Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
His jaw pulses beneath my palm, his scar twitching and pulling tight. “Goin’ to destroy the very essence of him.”
“No,” I say urgently, trying to get his attention. “You can’t. Listen, I have a plan. I think I found something.” At this, he focuses on me finally and I breathe out a sigh of relief. “I found reports. In Mars’s office, when I was looking through it. They were bank statements. I think my dad’s involved in some sort of money-laundering thing. I always knew my dad’s been into some illegal stuff, but I have evidence of it now. And I know it sounds like my dad’s too powerful and he is. I know he is. But I think if I’m smart and use it against him, I can get free. I can get my mom free too.” Then I add even more urgently, “And I want you to know. That night, when I gave you that note and asked you to kill my dad, it was… It wasn’t because of how he is with me or my mom. I’d never ask you to kill him for me. I did that for you. Because I thought you needed it. But, Radisson, you can’t break your promise to your sister. You can’t. It’ll only drive you guys further apart, and you can’t let that happen. You need to get her back. You need to mend your differences, okay? I can take care of myself. Maybe… maybe I can show them to my brother, too, those reports. And he’ll help me like he’s helping you.”
At least that’s what I’m hoping he’ll do. And if not, then I’ll just figure out a way to use this evidence against my father anyway. I’m not an idiot. I know it sounds like a flimsy plan in the face of such an influential man. But for the first time ever, I have something solid in my hands, and maybe it’s time to grow up. To grow out of my childhood fears and face the monster under my bed.
Although I realize belatedly that I shouldn’t have brought up my brother. I should’ve known better after what happened at the bar. But I was so busy trying to stop him, to convince him not to go after my father and damage his relationship with Lynnie even more, that it completely escaped me.
He hates the mention, even the thought, of someone else saving me.
“Your brother,” Radisson growls, his arms flexing around me, “isn’t goin’ to save you. Because you’re mine to save. You’re mine to protect. Mine to avenge. Mine to kill for; mine to wreak havoc for. Mine to burn the world for; mine to declare war for. You’re. Fuckin’. Mine. And my sister, like everyone else includin’ you, is gonna have to live with the fact that I snuffed the life out of a man who didn’t deserve to breathe in the first place, for scarin’ my Princess.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THREE DAYS HAVE passed since he took me on a horse ride that I thought would kill me but didn’t, and I ended up telling him the biggest secret of my life.
Since then, he’s taken me on a ride every single day, and I’ve realized two things. One, I’m so grateful he did that. I knew I wanted to ride with him but didn’t know how much. Didn’t realize how much I’d love being pressed up against his body, feeling it in action rather than simply seeing it from a distance, feeling the power thrumming through his thick muscles and dense bones. Feel the authority in him rather than simply witness it. Not to mention, the act of riding itself. Not that I do anything other than cling to him like a spider monkey on these rides. I don’t even open my eyes, not until we stop, and we always stop by the blue lake. Where he lets me watch it as my breaths calm down and my hold on him eases up. But anyway, just the wind whipping against my skin and ruffling my hair, the sensation of the world going by in a flash, is so exhilarating. I finally know what people mean when they say riding a horse feels like freedom. And it only took me nineteen years to figure it out.
The second thing I realized: I missed so much of my life because of my father. Because of the fear he instilled in me. He forced me to grow up when I was only ten. When all the other kids my age were worried about their homework or test scores, my concern was whether or not my father was raping my mother while I was at school. What kind of a mother I’d come home to. When everyone was sharing secrets with their best friends, I was trying to do everything I could to hide mine from Reverie. I pretended to love going to parties when I hated every second of it; pretended to have fun at the mall when all I kept thinking about was if my mom’s OD was deliberate or an accident. I pretended I loved skipping classes and didn’t care if I got bad grades when, in reality, I could never focus enough on anything to do good at school because I couldn’t escape wondering if I was a child of rape too. If my father had forced himself upon my mom and she got pregnant with me.