Total pages in book: 181
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
But I pause the second I come to the date of the bonfire night.
I open the folder and find the video, clicking it to see what’s on there, and my blood runs cold.
There I am. Strapped to the lectern. Fucked in every way possible by my Ghost.
All on tape and in his possession.
He was there in the auditorium? He knew all along?
“How did you get this?” I mutter, tensing up.
“I … I followed you there.”
He followed me?
But that means he was there when I was being chased, hunted, used.
He watched Ghost take me and pretended he didn’t know.
“I was tied up,” I say. “You knew. Why didn’t you free me?”
“Because you would’ve known I was there,” he says. “How could I explain myself?”
I shut the laptop and shove it away, breathing out a sigh. “I’ve seen everything I needed to see.”
“Wait,” he mutters as I step out of the car.
He swiftly tucks all his tech away and follows me out, but I’m done.
I’m so fucking done with liars.
“I put all those cameras in your room to protect you, Aspen.”
That’s rich since he was filming me way before that.
“Since when?” I ask, glancing at him over my shoulder.
“Since you told me about your stalker,” I say, swallowing.
He’s just making up more lies.
“No,” I reply, spinning around to face him. “You have the tape of me in the auditorium. This isn’t about protecting me. This is about you and your fantasies of seeing me with another man, isn’t it?”
He licks his parted lips, but no words come out, and it makes me wonder if he’s hiding more…
“Unless …”
My eyes widen in shock.
No. He couldn’t be.
He couldn’t be my ghost, could he?
Grey
She shoves her finger into my chest. “Don’t. Lie. To. Me. Did you tape me for your own pleasure?”
I nod.
SLAP!
The palm of her hand comes down on my cheek, the sting immediately glowing, and it barely registers with me as my hand instinctively touches the mark she left.
“I trusted you,” she hisses through her tears. “Why?”
The pain of her rejection hits me so deep that the pieces of me I kept hidden for far too long begin to unravel, darkness seeping in.
“And why did you send that picture to Levi?”
“Because I wanted him to see you were mine,” I say, lowering my gaze. “Because he was always there, waiting for us, waiting for the moment when it would all fall to pieces so he could swoop in like a goddamn vulture.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Don’t you understand?” I say through gritted teeth. “He never wanted you to be with me because he’s jealous.”
Her face contorts. “What? That doesn’t make any sense. He hates me.”
I shake my head. “He’s madly protective of you, and I admit, it got to me. I wanted to prove to him that you were mine and only mine.” My fist balls. “But I understand now a heart like yours could never belong to me alone.”
“No.” She shudders and takes a step back, but her eyes still veer up to the steps behind me, toward the two shadows continuously hovering over our lives.
Apollo and Levi.
“I am not an object. No one owns me,” she hisses. “You videotaped me. You blackmailed me. And you used me.” She points at each one of us like we’re monsters. “Any of you three could all be my fucking stalker.”
We stare at her without saying a word.
“My brother was right. I should’ve known better than to ever get involved with some goddamn Phantoms.”
I can’t even look at her because I don’t want her to see the evil growing in my heart, that need to finally lash out. Because she doesn’t understand just how far I’m willing to go for her.
“I’m so goddamn done with all of you,” she hisses. “Leave me the fuck alone!” She storms off, but then turns around again to point at us all. “And if any of you fuckers follow me, I will put a bullet in you myself!”
She marches off toward her sorority, and when she gets there, she slams the front door shut so loud it reverberates across the entire street.
“Well, that escalated quickly,” Apollo mutters.
“This is all your fucking fault,” I growl as I waltz up the steps and pull out my knife, pointing it right at Levi’s chest at the same time as he holds one under my throat.
“You try something, and you’re dead.”
“Stop, stop,” Apollo says, but when he tries to intervene, both of us point our knives at him instead.
“You fucked with them both, didn’t you?” Levi says.
“The only reason she’s gone now is because you wouldn’t let us fucking leave,” I tell Apollo.
Apollo lifts his hands. “Hey, don’t get mad at me now. I’m the one spreading the love.”
My nose twitches. “You call blackmail love?”
“And you call secretly videotaping her love?”
“Neither of you would know the fucking meaning of love if it looked you right in the face,” Levi growls.