Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
His lungs collapsed as though under the foot and weight of a crushing giant. “It started when I was six.”
The air shifted as she looked up at him in disbelief. “Six?” Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “When… When did it stop?”
It never fully stopped. Those brutal moments lived immortally inside of him. “I escaped when I was fourteen.”
A soft sound of disbelief skipped past her lips. “Eight years.”
“Daisy, there are things I’ve done that others would never understand. I don’t expect you to—”
His words cut off as she pressed her lips to his. For the briefest moment, the world found balance again.
He cupped the side of her face and closed his eyes, savoring the contact while he could. He wished they could hide from the truth forever, safe and secluded, pretending the world wasn’t this imperfect place. But he had a purpose to serve.
Capturing her hands in his, he pulled them from his face. “It’s all a glittering lie,” he confessed, putting pressure on the fragile illusion the world desperately wanted to believe. “I’ve made an artform out of dismantling corrupt and powerful men. Do you understand? I host The Feast, not just to help tributes, but to use them as bait. The right circumstances can bring out the worst in people. And every year, I watch, adding names to my list.”
“Like Hadrian?”
He nodded. “I make bad men go away.”
She looked into his eyes, searching for justification she’d never find. “Peter was on your list.”
He shook his head. “Not anymore.” When her breath caught, he quickly explained. “He’s fine. Still the self-centered prick he always was. But he’s not my problem.”
“What do you do to them—the men on your list?”
He tried to measure her curiosity, unsure if she truly wanted an honest answer. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but trust me when I say, some things are better left unsaid.”
“I want to know.”
He let go of her hands and drew a deep breath. “First, I dismantle their lives. I strip away their power, force them to sell off everything they have until they understand what true vulnerability feels like. Then, I remove any source of hope and let them suffer in that existence for a while.”
“But you…murder them?”
“Some. Not all.”
She looked away, and his stomach soured. “How do you decide?”
“I mirror them. It depends on their crimes.”
Her brow pinched. “Did Dr. Tannhäuser kill someone?”
His jaw locked as his mind ripped back to the last time he saw the good doctor. This was where the line between redemption and condemnation blurred most. This was where he expected to lose her.
He traced the backs of his fingers down her cheek, needing to feel her soft skin one last time. “You’re the first person I ever let in. The first person to truly see me. I know it’s not a pretty view—”
“Jack.”
“Let me finish. I know it’s not…” Words seemed to clog his throat. “I know who I am, Daisy. I know what you see when you look at me, and I think I fell in love with you the first time you didn’t look away.”
Her lashes flickered as pink flooded the whites of her eyes.
“But there’s no way to pretty up the shameful things I’ve done. The things I might continue to do. I’m not meant to have a life of leisure like other men. I don’t know how to have a family.” He shook his head. “I know my purpose. The world needs men like me, men who know the evil out there and have the means to put it out.”
He was saying too much. “You asked if Tannhäuser ever killed anyone, and the honest answer is I don’t know. What I do know is—had I not stopped him—he would have killed something pure and beautiful inside of you. And that bleakness, that yawning, suffocating space… It would have stayed with you for the rest of your life.” He closed his eyes as he saw her there, on the floor, screaming in another man’s blood. “And it destroys me every day, thinking I might have been too late.”
“Jack, no.” She lifted his face and kissed him again. “He didn’t… I’m still…a virgin.”
Relief surged through him like a tidal wave, not because he wanted to claim her innocence for himself—that was never it—but because he wanted to protect her.
“And you have no idea what I see when I look at you. Yes, I see your scars, but I don’t see them the way you do. To me, they’re marks of courage. Brushstrokes. Hidden keys to your past. Scripture that tells exactly who you are. And I know I might never fully understand your story, but I want to try. Even if it comes in tiny broken pieces. I’d spend a lifetime puzzling it together if it helps me get closer to you.”