Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
I hesitate. What could she possibly want? I haven’t talked to her since I fled my wedding and left her with the bill. Maybe she wants reimbursement.
That’ll be a cold day in hell.
I tap the screen, and a link pops up.
An obituary.
Gavin Michael Samuels, 34.
Beloved son. Cherished friend. Taken too soon.
My breath strangles. My knees turn to wet paper, and the greasy rag slips from my fingers.
Dead.
He’s dead.
The shop carries on with the din of ratchet guns, clanking wrenches, and the guys shouting across the bay. But it all fades beneath the resounding toll of Dead, Dead, Dead.
How?
I scroll down, scanning over the funeral home address, candle emojis, and phrases like In lieu of flowers…
A quick Internet search doesn’t confirm how he died, but I know. The last year of my life is buried, six feet down, because that’s what Jag does.
There was the foster brother who fingered me behind the garage when I was fourteen. Two days later, a car accident. Hit and run, they said. Jag was stealing cars by then.
And the soldier who took me out for beers when I was fifteen. Deployment cut short by a bar fight gone too far. Stabbed.
And the mechanic who taught me how to rebuild a carburetor when I was sixteen. He was twenty years older than me, and I shouldn’t have had sex with him, but he gave me hope I could be more than an unloved orphan girl. Then he hung himself. Rope burns on his neck. But I know that knot had Jag’s fingerprints all over it.
And there were more. Every man who’s ever looked at me, touched me, or tried to love me is gone.
Jag circles my life like a man-eating beast, tearing out throats in the dark and ensuring no one stays long enough to matter.
He doesn’t kill me. He kills them. One by one.
So yeah, I don’t need the obituary to spell it out. Jag dealt with Gavin, and I don’t know whether to cry or laugh or smash this goddamn phone into the pavement.
I loved Gavin. Or I thought I did. My feelings are muddy, but I certainly didn’t wish him dead.
Why did Carol send me this text? She’ll get nothing from me. If she’d known the truth about her son, that he preferred men, she would’ve cut him out of her life long ago.
Fuck her.
Jag, on the other hand, probably thought he could keep this from me.
I open our text chat and send the obituary link to him.
Three dots instantly appear. Disappear. Appear again. Pause. Gone.
Nothing.
After a long minute of waiting, I know that’s the only response he’ll give.
I shove the phone into my pocket and grab the nearest work order. Brake pads on an old Toyota Tacoma. Easy and quick. I throw myself into it. Lug nuts, calipers, pads swapped out. When I’m done, sweat slicks my neck and grease lines my wrists.
“I’m out.” I toss the keys onto the counter and meet Chester’s eyes. “Not feeling well.”
He studies me, probably wondering if I’m hungover or just being a bitch. Then he nods.
I wipe my hands, grab my jacket, and step out into the rain.
Carl and Jasper break off from the exterior wall and stride toward me.
“Evening, Miss Rath.” Carl motions for me to walk ahead of him. “We’re taking you directly to the island. Wolfson’s orders.”
“Where is he?” My pulse ramps.
“Waiting for you there.”
Relief and dread swirl in my gut. Wolf hasn’t texted. Hasn’t called. But he’s waiting for me.
Why didn’t he just come here?
Something’s wrong.
And that something is watching me.
I feel him before I glance at the alleyway behind the guards.
Jag leans against the brick wall, rain sluicing down his hair, dripping over his face, and drenching his denim jacket until it clings to muscle.
His dark, unblinking eyes cut through the haze. Lightning cracks overhead, and he doesn’t flinch. Thunder shudders the ground, and he doesn’t twitch.
He just stares. Possessive. Accusing. Like I belong to him.
Part of me always will.
Even now, after Gavin, after all the bodies in Jag’s wake, I feel the tug, the familiar pull toward the man who raised me, hurt me, saved me, and stalked me my entire life. He’s inked into my existence, permanently etched into every fear, every memory.
I hate him.
I love him.
I’ll never be free of him.
My breath shortens as his gaze bores into mine. There’s no cruelty there. No sneer. Just raw, lethal protectiveness, heavy as a hand around my throat. It’s the same look he wore when we hid in the pantry the night our parents died. The same look he wore when he beat my first foster brother to death.
I want to talk to him, demand answers, scream accusations, and pound my fists on his chest until he coughs up the truth. Who are his enemies? What does he want with me? Will he kill Wolf like all the others?