Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
I sighed. Lachlan’s puffer jacket, discarded in his urgent trip to the vet with my sweet Rottweiler, swelled with my movement. Arms wrapped around me. Gah. Embracing myself increased the ache in my heart. The bedroom was too big for me. The bed, too, even with Jamie’s floor pallet. I tried to focus on the stunning vision before me. Snow dusted the earth like powdered sugar, falling in lazy spirals in the pine trees and kissing the surface of the lake.
“Where are you, Jamie?” I murmured, staring at the moon’s reflection over the lake. Despite the night’s brightness, the full moon created deep shadows among the trees.
Something warned me to go back inside.
“To sleep alone. No, thank you.” I was spoiled. I had a man who cherished instead of ordered, kissed instead of bit, and had a love that showed in his green-blue eyes. Another sigh ran deep through me when a twig broke.
Goose bumps prickled my arms.
My head snapped toward the sound. The trees positioned up the slope left of the cabin.
That you, Bambi? Had better be his scary behind.
A man emerged from the shadows. Short and stocky. Rocket.
My breath hitched. My body recognized him before my brain caught up. The way he moved. That twisted smirk.
A wicked gleam flashed. “Imagine my surprise,” he said, voice slick and cruel. “I’m on the dark web checking out guns. Instead, I see a familiar face for sale.”
My stomach flipped. Cold swept through me. No, this wasn’t happening. Not him. Not again.
“How did you get so expensive?” he sneered, stepping closer. “Worth more than any shipment I ever moved. More than the big dollars I thought I’d gotten from the gun dealer who wanted you! What a shame I let you go. I had to own you again. I told Aleksandr we were old friends. Asked him to carve my name on your feet like Woody in Toy Story. I still remember your favorite movie.”
My heartbeat pounded in my ears, chest rising and falling too fast. Every step he took stole the air from my lungs and dragged me back to a place I’d sworn I’d never return to.
“Thought I’d have to tell you about our baby to get myself out of that bind. Brody ambushed me!”
“Our … baby? Wh-what?” This was the moment my brain screamed to run. Or hell, scream. But I stood there, dumber than a leaf in a storm, as tiny flecks of snow fell, all because he’d preyed on my weakness. My only weakness. The only thing I had in my life—before Jamie’s return—that I could call my own. Unshed tears tightened my throat. “Our baby, is sh-she alive?”
He reached me. Slapped my nose like a wayward dog. Dang, I’d long forgotten the reflexes necessary to respond to his primary behavior. Hostility. I swung my fist through the air, prepared to bash his face in.
Rocket clasped my wrist, tugging me against him. “Didn’t I tell you the baby was dead? That would’ve been my next step, though. Soften up a gullible, stupid—”
“You would use your own child!” Never mind. He’d harm his own mother.
“Was it really mine?”
“If she wasn’t, that’s because you let your friends rape me.” My voice bled with emotion. “Let me go before I scre—”
His hand caught me by the throat, and he took a step backward toward the wooded area that led to the road. I bit my fingernails into his beefy forearms. Vision fuzzy at the edges, I gasped, begging for air. As he took another step backward, a slithery tongue ran thick saliva over my mouth. At the edge of the tree line, I threw my knee up, missing his privates by a long shot.
A vicious chuckle escaped his mouth, and then he slapped me.
Slam. The strike was enough to rock the world around me, and I landed on my knees. Would’ve been out cold, if not for the thin sheet of snow stabbing its way through my thick cotton pajama pants.
The toes of my Nikes and my knees scuffed into the icy-slush dirt while he pulled me. A vice grip tightened around my throat.
Tall trees cast us into darkness. From my peripheral, I glimpsed the side of the house. No lights. No one awoke.
Toward the entrance of the trees, a vehicle parked along the road. Headlights on. Trash littered near the front of the vehicle as if Rocket’s opportunistic behind had waited all this time.
Rocket forcefully pushed the back of my head to the ground, his hands exploring wherever he pleased. “Can’t wait.”
He climbed on top of me as I threw my hands up, legs trapped between his. Bright light flashed in my face. Was I already dead? No. The sound of Rocket undoing his belt reached my ears. I felt the slimy, cheap cigarette-tinged trail of his tongue on my cheek. Well, this would be a first. Raped in the snow—even if it was an inch or two deep.