Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79160 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79160 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
And for some reason, I let myself answer honestly.
“She was part of it.” He can draw his own conclusions from that statement.
King doesn’t say anything at first. But after a long moment, he shifts beside me, adjusting in his seat. “Then you need to decide what you’re going to do about it. And you need to decide soon.”
CHAPTER 4
Mila
The cold has settled deep in my bones, an unforgiving chill that no amount of shivering can shake. While I’m originally from Minnesota, living in Florida the last ten years has made winter intolerable. And it’s not just that I lived in Florida… I didn’t leave that state. There were no homecoming visits to Minnesota to visit my parents or friends. When I left, I never looked back.
My car is parked a short distance away on the street, already blanketed in a thin layer of snow that just started falling, but I don’t get inside. I stay right here, standing at the heavy iron gate of Penn’s fortress of a house. I bought the necessary winter gear when I got to Pittsburgh and my gloved fingers curl into the fabric of my coat as the wind slices against my cheeks.
I glance up at the security camera mounted on the stone column, wondering if Penn has seen me standing here. He clearly gets notifications as evidenced by the other night, but so far, he hasn’t said anything through the speaker. I know he’s not within the walls of his house at this very moment because the Titans had an away game in Detroit, and I also happen to know the team is flying back right after. Those details are easy enough to find, just as I know the team plane landed about an hour ago. I expect he’ll be pulling up any moment.
Huddling against the cold and brushing stray snowflakes from my cheeks, I ask myself again why I thought this was a good idea. I’d been counting on desperation overriding my sense of pride, but standing here now, my body aching from the cold and exhaustion pressing against the edges of my consciousness, I realize how foolish this is.
Of course, Penn won’t help me. He’s already made that clear when he refused to talk to me the last time I was here, but I guess I’m a glutton for dismissive punishment. I certainly know what abandonment feels like.
Common sense tells me I should go, but I have no one else to turn to. Penn is the only person in this world who will understand what I’m going through and I have to keep trying to get it into his thick skull.
My pulse leaps at the distant rumble of an approaching vehicle. Headlights cut through the swirling snow, illuminating the long, tree-lined driveway leading up to the house. A white SUV slows as it nears, rolling to a stop just before the gates. I can make out a Mercedes symbol on the front grill but can’t see much else because the headlights blind me. I hold up a hand to shield my eyes and take a few hesitant steps to the side so I can see the driver’s window.
It slowly lowers, and for the first time in a decade, I’m face to face with Penn Navarro. I’ve watched his career over the years so I’ve seen him grow up on TV, and I don’t know what I expected after ten years, but it sure as hell wasn’t this.
Penn was always intense—a little too serious, a little too sharp-edged for a seventeen-year-old—but the man in front of me now is something else entirely.
Back then, he was leaner, his face still carrying traces of the boy he used to be. His jaw was always clean-shaven, his hair always a little too long, like he barely remembered to get it cut. His hazel eyes had been brighter, easier to read, even when he tried to act like nothing touched him.
Now? There’s no trace of that boy left.
The Penn Navarro before me is all hard angles and intensity, a man who looks like he’s carved himself out of stone and refuses to let anyone get too close. His jawline is sharp enough to cut, dusted with just enough scruff to make him look both polished and untamed. His dark brown hair is shorter, styled like he gives a damn now, but there’s still that signature messiness to it, like he ran his fingers through it right before stepping out.
His greenish-brown eyes aren’t warm anymore—they’re darker, like he’s learned exactly how to lock his emotions behind an impenetrable wall. There’s something lethal about him now, something that wasn’t there before. I used to think of Penn as stoic, but this? This is different. It’s not just the lack of emotion showing in his blank expression. It’s like he doesn’t have the ability to let himself feel anything at all.