Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
I’ve never felt this. Ever.
I can’t touch him again.
I can never forgive what he did to Liv, and I can never let the Ameses into our lives in any real way.
I can’t touch him again.
He should sleep with someone else. So should I.
But I backtrack, murmuring, “Don’t kill him.” I shake my head, my eyes on the floor and the bronze crucifix looming overhead. “Don’t kill him.”
I didn’t mean to say it.
Retreating, I leave the church and crash in my classroom till six.
22
Callum
Send him my way…
Hours later, and his words still play in my head. I think Dallas fucking Jaeger has had enough to eat.
My footfalls pound the treadmill, the stock exchanges playing on all four monitors in our home gym. Shanghai and Tokyo closed while Dallas and I were in the Ministry office, and I try to concentrate on the Nasdaq, but everything hurts.
He went too hard last night, and I don’t know why I let him.
But he wanted me to be a piece of meat, and I needed the reminder that that’s all I am to him. I could see it in his eyes when we were facing each other. It got too intimate, and I felt it, too. I’m glad we’re on the same page about one thing.
Glancing at the time on the treadmill, I read 8:09 a.m. Where the hell is Sophia? I could’ve slept longer, but I’d texted Barnes last night to grab her early. It doesn’t take that long to get back from the Bay.
I should’ve gone to get her myself. I don’t need the driver today, and making him come in just for that feels stupid.
But with the curfew, it’s not wise for me to venture over there alone. If they decided to kill me, my body would never be found. I’m not sure they wouldn’t do it, so that’s reason enough to give them a wide berth on their own turf right now.
There are many stories about the Jaeger family, but a St. Carmen doctor is still missing after fifteen years, disappearing around the same time one of Dallas’s siblings went missing for eighteen hours. And that’s the story I believe.
Some versions say it was Iron who was taken, some say it was Liv, but we all know what happened to Robert Stanton, even if we can’t prove it.
The police don’t really want to solve the case anyway. The Jaegers did them a service, as they see it.
They’re more than capable of ridding themselves of problems, if they’re pushed far enough. Best not to dangle myself from a hook in their backyard.
“Morning!” a cheerful voice sings.
Looking up, I watch Sophia leap over the treadmill, all smiles.
Taking my towel, I wipe the sweat off my face and the back of my neck. “How was your night?”
It occurs to me too late that I’m shirtless and Dallas left marks on my neck and chest.
“It was nice.” She steps from one foot to the other, shifting her weight. “They had a big breakfast. There was Mr. and Mrs. Jaeger.” She starts listing off the family on her fingers. “The police officer—Army—and another one with all these tattoos. I forget his name.”
Iron had his fucking shirt off. Great.
She breaks into a smile. “Then Dallas came home, and their little brother, Trace. I liked him. He smiles a lot.” She laughs and pauses as if she remembers something funny. “And let me see, their sister, Olivia, and some children. Paisleigh and Mars—short for Marshall—and Dexter Jaeger. He’s like five years old.”
I press stop, grabbing my towel again and wiping off. “They were nice to you?”
She nods, still bobbing from one foot to the other. “I like them. There was so much talking and arguing like you and I do where it’s not really mean.”
“Teasing,” I point out.
She beams up at me. “Yeah, I liked it.”
Her clothes sit right, her shirt tucked in. No dirt or stains that I can see, and her hair is freshly styled in two Dutch braids, her glowing skin rosy.
She fidgets, but she doesn’t leave, just standing there and looking everywhere but at me.
I uncap my water bottle. “Why are you rocking?”
I take a drink, and finally she lowers her eyes. “Did Dallas call you last night?”
“We spoke.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she breathes out quickly. “I just want to forget it.”
I start to speak, but I stop. Anna-Katherine surfaced because she thought being Sophia was something bad. Or maybe she thought being Sophia attracted bad things.
The doctors said she adopted a persona she thinks will keep her safe, but I know it’s more dangerous for Sophia to believe that. If it weren’t for her mania after the Wolfe Room, my father wouldn’t have cared that she’d regressed to a little girl. Hell, some monsters would even love it.
For now, I don’t want to push her to face things. She may regress further.