Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
The girl I’d gotten to know, who was only scared of gnomes, steeled her titanium spine and said, in her snitch voice, “You’re not supposed to be here. Franklin said.”
I didn’t think my mouth had ever formed the shape of an O faster.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Duncan’s tail go straight up in the air, but he didn’t move an inch.
Dominic’s face contorted into a sneer. “What did you say to me?” he snapped in a way that had me taking a step forward.
Maybe he was her dad, but that didn’t mean shit to me.
But Agnes wasn’t even a little intimidated as she tipped that little chin up and said it again even louder. “You’re not supposed to be here. Franklin and Henri both said. I heard them.”
She tapped her right ear, and I almost howled.
Just like that, she got promoted from protector to badass.
But it was the wrong thing to say to a man with an anger problem.
Dom’s face went red. “Franklin and Henri are not the fucking boss of me.”
I moved around the island and slid in between her and the man who was supposed to take care of her and protect her.
But I knew better than anyone that sometimes biology failed in that aspect.
But you know what didn’t fail? Love. And for as prickly of a cactus as she could be, I did love Agnes, and so did Henri and all the other people who included her in their lives. She had her own chat in the app.
Maybe this asshole had gotten away with being mean to kids before, but that was over.
“You need to go,” I said in a flat voice as anger like I hadn’t experienced since the days those people had tried to take my donut flared inside my whole body, my ears ringing.
The asshole’s lip curled. “I’m not talking to you.”
I didn’t think it was possible to get angrier, but it was.
“You must be talking to me because I know you’re not talking to her like that,” I told him through gritted teeth, ready to shave his eyebrows off.
We were shocking him left and right tonight. He reared. “What?” Dom snarled.
Wasn’t used to someone talking back, was he? “You heard me,” I answered, refusing to tiptoe around him anymore. “It’s time for you to leave.” What was he doing here in the first place?
Angry pink streaks formed across his cheeks. “You don’t get to tell me shit.”
“When you talk to a child like that, then yeah, I do get to tell you when you need to go, and that’s right now.”
“Fuck you.”
“Okay?” I shrugged. “I’ll do that, but you still need to leave.”
A confused expression spread over his features at what I could only imagine was me not being devastated at his incredible comeback. It only lasted a second. “No. No. I don’t need to do shit,” he claimed. “I don’t give a fuck who you are and who you’re banging. You’re fucking nobody.”
If he thought he was going to hurt my feelings, he was going to be in for a huge disappointment.
And how could he say “banging” in front of the kids?
Dominic’s eyes dropped to my side as Agnes leaned around me. Not peeking. Not even trying to be discreet, but literally clearly hanging out. And her DNA daddy didn’t like that.
His face turned even redder before he exploded. “Neither of you get to say shit to me. I don’t care if you’re under Henri’s protection or not. He’s a fucking spineless—”
I’d heard enough. It was one thing to be rude to me, but Agnes? And much less Henri?
Not on my damn watch.
A sharp knife was only dangerous when you used it in the wrong way, after all.
At that moment, the magic in my stomach said, Here I am, and I said, There you are.
Use me as you need, it told me, and I welcomed it.
Maybe it was a gift I didn’t necessarily want, but it was there, and it was mine, and I would do what I could with it.
I leaned forward, my voice steel and night. The past and the future. Life and death. “Dominic?” I murmured.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Agnes’s face tip up to look at me.
Dom’s eyes slightly widened, and I wondered what he saw in mine. Probably exactly what I wanted him to.
A part of me I didn’t like sharing. But he’d forced me to come this far. Forced me to do this. And now we were all going to ride this out.
“Do you know what happened to the last person who threatened someone I care about?” I asked him.
His throat bobbed, and I watched goose bumps prickle along his neck, saw the way his mouth parted as those irises, very similar to Agnes’s, scanned my face.
He was seeing me again for the first time.