Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
19-year-old Maika Nolan was about to lose everything. And the only way to stop it was to become the wife of a brooding Greek billionaire.
Mykos Ravensworth was a man who didn’t believe in losing control. And so when his young wife threatened just that, he chose to destroy her instead.
A fast-paced marriage-of-convenience age gap romance featuring an emotionally unavailable alpha hero, an innocent heroine, obsessive possession, and a touch of angst to make their happily ever after all the sweeter. No cheating. Perfect for one sitting!
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Before
before (adv.): the time in a man's life when he didn't yet know her name, and could still pretend he was in control
THE MAN HIT THE GROUND on his knees.
It was always the knees first. It didn't matter how big they were, how broad their shoulders or how many weapons they carried or how many years they'd spent convincing themselves they weren't afraid of anything. It was always the knees. Something in the body knew before the brain caught up, and it sent the knees down like an offering.
This one was bleeding from his mouth and from a cut above his left eye. The blood had gotten into the eye and he kept blinking to clear it, which was a waste of effort. There was more where that came from.
Mykos hit him again.
Not in the face this time. The ribs. Two short strikes, controlled, and the sound was the sound of something giving way. The man's body folded. His forehead hit the concrete floor, and a groan came out of him, wet and ragged, the kind of sound that no longer cared about dignity.
Mykos waited.
He always gave them a fair chance. That was the rule. The only rule he had kept from his father's world, and the only one that mattered. If a man could stand, he could fight. If he could fight, he could win. But they never won, and not because Mykos was invincible.
It was because they feared death.
And that fear crippled them. It made their fists slow, their eyes desperate, their breathing ragged. They fought like men trying to survive, but that was exactly the problem.
Survival made them hesitate while Mykos...
He had no one to protect, nothing in this world that would make him weak or desperate.
Seconds ticked by, but the man on the floor remained down. His name was Sanchez, and he had raped the daughter of an associate. Neither Sanchez nor the father of his victim had ever worked for Diogenes, but they were in the same world, and that made him fair game.
While Sanchez had managed to evade the authorities for eleven months, he hadn’t been able to escape Mykos. On the day his father died thirteen years ago, he had been faced with a choice. Take the throne and rule his father’s empire. Or let it crumble into ashes and turn over a new leaf.
In the end, Mykos had chosen neither. He had cut a deal with law enforcement, one that suited both of them. They gave him a list, and Mykos hunted them down while law enforcement looked the other way for as long as it took.
“I believe he’s out, sir.”
The assessment had Mykos turning away. “Then we’re done with him.”
One of his men was already there, holding out a clean washcloth. Mykos took it and wiped the blood from his knuckles, methodically, one finger at a time. His hands were unmarked except for the red. The pain was minimal. It always was.
Behind him, his men moved with the efficiency of a machine that had been running for thirteen years. They no longer required instruction.
Two scrubbed the floor and the walls. Another pair lifted Sanchez’s unconscious body and carried it to the unmarked van at the loading dock, where a driver was already behind the wheel. In the glovebox was a sealed envelope: a signed confession, supporting evidence, and every detail the authorities would need. Not to free the girl, but to ensure that the man who had hurt her would never be free again.
The van pulled out of the loading dock and was gone within seconds, swallowed by the city as if it had never been there at all.
Mykos watched until there was nothing left to watch. He had sought this deal, believing that it would silence the demons of his past. And for a time, it had done what it was supposed to do. Every time he crossed a name off his list, he had a moment of numbness that was almost peaceful.
Almost.
But that, too, eventually faded, until there was no hiding from the restlessness that burned hotter in the hours where the world went to sleep, and the ones left awake were people like him.
Something was wrong. Every day, Mykos could feel his need growing, but satisfying this was impossible because he didn’t know what he was craving. All he knew was that the hunger existed, and not even the controlled violence of nights like tonight could quiet it.
Mykos knew that if things went on this way, there would come a day when this craving would devolve into bloodlust...
It was only to be hoped that he still had enough honor and sanity to turn himself in if that happened.
But for now...
The sound of Mykos’s phone buzzing had his lips curving in a cold, sharp smile. It was almost as if fate itself didn't trust him to dwell too long on the darkness inside his own chest.