Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 141556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
“What’s that? Hush money? I think we’re beyond that.” It’s a joke, but Calder doesn’t even blink.
“No. It’s not hush money. It’s for you. Your mom’s quilt is already in there, along with some money and a burner phone. There’s enough to start over, wherever you decide.”
“Start over?” I blink and look at him like he’s grown a second head. “What are you talking about?”
Calder stares at me, a mixture of fear and guilt in his eyes. “The idea of letting you go, watching you walk away, kills me. It physically hurts, but the thought of keeping you here. Trapped in a life you never asked for. Yeah, I’m selfish, but not that selfish. With my father gone, I’ll step into the role of the overseer to the Bishop family. I can’t put you through more darkness, more trauma, more things that are going to change who you are. I fell in love with the church girl. The bake sale girl. The can’t-play-pool-for-shit girl. Not... Mrs. Calder Bishop.”
I blink, my heartbeat picking up speed in my chest. “You...you don’t want me anymore because I’ve changed? I really didn’t get a choice here.”
He shakes his head and then scratches over his hair. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t want you to look back and regret being with me. At staying. I don’t want you to see yourself as a monster, like I am.”
I try to parse what he’s telling me, and the realization angers me. “Calder fucking Bishop, you do not get to put me through what you’ve put me through and then make this choice, another choice for me. How about you ask me what I want this time?”
He studies me, then resettles his shoulders like he hadn’t considered my reaction until right this second. “Saintlyn, what do you want? I know if you left, you’d have to go far and hide because I am still not entirely sure I can let you go, but I’ve already taken so much from yo—”
I step into him, and he instinctively wraps his hands around my waist. “Ask me.”
He grits his teeth, his jaw tight. “Do you want to stay here with me, Saint? Or do you want to leave?”
I kiss him in response, hard, deep, teeth scraping teeth, until we both come up for air. “I’m Mrs. Calder Bishop, and I’m not fucking going anywhere.”
He looks at me for a long moment, and I see everything in his eyes. Fear and love and gratitude and something that might be hope. He pulls me against him one more time, and this time holds me tight enough that I can barely breathe.
“I fucking love you,” he whispers into my hair.
“I love you too,” I say simply. Because what else is there? What else matters when the world has just exploded around us and we’re still standing?
He kisses the top of my head. “I can’t believe I get to call you mine. My brave, foolish, perfect wife.”
I simply stand in my husband’s arms and breathe. And feel grateful that we get to keep breathing at all. The preacher’s daughter who used to bake cookies for church functions. The girl who used to have a future stretching before her like an open road. She’s gone now. Died somewhere between the cabin and the branding and tonight.
In her place is someone new. Someone harder. Someone who can watch a man die and feel nothing but relief. Someone who can destroy evidence and lie to federal agents without hesitation.
Someone who chose love over innocence. Some might call that survival. Others might call it becoming a monster.
I call it loving Calder Bishop enough to follow him into hell and burn it down from the inside.
Every choice. Every sacrifice. Every moment that led me here.
Because this is where I belong.
Not in my father’s church. Not in my old life. But here, with this man, in the ashes of everything we burned to stay together.
And if that makes me a monster too, then so be it.
At least we’re monsters together.
Epilogue
SAINT
Three Months Later
The house smells like vanilla cake and coffee. Midafternoon sunshine slants through the kitchen windows, painting everything gold. I stand at the counter frosting the second layer of my birthday cake, and the simple domesticity of it makes something warm bloom in my chest.
Twenty years old today.
Only months ago, I was trapped in that cabin, terrified and alone, wondering if I’d ever see another birthday. The year before that, on my eighteenth, Allie dragged me to The Rusty Nail, and I kissed Calder Bishop in his truck. And now I’m here, in this house that’s slowly becoming mine, frosting my own birthday cake because I wanted to.
Because I chose to.
The brand on my hip aches faintly beneath my jeans. Some mornings, I catch sight of it in the mirror and feel sick. Other mornings, I trace the raised skin and think about how far I’ve come. How I’m still here. Still standing.