Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 160192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
The men didn’t speak, both of them working quietly. She wondered what they were working on. And who had visited him earlier.
“I thought Rex would be home by now,” Jared said.
“I’ll go and try calling him.” North disappeared.
When she lived with Fergus, there were always people in and out of his house.
Most of them evil.
But Jared had only had one visitor that she knew of since she’d been here.
“Does your family visit much?” she asked Jared, glancing up at him.
“Lines are supposed to be written in silence,” Jared told her. “But no, I discourage that as much as I can.”
“Jared doesn’t like any of his family members except for his cousin, Tabby,” North told her as he returned. “I couldn’t get through to Rex.”
“I remember Tabby.” She hadn’t had a chance to talk to her much, but she’d seemed sweet and kind.
Unlike all of the other Bartollis.
“Jared got rid of the worst of the family,” North added.
“You did? Vincento? Robert? Matthew?”
“All dead,” Jared told her. “Along with Marcus and James.”
Oh, thank God.
They were the worst of the offenders. Especially Robert. She shuddered as she thought of that monster. He’d been Fergus’s younger brother. And he’d enjoyed helping Fergus hurt her.
Turning back to the lines, she felt relief course through her, taking away some of her heaviness. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she’d been worried that she’d run into one of those assholes while she was here.
And she wasn’t sure she could have coped with that.
Letting out a deep breath, she placed her hand on her stomach.
Calm down.
“Angie, look at me,” Jared said in a soft voice.
She raised her gaze to his.
“I will never let anyone hurt you again.”
Angie shook her head. He couldn’t make promises like that.
“I won’t. I promise. I take care of what belongs to me. And you now belong to me. Which means no one gets to hurt you. Certainly not my family. Understand me?”
He was serious?
She nibbled at her lip.
“Understand me?” he repeated in a firmer voice.
She nodded. “Yes.
“And if any of them even look at you funny, they’re dead,” North said casually, not even looking up from his phone.
From anyone else it might have been a throwaway comment, but she’d been around North long enough to know that he actually meant what he said.
“All right,” she whispered.
And then she went back to her lines.
Jared attempted to go back to his work. But he first had to control his anger.
What the fuck had his family done to her?
It was obvious that she was scared of the people that she’d named. They were scum just like his father, which is why he’d had them taken out.
“Is there anyone else?” he asked.
“What?” She glanced up, startled.
“Other than the men you named, is there anyone else that you’re afraid of?”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. Then she glanced over at North.
“Tell me,” Jared urged.
“I don’t know . . .”
“You will tell us now,” North told her. “Or I shall simply take out all of them.”
It would be a pain in the neck but it could be done. Jared nodded calmly as she gaped at them both.
“Antony.”
Unsurprising. His cousin had always been borderline, but he had a young family and a wife who had seemed to care about him. But maybe that was all lies.
He’d been here yesterday. Thank God he’d sent her to her room.
“He hurt you?” Jared asked. “They all hurt you?”
“They didn’t all hurt me. Robert . . . he was the worst. Some of them just watched. Antony was a watcher. But I . . . I saw him once with his wife. He shook her so hard that her head snapped back against the wall.”
Fuck.
He hadn’t realized that. He shot a look at North who nodded. Antony would be taken care of immediately. Sarah and the kids would be looked after.
“No one else?” Jared pressed.
“No. Are you . . . are you going to . . .”
“Kill him?” North asked. “Yes, of course. But don’t feel any guilt over that, Jared would have had him killed for taking his hands to his wife.”
“Absolutely.” Fucking bastard.
He blamed himself. He should have taken Sarah aside and talked to her privately. But there had been so much evil to clear out and Antony hadn’t been the worst of it.
Still no excuse.
“All right,” she said. “But I wasn’t going to feel guilty. People who hurt others, who hurt innocent people, they don’t deserve to live.”
No, they didn’t.
He was well aware that he wasn’t a good person. Neither was North. But neither of them harmed innocents.
It was something he took very seriously.
“Go back to your lines, baby,” he told her.
She nodded and started working on them again in silence as Jared fumed. He studied her face as she worked on the lines.
Angie looked tired. Worn out.
As though she needed a break.