Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 31820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
Three years was not that long ago, and yet it felt like a lifetime. Ava had gone to a bar. She didn’t even know why she had gone, but after a long day working in a law firm, listening to one bullshit after another, as she cleaned up the mess and was treated like dirt, she decided to do something radical. After seeing what alcohol did to people, she was never interested in touching the stuff. But that day, something called to her to go to a bar.
She took her drink, and even to this day, she didn’t know how the guy was able to drug her. She figured the bartender had been in on it too. Either way, a sip of her drink and the next moment, she was strapped to a human dartboard, waking up to actual fucking darts imbedded into her skin. The man had left her bra and panties on. Ava didn’t know why she hadn’t panicked. No matter what she had been through, she had always wanted to survive.
Her kidnapper had expected her to scream and beg for mercy. The truth was, she’d been frozen to the spot. She could have argued that she was in her predicament because she was a kid, because her parents didn’t love her. There were so many different excuses, but as an adult, the only person she had to blame was herself.
Her kidnapper talked about the women that had come before her. He called her a freak because she refused to beg. She stayed silent, waiting for the inevitable. Ava had known there was no way out. In her world, there was no hero. No savior.
Until Knox.
He burst into that basement and killed her attacker. He saved her. He became her hero. No one ever did that for her, and she knew witnessing him kill a man should have affected her, but it didn’t. That night, she had fallen in love with him, and over the past three years, that love had bloomed in a way she didn’t think was possible.
Now, as she stood, adding some Italian seasoning to her pot of onions and garlic, she couldn’t help but think about a future with him.
Just as she grabbed the cans of tomatoes she knew were the best part of the sauce, Ava heard a noise. It sounded like a grunt, or was it movement? She put the cans down and turned off the stove. No one was home. Neither Marshal nor Knox had arrived. She had been in this house for a short time now, and she had never heard a single strange noise.
She grabbed a knife from the butcher block, then kicked off her shoes so she didn’t make any noise.
There was that sound again. Feet moving. She held onto the knife as tightly as she could. All the time, her stomach began to twist.
Her cell phone was upstairs, and Marshal kept a landline in his office. She had to get to his office, but to do that, she had to pass the stairs. Ava didn’t know if anyone was in the home. If Marshal had left a window open, maybe a stray cat had come in.
Ava went to the doorway of the dining room. Straight across the hall was Marshal’s office. She could even see one of the ugly chairs he insisted were comfortable, but for her, it was never so. He had tried to get her to sit in it and relax, and she hated it with a fiery passion. There was more movement, and Ava looked around the dining room, trying to see if there was anything out of place.
Marshal had left random stuff lying around, and on one of the cabinets, she saw a mirror which his third wife had insisted on him getting. She had to listen to one of his wife’s tales about how she had to have a mirror in every room.
He had actually smashed most of them, but this one he kept as a reminder of the shallowness of his wife. Marshal had said he needed token reminders so he didn’t fuck up and marry a poisonous viper. His whole house should be covered with mementos of the women he’d been with, and who had fucked with his life. It was sad.
She knew it hurt him that he’d not found a person to love. The truth was, she had a feeling he hadn’t gone looking for someone to love, but someone to take care of him. He was looking for all the wrong reasons. She didn’t tell him that.
Picking up the mirror gently, she walked back to the doorway and crouched down. She had seen Knox do this many times. Her heart raced and she felt sick to her stomach, but she pushed the mirror out and then pointed it up toward the stairs.