Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 147734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
“As I said, I have doubts.”
“I’ll show you, you little fuck.”
“Please do.” I smile—more like laugh, really. Maybe I need to turn my threats to Vaughn about pursuing Nikolai into reality after all.
Hmm—
I lift my head and pause, my eyes widening.
Not sure why I even looked up in the first place. Call it instinct or a sixth sense, but something told me I had to.
And I’m glad I did.
I’m instantly drawn to a figure across from me in the stands, clad entirely in black, his face lost beneath the brim of a low baseball cap.
Wait. Is that Vaughn—
My ears ring, and I crash to the ground at Nikolai’s brutish punch. A metallic taste explodes in my mouth, and I cough up blood through my guards as I jump up despite the pain.
When I search again, Vaughn—no, the man I thought was Vaughn isn’t there. The place where he was standing is now empty, and everyone is shouting and banging and talking and talking and fucking talking…
No, no, no, fuck no.
I jump out of the ring, not caring about Nikolai and everyone calling out and telling me to get back in there.
There’s a high chance my wild imagination is conjuring him up again, as I do sometimes.
Okay, all the time.
But anyway, if it is Vaughn, I can’t let him indulge in his favorite hobby—running away.
I shove through the crowd, shouting at the guards to clear a path for me, because the last thing I need is people getting in my way.
When I finally arrive outside, a sports car revs out of the parking lot.
But not before I catch a glimpse of him through the driver’s window.
I see the man who’s plaguing my dreams and nightmares, and a wide, almost manic grin curves my lips.
You know, Cy is wrong.
Yes, Vaughn and I are different breeds, and yes, he’d probably win in a chess game—what are the rules for that anyway?—but it’s not always the brainy people who get the upper hand.
The thing is, I’m not the one who keeps crossing the sea for six hours or more and showing up on a different continent—it’s the other way around.
Some might argue that I’m a fucking pest with my texts, but I don’t go to harass him in person.
At any rate, Vaughn is here, not for his friends, since he wasn’t with Jeremy and Killian on Nikolai’s side, but for me.
And I’ll be damned if I let him go this time.
So I hop on my new bike, nameless because I refuse to cheat on Zver, and indulge in my new favorite hobby.
Chase.
17
VAUGHN
Once again, I find myself in the one place I shouldn’t have gone to.
It started with a simple text exchange with Jeremy earlier today.
He mentioned that Niko is stoked for a fight with the Serpents’ leader. Jeremy wasn’t thrilled, but he said it’s better to have Niko occupied with fighting someone on his level than running around wreaking havoc.
The next thing I knew, I was on the plane—after informing my parents so they wouldn’t worry like the last time.
While I soothed my conscious on that front, my brain needed a reason to justify this pressuring madness that keeps mounting and invading my life like a parasitic entity.
I came up with one.
The reason for this trip—one of many I’ve taken recently—is to make sure Yulian doesn’t mess with Niko. I don’t mean from a fighting perspective, since both of them are obviously into that business, but from the other perspective. The one where Yulian threatened to seduce Niko.
I wanted to protect my friend.
That’s all.
But I also didn’t want to alert the others to my presence, mostly because it’s completely out of character for me to be here for something other than initiations. The last thing I need is someone calling me out on the unusual behavior. I can barely explain it to myself, let alone to others.
For the whole fight, I stood motionless in the middle of the chanting chaos and the noisy crowd. I remained still even as some students bumped into me in their excited cheering.
With every punch and jab and easy laugh leaving Yulian’s lips, I was growing uncomfortable, feeling suffocated.
Nauseated.
A cursed emotion gripped my chest when he was coughing up blood, and it didn’t disappear even when he grinned and jumped back into the fight.
I’ve often wondered why he has so little respect for his life after what happened four years ago when he was fine with taking a bullet and possibly dying. It feels as if he has absolutely no regard for his life, and that irks me.
Even now, fleeing the crime scene, the irritated sensation clings to me—a brutal squeeze in my chest, so harsh and sickening, it steals my breath.
And yes, I had to flee because Yulian looked at me.
It was a fraction of a second, and I was so sure the cap would give me anonymity, but like always with Yulian, he looked at me as if he could see through my outer layers—whether they’re clothes or masks or anything in between.