Total pages in book: 193
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
He shouts as he stumbles back, and the shocked expression on his face would be comical if he weren’t still holding the gun. My uncle seems to remember that it’s in his hand a moment later, and he swipes his bleeding nose as he regains his composure. “I see you weren’t just out there lying on your back. Too bad it won’t do you a damn bit of good.” He raises the gun again.
Behind him, I see the door to the bathroom open slowly and a figure cast in shadow filling the entrance. The utter stillness is a dead giveaway, and I take one last look at my father’s twin, memorizing the lines of his face since it will be the last time I ever see it.
“I think,” I say slowly as I back away, “that you should really rethink hurting me.”
“The only thing I regret is telling my brother’s enemy where to find him,” he says. “If I’d known what a fucking headache you’d turn out to be, I never would have had him killed.”
“Killed,” I gasp more than say as the room begins to spin. “It was you? You’re the reason?”
“Your father didn’t give me any choice. I begged him to let me turn you into a star, but he didn’t care how much money you could make us, so…” My uncle shrugs. “He had to go. Your father was no saint, Aurelia. He had it coming, and now so do you.”
My mouth opens and I think I’ll scream, but instead, all I do is say his name. “Baaaane,” I cry out when my rage reaches its tipping point. My vision is blurred by tears now falling freely down my face, but I can still make out the alter’s indistinct shadow looming over my uncle.
I hear a sickening crunch and then the gun falling to the ground as my uncle’s chilling screams fill the dark hallway. I blink the tears away and my vision clears enough to see Seth’s hunting knife embedded to the hilt in my uncle’s wrist, but that’s not all. Uncle Mar’s bare arm has been split open from shoulder to wrist in a gory display of violence.
Bane removes the knife just as my gaze drops to the discarded gun. I could go for it, but shooting my uncle after what I just learned would be too good a death for him.
“No,” I say to Bane when he moves to plunge the knife into his chest.
Bane’s eyes rise to meet mine in the dark, and he almost looks like he won’t stop until he drops his hand and shoves my uncle into the wall. He holds him there, and with my eyes on my struggling uncle, I reach under my gown and quickly free my own knife strapped to my thigh.
“You,” I say with rage riding every letter as I come to stand before him, “will never take another thing from me, Uncle. And I will never give you a single thought after tonight. Not one.”
“You—”
Whatever venom my uncle was ready to spew is cut short when I drag the knife across his throat. He chokes on his own blood before falling to his knees, and when our eyes meet one last time, I release a guttural scream and drive my knife through his eye. Filled with grief and sorrow and hatred, I stab his face over and over until he’s unrecognizable.
Until I’m bathed in his blood and my rage, and he no longer looks like my father.
BANE
She kicks and screams as I lift her away from the bloody pulp staining the floor now. The bathroom door bursts open a moment later, and Ezekiel’s friends burst through, stumbling to a halt when they see me—or rather the crimson scene we made together.
Mine and I.
“Seth…” I growl, and the one Ezekiel calls Khalil swears. “Bane?” I don’t respond, and his gaze flicks back and forth between Mine, who is still now and staring, unseeing, and me. “What happened?” he questions as he keeps a healthy distance. “Bane? What happened? Did he hurt her?”
“No.”
“How the fuck are we going to explain this?” the one called Thorin barks before kicking the one who tried to hurt Mine.
“Self-defense?” Khalil throws out.
“Believable before she turned his face into ground beef.”
“Who cares? He’s clearly not dressed for the gala, and he brought a gun. He was here for one reason, and we all know what it was.”
Thorin still shakes his head. “It’s too risky with the conservatorship hearing coming up. We need to get rid of the body.”
“We’d have to make sure there is nothing left of Marston to find, and even if we did, his DNA and hers are all over this place. We can’t pull off that kind of cleanup with two hundred people down the hall. We have to risk it.”