Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Then having to reduce her whole life she’d busted her ass to get for herself.
It really was no wonder she was so hesitant to let herself trust her growing feelings toward me.
“Has anyone ever gotten close to nailing this guy?” At Arty’s silence, I pressed, “Arty?”
“That brings me to this.” Using the house, he clicked on a new window, bringing up a news article from two years before.
About a murder.
And a mystery surrounding the woman’s missing fortune.
My heart had tripped into overdrive as I leaned over Arty’s chair to read the details of the article, the comments from law enforcement, the bafflement of her living family members.
“Okay, how—” I started, only to get cut off by my phone. “One sec,” I said, moving away from his desk and toward the door, suddenly feeling like I needed a little fresh air.
Because if what Arty was suggesting was true, then Drake wasn’t just a conman; he was a killer.
Seeing York’s name on the screen, I swiped to answer as I made my way over to lean on my car at the street.
“Hey, York, is she asking—”
“Raff,” York barked, out of breath.
The whole world fell out from under me.
I straightened, my heartbeat in my throat, my stomach at my feet.
“What happened?” I asked, struggling to hear over the rush of my blood in my ears.
“She’s… she’s on her way to Amarantha.”
She was on her way to Ama?
As in… the doctor wife of one of the Golden Glades guys?
Had she fallen?
Gotten sick?
Drugged at the club somehow?
“She’s okay. But…”
“But what?” I snapped, rushing around the car toward the driver’s side.
“Someone got into the house, Raff. And they… they did some damage before I heard anything.”
Damage?
Lulu was damaged?
“Fuck!” I snapped, the rage and helplessness overwhelming me. My fist slammed into the hood of the car. Once, twice. Five times. The metal groaned and dented. Pain shot up my hand.
“She’s gonna need you,” York said when I was done beating up my car. “You need to get to the clinic.”
He rattled off the address.
And I was in the car, pedal to the floor, as my mind raced with a million different horrible ways Lula could be hurt.
By that bastard Drake.
He’d pay, I vowed to myself, one way or another, he would pay for putting his hands on her.
And it was going to be slow.
Bloody.
Painful.
But first, first I had to check on my girl.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lula
There was a split second of incomprehension.
The room was pitch black.
I’d been fast asleep.
And alcohol was still lingering at the edges of my mind.
For two seconds, three tops, I couldn’t wrap my head around why I was awake. Violently awake.
My head swirled.
My heart pounded.
Something coiled in my stomach.
But then I felt it.
The unmistakable feeling of a man’s hand around my throat.
For another second, my mind flashed back to the club, to Raff’s hand in the same place.
The difference being that Raff had been soft, almost gentle. And this hand was pressing hard enough to cut off my air, to make my throat hurt, and my head grow light.
I struck out blindly, swatting, grabbing, pulling, scratching.
When I couldn’t dislodge the hand, my hands struck out higher, using the heels of my hands to look for soft targets, only to find everything soft. So soft, it was fuzzy.
He had on a mask.
A choked sound escaped me at that realization just as another hand moved out, clamping over my mouth.
Was he just going to kill me in bed?
Even as I thought it, his giant mitt shifted so his meaty fingers pressed down on my nose too.
The lack of oxygen was instantaneous, making my chest constrict, burn, ache.
Panic settled in quickly, my blood surging through my veins, my heart jackhammering against my ribcage, my mind racing so fast it was impossible to catch up with a single thought.
Except… “no.”
No.
This couldn’t be it.
This wasn’t the end.
I couldn’t have my life snuffed out before I got a chance to turn it around, before I got home and restructured my priorities that had shifted a bit on this road trip, not until I got to find happiness, not just success. And, God, not before I got to take Raff to bed.
Maybe that last one should have been low on my list of priorities, but being suffocated had a funny way of showing you some unexpected things about yourself.
Wait.
Raff.
Raff was in the house.
The same Raff who came running, gun in hand, when I’d been scared by a lizard.
Raff who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot this asshole to get him off of me.
He just needed to know.
My head was getting fuzzy.
My chest felt on fire.
But I was thinking clearly enough to stop trying to dislodge his hands and fumbled out toward the nightstand instead. Where a heavy water pitcher and glass combo had been set out by the staff before we arrived.
I grabbed it by the neck, pulled it up, then swung with everything I had left in me into the bastard’s face.