I love you. You have to believe that. You know me.”
“You don’t fucking love me, Crew,” I spit, disgusted by the pathetic excuse of a man standing before me. “You want to own me. I’m nothing but a fucking possession to you, and letting you touch me, letting you fuck me . . . I’ve never regretted anything more. So hear me now, Crew—we’re done. You’ll never fucking touch me again.”
And with that, I grab my smashed phone and storm out of High Voltage Ink, and as tears roll down my cheeks, I vow to myself that from here on out, Crew Ledger is dead to me.
14
REID
My hands coil into tight fists at my side as I watch Kyah storm out of High Voltage Ink, rage pounding through my veins like poison, infecting me from the inside out. The way she grips the side of her face, agony flashing in those bright blue eyes . . . fuck.
I’ve always gotten off on seeing the woman I’ve toyed with screaming for her life, but there’s something different about the way Kyah hurts. I don’t like it, and it grates on my nerves that I don’t understand why.
When I followed her here this afternoon, I expected a lot of things. I’ve seen the messages Crew sent her and watched as she gritted her teeth while ignoring his insistent calls. I expected him to get on his knees and grovel for forgiveness, that she would put him in his place and then coddle him like she always does, but instead, she stormed in there like the vicious little devil she is and laid down the law. It was the most thrilling thing I’ve ever seen—until it wasn’t.
When his fist cracked across her jaw, I saw red, and when she cried out loud enough for me to hear the agony in her tone from outside the shop, I’ve never wanted to kill someone more in my life.
I always knew Crew Ledger was a small man with his begging and incessant whining, but when it comes to Kyah, I didn't think he could take it this far. He knows he fucked up, but he doesn't realize how badly yet. He put his hands on what’s mine, and for that, he will suffer the consequences.
There’s no mistaking it, Crew Ledger is going to die.
He’s a piece of shit and there’s no doubt in my mind that Kyah has no fucking idea who she’s been screwing with, because if she knew, if she had any fucking idea what kind of bullshit Crew was involved with, she wouldn’t even be able to look him in the eye. She’d despise him and go out of her way just to see him locked up, even if it meant risking her life in the process.