Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
I breathe out, too, but mine is a breath of relief. “Thank you.”
It only manages to make him angry. “He doesn’t—”
“How did you… find me?” I ask, cutting him off.
Because I already know where he stands on this killing business. I already know he’s hell-bent on revenge and righting all the wrongs, and he can do that. He can avenge this whole fucking world. As long as he doesn’t do it for me, I’ll make my peace with it.
The muscle on his cheek pulses for a few seconds before he replies, “Peyton. She gave us a list of possible places to look on the ranch. We combed through a couple before…” He has to pause to breathe in and out again. “I decided we needed to look elsewhere.”
“My old house,” I guess.
He gives me a curt nod.
I tighten my fingers around the glass as I ask, “You said we.”
“Rad and I.”
I swallow gently again before whispering, “You shouldn’t have… done that. You shouldn’t have come.”
His nostrils flare then. And his chest swells up like a wave. But even his breathing exercises—and they seem to be that, strangely—don’t calm him down, and his voice comes out a growl: “I should have.”
“You’re on parole,” I remind him.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You—”
“I wore a mask.”
“The same one you wore that night.”
“Doesn’t fuckin’ matter.”
“Do you think… they won’t put two and two together? If they haven’t already, that is. You could go back to jail. You could—”
“Do you think I’d sit on my fuckin’ ass,” he thunders then, his spine snapping straight, his eyes shooting fire, “while they took my wife from me? While they took her away from her bed, from her goddamn home. Do you think I’d worry about my motherfuckin’ parole, while you were in danger. While you were put in danger because of me. While you were back in that nightmare of a ranch where your father beat on you. While you lay on the floor with his hands…”
Instead of saying it, he breathes in and out. He visibly takes in a breath and then lets it out. He even grips his knees and sits straight as if doing a meditation exercise. Which is when I notice something. A bandage wrapped around his right palm.
“What… What is that?” I ask, motioning to his hand.
He doesn’t look away from me as he responds, “Cut myself.”
I open my mouth to ask him how. I mean, both of his hands look messed up, for sure. His knuckles are swollen and scraped, his skin red and bruised. But that’s because of the beating he delivered to my father. This bandage thing looks different.
I shake it off, though. It’s none of my business anymore, what happens to him. Instead, I put him at ease. Even though things aren’t good between us, I still don’t want him to suffer and blame himself for what I essentially did to myself.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, holding the glass with both hands. “I know you have a habit of taking… blame for things but…” I swallow, drink a sip of water because it’s becoming hard to talk once again. “I baited him. He wouldn’t have attacked if I hadn’t… So it’s not your fault that I lay on the floor with his hands…”
I don’t say it, either, because it felt like he was going to explode if I said the words “around my neck.” So I let it go and just let it lie as I continue, “They’ll know you took me back and attacked my father. Brecken is not stupid. He’ll—”
“Again, don’t fuckin’ matter.”
I lean forward then, even though my body is sore and aching and I just want to lie down. “What’s going to happen to your revenge when you’re behind bars?”
He opens his mouth but then closes it and breathes deep. Then, with a gravelly voice, he says, “It’s not important right now so I want you to fuckin’ drop it.”
You know what, he’s right. It’s none of my business anymore. He can do whatever he wants. It’s not as if he’ll listen to me, right? He never has and he never will. I guess I should be thankful that he rescued me once again and leave it at that. Besides, it’s not as if he’s had a change of heart about the whole revenge thing. He’s made it clear that nothing will stop him, not my useless confession of love. Not what I found in that file about Annie even.
“He’s not my father,” I blurt out, my fingers so tight around the glass that I might break it with bare hands.
“What?”
“My father, he…” I say this without knowing why I’m telling him after everything that’s happened. “He isn’t my biological father. Hank Turner is.”
He straightens up then or rather straightens up more because he was already pulled tight like a string.