Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
With Hattie gone, there’s nothing left to do but drag my sorry ass home.
Even so, I take my sweet time, seeing her off into the Uber, making sure the jet’s ready for her at the airport, then walking back to my car with that fatal sense of having fucked everything to bits.
Isn’t that what I do best?
The minute life starts handing out bananas, I become the anxious monkey boy. This giddy, reckless little ape who can’t just take what’s being offered without ripping it to pieces and lighting everything on fire.
Hattie left in fucking tears because of me.
Because I let my emotions burst like a defective pipe.
Because I was so pissed at her for picking at the past, even if she never touched anything related to Taylor.
Yet, the nasty little chatter in the back of my head whispers. She didn’t blab about it yet.
I squash that prick like a bug.
Pages deserves better. I should’ve tried harder to stop my bad mood from escaping and pelting her in the face.
After days of walking around like lovesick kids, I made her feel like a burden, like she’d just get in the way. Like she’s already broken my trust when she hasn’t done a thing.
Fucking. Idiot.
I drive home slowly and get stuck at every stoplight for what feels like hours.
When I finally get back to my parents’ place, the house gleams in the moonlight, this suburban castle hidden in its soaring green hedges that still can’t contain the worst Blackthorn instincts.
All the memories of living here come charging back—how stifling this house could be while looking like a luxury architect’s wet dream—and I have to crush them one by one.
The past is the past.
Over and out.
It won’t control me unless I let it.
The front door opens soundlessly when I shuffle in. No Ares here to greet me with a disinterested sniff or dismissive yawn.
It’s insane how much that disappoints me.
Just silence and bitter memories and—
Noise?
I frown when I hear it for the first time.
Distant sobbing, I think, muffled but unmistakable.
Welcome home. Here’s a nice cuppa piping hot shit to settle in.
I sigh so hard my shoulders drop as I scan the foyer.
Large, imposing oil paintings with abstract faces stare back at me as I lock the door and will myself to breathe. The air feels like syrup.
The house is silent except for the faint crying, which frays the hair on the back of my neck.
This takes me back to showing up at Taylor’s house, even if that was another time and place and tragedy.
Her mother on the floor.
The guarded cops.
The hideous realization that they were looking at the man who basically drove Tay off the cliff.
Fuck, but I can’t afford to go there right now.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I lurch forward, trying to pinpoint the source of the sobbing, following it to the library.
There’s only one small lamp on by the desk below the cavernous shelves, casting the large room in shadows.
At least I use my library for work. This one’s always been pretentious as hell, ornamental more than anything else. No one in this family actually enjoys reading.
Hattie practically jumped into my arms when she first saw it, the first person in a generation to appreciate what it’s meant to be.
My chest squeezes. No, don’t think of her.
I focus on the sight before me.
Margot and Dad, standing by the window, illuminated by the lamp’s glow. My sister’s cheeks are streaked with tears, mascara smeared under her eyes.
Christ, she looks as bad as she did after Gramps died and we reconnected for the first time.
My blood goes cold.
“What the hell is going on?” I bite off, announcing my presence.
Margot looks up, her face pinched with fear.
Dad puts his hand on her arm.
“Calm down, dear,” he says soothingly, but she wrenches it away with a look of pure venom.
He flinches away, uncertainty adding lines to his face.
Probably wise.
I know from experience Margot can be as vicious as Mom when she’s angry.
“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down,” she snaps.
I shut the door behind me with a thunk.
“Is someone going to tell me what happened?” I demand.
First Mom, then Hattie, now this.
“Margot, no.” There’s a panic in Dad’s tone I’ve never heard before.
But Margot marches toward me, shaking him off.
She stops right in front of me, staring, her blue eyes blazing like storming seas as she grabs my hand.
“Ethan has a right to know,” she snarls.
“Right to know what?” Damn, I need a drink—and ten more hours of sleep. “What the fuck happened?” For a moment, neither of them say anything, and I’m on the verge of losing my calm. “Margot?”
Dad steps into the light, and it’s like some sort of weird vampire movie where the monster makes his grand entrance. Only, it’s just Dad, his greying hair slicked back and his face tired and worn instead of his usual mask of calm.