Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
“Now, Lorcan.”
He pauses longer this time. I can practically hear him thinking, weighing whether to push back or give me what I need.
I pull up the screen again, and I see it.
Un-fucking-believable.
She found her phone. She found her goddamn phone.
She's leaving.
“Ten,” Lorcan says with a sigh. “Give me ten minutes.”
“You've got five.”
“Jesus Christ, Ash.”
I hang up.
The road passes in a blur as the city gives way to open country, and every second feels like a goddamn eternity. Every mile between me and Bianca is a knife to the gut.
She promised me.
She lied.
My phone buzzes with a text from Lorcan.
Lorcan
Crowning estate. Sending address now.
The location drops into my messages.
She's going back to him… I know it. Of course she fucking will, right back to the fuckin’ murderer. To the life that's going to destroy her.
I should let her. I should fucking let her make her own choices and face her own consequences, goddamn it. My hands grip the wheel so hard it hurts.
I should fucking let her run straight into Crowning's fucking arms and see what happens when he becomes the monster she doesn't know yet.
But Christ help me… I can't.
The image of Bianca’s broken body flashes before my eyes like a living nightmare. My vision blurs in a red haze, and I push the gas pedal harder.
Jesus.
The cabin finally comes into view through the trees. I screech to a halt, kill the engine, and as soon as my feet hit the walkway, I know. I know.
She’s gone. I can feel her absence like a physical blow.
What will I do? What will I fucking do?
The front door's locked. I key in the code, then push it open slowly, silently. Lancelot meows loudly and winds himself around my ankles. I bend and pick him up, cradling him to my chest. A connection to her.
“Bianca?”
Silence.
The cabin feels empty without her. It’s too cold, like the air's been sucked out of the room.
I check anyway, of course—room by room, knowing with each one that she's gone. Lancelot pounces onto the bed and meows again, as if telling me she’s gone.
The window's open. Not broken, just open. She must have figured out the lock. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she's gone.
I stand there, staring at the open window, my hands fisted at my sides, breathing hard through my nose like a bull about to fucking charge.
She chose Crowning.
She chose death over being my hostage.
You let yourself hope.
You let yourself think that maybe she was starting to understand.
But no.
I stare at Crowning’s location again on my phone. She'll go to him. I know it.
My phone buzzes—Lorcan again.
I smash the phone. “What?”
“So far, so good with surgery.” Guilt floods me, and I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Thank fuck.”
“Not out of the woods until he’s done, but the doc says he’ll be alright. You coming home tonight? Seamus says—”
“Can’t. Not tonight.”
“Ash—”
I hang up the phone.
Right now, there's only one thing that matters.
And she's gone.
Left for good.
Over my fucking dead body.
I have to get to her before I lose my fucking mind.
I get back in the car and turn the engine. My hands grip the steering wheel until my knuckles go white, every instinct screaming at me to push the accelerator, to drive faster than is safe, to go get what's mine.
But I don't.
I sit there, the engine idling, staring at the cabin through the windshield.
She promised, and I believed her.
Now she's gone, and I have to let her go.
Have to.
I could find her, throw her over my shoulder, and bring her back here. I’d lock every fucking door, tie her to my fucking bedpost, and never let her leave again.
But that's not what she needs right now.
She needs space. Time. The truth is sitting heavy in her chest while she figures out what to do with it.
And I need her to choose me. Not the cage. Not the protection. Me.
So I'll wait.
I'll watch from the shadows, as I've always done. I'll make sure she's safe, even if she doesn't want me near her. I'll give her the freedom she asked for.
Even if it kills me.
Even if every second she's gone feels like I’m slowly bleeding out.
I put the car in reverse and drive away from the cabin—away from the only place she's ever been truly mine.
Chapter Sixteen
Bianca
He's going to lose his mind when he finds out, and I know it.
I'm sitting in a roadside diner, and my hands are shaking. Thankfully, this is one of those places where people don't question you when you walk in looking a little out of place.
I've been planning this for a couple of days now. I got the brilliant idea that if he thought I was still injured, he wouldn't think I could escape. So I pretended. I pretended it hurt more than it actually did. I pretended I was wobbly and unstable.