Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
He lets me go and starts to walk out of the room, leaving me there as I lean back against the bookshelves in the low light.
But before he leaves, he turns back to me. “You’re going to regret asking about London. Meet me upstairs. I’ll tell you everything.”
16
Hunter
I plan on giving Rayne the short version, and instead, I bare my soul to him.
He’s on his bed, I’m on mine.
He took a shower after he fucked my mouth, and now his hair is still a little damp, sticking in a million different directions. I want to go run my fingers through it, but that would just distract me.
Because I’m going to tell him the truth.
The whiskey in my blood is affecting me more than it should.
And yet again, Rayne’s clawed his way right past every last shred of willpower I have left in me.
“Talk,” he says to me.
“Impatient much?”
“Yes. I’m impatient. First of all, tell me what the fuck you want.”
At first I don’t respond.
I like that I got to him, but I don’t like the question.
What do I want?
I want to be alone.
I cannot even picture a life where I am not completely alone.
And my whole lifetime, people have been hell-bent on making that impossible.
“In life, you’re forced into almost everything,” I tell Rayne, my tone coming out lifeless. “School first, from preschool to elementary into middle and high school. Then, it doesn’t end. College is next, and if you have a father like mine, he tries to shove you into the same one he attended. I escaped that, going to London, but now look at me. Here at Crimson.”
“Crimson is a great college.”
“I’m aware of that,” I tell him. “But I just want to be alone. It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of. I salivate about the day I get my inheritance and I can buy a plot of land where no one can ever find me again. I’m not meant for this world, Rayne.”
“How very edgy of you,” Rayne says, and he’s clearly unimpressed.
But I don’t expect him to understand.
People never do.
They assume I want to be alone because I’m on some high ivory tower, or that I believe I’m above it all.
But it’s not that. Because I’m well aware of another thing, too: their world is worse with me in it. I also want to be alone so that I’m not inflicting myself on everyone around me. My urges. My chaotic rage.
The way fights always end up with my hand on someone’s neck, cutting off their breath, or my knife on their skin, threatening them until they beg me to stop.
But I never want to stop.
I always end up hurting people.
Endangering them.
So if I can’t stop what’s inside me, I need to be alone. At least then I won’t have to hold myself back from wanting to fucking strangle every living person who’s ever wronged me.
“Tell me something real, now,” he demands. “How did you end up in a mafia family?”
I pull in a lungful of air. “I didn’t seek out the Thornwick crime family in London. They found me. I had a part time job at a pub in a bad part of town. Bad people came to that pub, and I served them liquor.”
“You and Weston don’t need jobs. You have access to giant bank accounts, and when you turn 25 you’ll have inheritances worth millions. Why work at a bar?”
“People in bars get violent. Moth, meet flame.”
“Naturally,” he mutters.
“Acting like you’re above it, Colson? You’re a moth to my flame, too. You like the violence inside me. Admit it.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“Honesty before everything. You know I’m unhinged, and you keep coming back.”
“I don’t know why I can’t keep my cock away from you, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Talk about the bar. Now.”
I lick my lips. “Working at that bar, I got… a reputation.”
Rayne raises an eyebrow. “What reputation?”
“I kept the place under control.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and reach for one of my butterfly knives nearby. It makes me feel better to have something in my hand.
“If a fight broke out, I’d jump over the bar and put an end to it.”
Rayne gives me a dubious look. “So you thought you were the Batman of your little pub, didn’t you?”
“No. But the customers started to think that. One night, I defused a situation between people who turned out to be one step shy of the mafia and a man who owed them money. They noticed me.”
“Everyone notices you.”
I look him up and down. “Especially you, king.”
He gives me an upward nod. “You’re not going to distract me. Tell me more.”
“I didn’t know they were a crime family at first, but I had a feeling. They started asking me to do things for them. Store mysterious boxes behind the bar, feed them information about patrons, all sorts of little weird shit.”