Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Though I really didn’t want to, I answered when my phone buzzed a few seconds later.
“Holy fuck, bitch,” Ollie snapped.
“Hello to you too,” I muttered.
“You are lucky that I can hack into hospital databases so I knew you were going to survive,” she said in a surprisingly thick voice.
Ollie was rattled. I could hear it. I’d become somewhat immune to the way Colby had been looking at me and speaking to me. But hearing one of my best friends sounding rattled, hearing Ollie sound so rattled, it sent rocks to the pit of my stomach.
This was reality. This was a taste of what I was going to get when I got out of this hospital and had to face everyone in my life.
Before all of this, I’d been proud of the family I’d found since mine disowned me. Now I wished that not a person in the world cared about me. Somehow, I had decided that that would be easier than seeing the pain, grief and pity on people’s faces.
“I’m like a cockroach. I was always going to survive,” I joked.
“It was pretty fucking touch and go,” she replied.
I swallowed hard. “But I’m here.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her voice broken. “I should’ve found out who the fuck was earlier.”
“You stop that right now,” I demanded. “No one fucking knew. I had dinner with the fuck and didn’t know. The Sons had their best hacker on this too.”
“Their best hacker is a man and not fucking me,” she rebuked. “He should not have slipped past me. If I had—”
“If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas,” I interrupted her. “You are a fucking badass. You are the best hacker in the land. Shit happens.”
“Yes, shit happens,” she agreed. “Your hairstylist fucks up your hair. You have a fender bender. You text the person you were talking shit to someone else about. Getting kidnapped by a serial killer is not shit happens.”
Ollie was spiraling. Likely because of the situation, but I knew her well enough to understand she had probably been up for far too long and had far too many energy drinks, punishing herself for not obtaining the information soon.
“Ollie,” I stated firmly. “This is not on you. This is not on anyone but him. And I know you would never let that fucker win by letting him blame you.”
She huffed over the phone.
I almost wanted to smile.
I hadn’t done that yet.
“You coming back to school?” she asked.
Nausea swam through my stomach at just the thought of it. School. Assignments. Classes. It seemed so fucking arbitrary now. Plus, if I wanted to become a psychiatrist, I’d have years more in school. Years.
I struggled to hold down my meager breakfast.
“Of course,” I lied smoothly.
“Okay, well, keep in touch, or I’ll track your phone.”
“You already track my phone.”
“Touché,” she muttered. There was a pause, a long one. “Love you, Ri.”
My lip trembled. “Love you too,” I croaked.
My hand was shaking, barely strong enough to put the phone back down. That was just a taste of what I was going to get once I got out of here, and I was already exhausted.
There was no way I could handle more of that.
But I didn’t have any other choice.
I woke up to a dark shape at my bedside. That wasn’t outside the norm. Actually, this was the norm. I wouldn’t have known what to do with myself if I woke up alone in this hospital room. I’d been trying to tell myself, and him, that he didn’t need to be here. But he didn’t listen to me, and I was secretly thankful for that.
But it wasn’t Colby sitting at my bedside.
It was Hades.
My body tensed as I locked eyes with him, and I was hurled back into the moment he’d found me in the warehouse.
He was a scary dude. Not just because of his tattoos, including the ones on his face which were badass but intimidating. His whole look, his whole demeanor, made you realize you were in the presence of someone who had done dark shit. Seen dark shit. This was a whole other breed of person, rare and fucking deadly.
But that wasn’t what he was for me in that warehouse.
He was my dark fucking knight. He was the only man capable of wading into that dark, horrendous place I was residing in to drag me out.
“Hi,” I croaked, feeling uncomfortable.
He didn’t reply right away, his eyes skating over my body. “He’s gonna die slowly,” he told me in a way that was meant to reassure me. Like it was a gift.
I supposed for a man like Hades, it was a gift. Torturing my almost murderer was his version of a fruit basket.
“Thank you,” I wheezed. “For being there.”
He nodded once. “This is gonna fuck you up,” he said. “Gonna take you to a place not many people come back from. Doesn’t matter how strong you are, how many people you have around you.” He paused, his eyes darting around the room. “And you are strong. The fact that you were still breathing when we found you shows me that. Most people give up in that kinda situation. Before the body gives up, the mind lets go. Lesser people would’ve been gone by the time I arrived. You weren’t.”