Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
I ended the call, my heart fucking racing.
Goddamn.
Goddamn.
A choked sob had me whirling around.
My heart splintered.
Sawyer was in the doorway.
She’d opened it a crack. Now pale. Horror in her eyes. Her bottom lip was trembling. She was pressing a hand to her mouth. It curled into a fist and she kept pressing it harder and harder.
Fuck.
“Sawyer.” I took a step toward her.
She jumped back as if I’d slapped her, holding out a hand. “No.”
Her voice cracked, sounding like a wounded animal.
I flinched. Shit.
“No.” She said it again, savagely, a wildness coming over her. Her eyes grew panicked. Her mouth strained at the ends. She began looking around her, a desperate frenzy seeping into the air.
“It’s not what you think,” I grated out. Low. Rough. I’d messed up. I thought the door was closed. “I didn’t mean what you heard—”
“You said it!” she raged at me, her motion reversing. She flew at me instead, one arm in the air as if to strike me.
I braced, my hands lifting to catch her, but my phone rang. It stopped everything.
She froze, a choked gurgle slipping out as she saw Creighton’s name on the screen. Her eyes closed. Her body wavered on her feet.
Grim, so fucking grim, I accepted the call and put him on speaker. “Did you make a decision?”
His tone was like ice. “Your names have been removed from the list. Bring Blake to the coordinates I send in one hour and your names will remain off that list.”
No emotion. I couldn’t think anything. I couldn’t feel anything. This was how this fucking world worked. Collateral. Trades. Negotiations. Deals. These types of cruel arrangements. It was a dirty business, but it’s what I’d endured all my life. I survived it, walking the line between two sides of the same coin. Law and crime. I walked away from a bloodbath only needing to keep returning to one, over and over again.
This was it. This was the end.
I was done after this.
Sawyer was watching me, a plea in her eyes. There was a softness in her, one I couldn’t indulge and one I shouldn’t be around. I’d make it worse.
I made her like me.
She had a light in her. It’d been there, only dulled, when I met her on that subway train. Every day it grew, no matter the threat against her. It was still there. Getting bigger. Bolder. Healthier. Life had come back to her cheeks, giving her color. It made her glow until she overheard this call. I’d snuffed it out so easily.
It’d been a bluff, but it didn’t matter because if he called my bluff, I would be the reason her world shattered.
Me. I did that.
I was a curse to her.
I said swiftly, coldly, “Deal.”
Sawyer flinched this time, her face wincing, and she took a step away from me.
It wasn’t a good move, that I was letting him choose the location and time of the meeting, but a part of me stopped caring. As long as Sawyer was alive. As long as my son remained hidden from all of this.
It would soon be done.
“You can’t do this.”
She hated me. I saw it in her, the loathing of me. I shut down. She could return to Montana because she didn’t belong in this world.
But she’d be alive.
She’d be alive.
I turned my back to her, grabbed my gun, and shoved it in my holster. “We leave in ten.”
The door shut behind me. I faltered now, slipping to sit on the edge of the bed, my blood roaring in my ears.
I’d give her ten minutes.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sawyer
My heart was pounding.
Everything was coming apart inside of me. So many emotions. Panic. Terror. I wanted to fall to the floor, fold in a ball, and disappear, but I couldn’t do that. Ten minutes. I almost started laughing at the absurdity of it. Ten whole minutes. Only ten fucking minutes.
I flicked on the bathroom fan, slammed that door shut, and ran for Blake’s room. Jake would think I was in the bathroom. Jesus. I hoped he’d stay in the bedroom. I didn’t know when he’d come out, but I flung Blake’s door open.
She jerked around, shoving to her feet. I hadn’t tied her back on the bed, which Jake would’ve assumed I had done at gunpoint. I motioned to her. “We have to go.” I spoke low. Urgent. “Now. He’s giving you back.”
Her face shuttered closed, a wall coming over her expression, and she dipped her head in a brisk nod. She merely came with me, ready. She bypassed me, seeing the closed bedroom door next to us. “Follow me.”
She led the way out of the apartment, grabbing keys, a phone, a gun on the way. She took them all with deft hands, and I wanted to sprint once we got to the hallway, but not her. Cool, calm, and collected. She walked—walked—to the elevator. Hit the button.