Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
He doesn’t look at me, but he does respond. “I didn’t take the car away because you displeased me.”
“Then why?”
“I wanted to see who you’d call.”
His words stop my heart and send it tumbling down into my stomach. He says it so calmly, so evenly, like it’s a perfectly normal thing to say.
He looks over at me, and his eyes glint with something I can’t quite put my finger on. “You called the right person. You don’t have to worry about me taking the car from you again.”
My mouth works, but I can’t even find any words.
He turns left out of the parking lot, but it makes more sense to go right. He points suddenly to the dark, empty parking lot of a dentist’s office right next to where I work, behind a row of hedges that need trimming. “I was parked there waiting for you. I wouldn’t leave you stranded alone in the dark.”
That doesn’t make me feel better.
Staring at him, I finally find my voice, but I continue to struggle with my words. “What—Why…?”
He takes a sharp right down a side street, since we need to get back on the road that will take us to the lake house. “Why what?” he asks, flicking a glance in my direction.
I don’t even know.
Why was he waiting to see what I would do?
What if I had called someone else?
Why is he telling me he did it?
It seems like most people doing something creepy would try to hide it and not blatantly tell on themselves. And I know Tor well enough at this point to know he thinks things through, so it’s not some thoughtless mistake. He wants me to know… what?
Licking my lips, I try to find the right question, but my mind is all over the place. “Why would you tell me that?”
His answer is simple, but my mind is too muddled to take it at face value. “I’m not trying to trick you, Cassie. I want you to have the information you need to succeed.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re a smart girl,” he says. “You’ll figure it out.”
I don’t feel like a smart girl right now.
I still have questions about his motives, but I can’t untangle them, let alone put them into words, so I stay quiet for the rest of the ride. Yet my mind continues to work, replaying snippets from earlier… Tor at the restaurant while I was working.
The way he looked at Josh.
That has to be what he means, right?
It feels arrogant to think so, but at the same time, I remember how uneasy I felt, my instinct to keep them separated and not even let Josh talk to Tor. I didn’t want to look too hard at why it made me so uncomfortable in the moment, but now that he’s said what he just said, facing it feels pertinent, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me.
Tor killed my ex-boyfriend, and he framed it as a matter of practicality, but I don’t know if even a slight sense of twisted jealousy contributed to his willingness to do it. I don’t know if Tor is a jealous guy. Based on what I do know, I’m uncomfortable with the idea that he might feel threatened.
Tor Walters obviously has a much darker side to him than I ever realized, and I’m not sure the person he feels threatened by would be safe.
All of this feels a little crazy because we’re not even really together. We’re merely co-conspirators. But he just told me he spied on me after work to see who I called when I didn’t have a ride, so what else could that possibly mean? He had to have been wondering how close I was to Josh, and, like the demented person he is, he manipulated the situation to get the answer.
He could have just asked me, though. Does that mean he doesn’t trust me?
Maybe not right now. With all the Russell stuff going on, he did say he needed to know he could trust me, and I guess I haven’t adequately reassured him that he can. I’ve been too pissed off and occasionally scared. Maybe he is doubting my word right now, and that’s not great. As long as we’re committed to the same outcome, I don’t think I have anything to worry about with Tor, but if he gets the impression that we’re no longer on the same side…
Tor has done a lot for me, including putting his own ass on the line, but I don’t fool myself into believing he would prioritize my interests over his own if we were heading in different directions. He didn’t when I was facing his brother in court.
This works right now because we are in this together. If I really get out of the boat and he knows I’m not coming back, my circumstances change drastically. I go from having a titan on my side, helping swing fate in my favor, to having that same mastermind as an adversary working against me. And, seeing how Tor deals with his problems, it’s not unthinkable that he just might kill me.