Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
It’s not hell if you like the way it burns.
—Winston’s secret thoughts
Winston
“Either do it, or I blow your fucking head off.”
Still, I refused.
“Listen to me and listen to me carefully,” the man that I’d thought was my friend said, placing the gun against my temple. “Do it now, before I have to take drastic measures.”
And somehow, I knew what those drastic measures would be.
He’d been dating my sister, after all.
“Don’t.”
She was going to hate me for this.
She would never forgive me, and I’d spend the rest of my life replaying that look in her eyes as she found out what I’d done.
But it was a choice of either her or him.
And I would choose my sister every time.
“Don’t,” Pippa begged. “Please, don’t do it.”
I looked at my sister, then at my future brother-in-law, and knew.
His pleading eyes, which begged me to do it, were all I needed to see.
“You would’ve been the best brother-in-law ever,” I told him through a broken throat.
I’d been screaming for hours.
For hours, they’d tortured me, waiting for this moment.
I’d been able to resist.
I’d gone through SEALs training. I’d gone through survival training. I’d gone through torture training.
All of that training had led me to this point. I knew I could handle the torture. As long as it was only focused on me or Stanton. Which, at first, it had been.
But with his torture not working, he was going to move on to other things that he knew would work. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Pippa. At least there was that. But he would if I didn’t do what he wanted—removing the man that’d meant the world to my sister—and that time had come.
He would torture Pippa just to force me to make my move.
“Pippa.” I looked at my twin sister. “I love you.”
“Don’t,” she begged. “Please don’t. I can handle it! I can handle it! Please, please don’t. If you ever loved me…”
Sonny gave his signature smile—the smarmy one that won people over and disarmed them—and started to unbutton his pants, and I knew where this would lead.
“Do it.”
Stanton’s sharp order had me looking at him again.
“I can handle it!” she begged again. “Please!”
“Look at me, Winston.”
Stanton’s words had me reluctantly moving my gaze back to him.
Back to the man I was being forced to kill.
“Do it,” Stanton ordered. “I will not watch this. I will not. You can save her right now.”
I had one bullet in this gun.
I’d shoot Sonny, but he was standing behind his bulletproof glass, just grinning like a goddamn fool.
“Choices, choices,” Sonny said as he pushed the zipper down and removed his cock from his pants.
I felt sick to my stomach.
“Do. It,” Stanton said. “Do. It.”
I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.
Pippa’s screams would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Eight years later
“Parole denied.”
I didn’t care.
Literally, I couldn’t think of anything worse than being free.
I’d never be free for the rest of my life, not from the nightmares that haunted my every waking moment and my dreams.
I could still see the way that Stanton’s head…
“Get up.”
I did, standing up when the guard all but punched me in the back.
I stood up and walked away, uncaring of the chains that tied my feet together.
I looked up, and my heart froze in my chest.
Because there was the reason I would never want to be free, staring at me with dead eyes.
My sister.
My twin.
I looked away, feeling the bile rise.
She didn’t give me anything.
Not a smile.
Not a frown.
Not hope.
Not death.
She was just a blank slate that would forever haunt me.
She hated me.
Not that I blamed her.
I hated her, too.
If it wasn’t for her dating Stanton, and for Stanton being involved in the FBI and playing stupid fucking games with a psychopath, my life would be a hell of a lot different.
I’d been in the military.
I’d served twelve years in the Navy.
I’d been a SEAL.
And I’d done my time.
I just wanted to get out and enjoy my life. Marry a woman. Have some babies. Just be free.
But my sister had gotten caught up in a mess, and I’d been forced to be a part of that broken operation.
In the end, the FBI had eventually broken in and rescued us.
But not soon enough to save Stanton.
Sonny Gibbons was in prison, where he would hopefully spend the rest of his life.
Funny thing was, I was, too.
And that was all because my sister had lied.
She’d wanted to punish me for shooting and killing Stanton, and the only way she could do that was to lie and tell them that I was a part of it. That I’d been more than happy to kill Stanton to save my own ass.
Which had been a lie.
But she knew that and still didn’t care.
In the end, I was serving a thirty-nine-year sentence for the murder of a federal agent.
By the time I was out of prison, I’d be old and gray and have no life ahead of me.