Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Suddenly, the images of her in the hospital come flooding back into my brain like a tsunami. The pain in her eyes when she first saw her family. Her inability to talk to them. The doctor wanting to speak to her in private.
Something grave happened to her body that changed her forever.
She had an abortion.
She was pregnant.
And those fuckers who did it to her walked free, so she killed them all.
An ocean of hurt washes over me because she suffered alone, and I wasn’t there to help her. I drop down onto hands and knees with the paper beneath me, as tears begin to flow.
The pain they forced her to endure.
No medication after the operation.
Dropped off at a random location.
They were getting rid of her.
She was the evidence of their crime.
“So that’s what she was hiding,” Orion mutters. “She lost her child here. Maybe even in this room.”
All the men on her list that she killed are lined up in my mind.
Perry, the drug seller who probably sold the meds to this “hospital.” Paul, the nurse, Mike and Carlo, the duo who operated on her. Jimmy, the driver who probably dropped her off somewhere after the ordeal.
And then there’s Samuel.
The man who impregnated her.
My hands ball into fists, and I slam them into the concrete floor over and over until my knuckles bleed.
“I’m going to rip their corpses from their graves, summon their spirits from the afterlife, and kill them again just to make them experience an inch of the suffering they gave to her!” I yell.
Orion kneels beside me and puts his arm around my shoulder.
“They’re the ones who destroyed her. This is where it happened. This is how they did it.”
“And she got her revenge,” Orion says.
“No,” I growl, glaring at him. “Samuel still walks. We have to find him.”
I wipe the snot and tears away, jump to my feet, and swiftly snatch Atreus’s gun from his holster and haphazardly point it at his face. “You were the one who found her. Tell me where.”
“In the woods, not far from here,” he replies, holding up his hands. “Think about what you’re doing, Xavier.”
“I know what I’m doing. We have to go back to the hospital you brought her to,” I say, marching toward the exit, still carrying his gun.
“Hold up, what the fuck are you planning?” Atreus asks.
“I need to see her files,” I say.
He grabs my arm and forces me to stop, and I nearly hit him with the barrel.
“You’d better have a goddamn good reason to stop me, because I will raise hell on this motherfucking earth for breaking the only woman I have ever adored.”
“You can’t just go and break into a hospital, Caruso,” Atreus says.
“No? Then what’s your plan? Because you know damn well everything you’ve been doing has only made things so much goddamn worse!” I yell in his face.
“Calm down, guys,” Orion says.
The gun in my hand sways back and forth. “No, if he’d done his job, those fuckers would’ve been arrested. He knew. He knew about all of this.”
It’s so goddamn tempting to shoot him down and end it all. Even if he isn’t the cause of her wounds, it’s because of him that they continue to bleed to this day.
“No, I didn’t, and I would’ve arrested them if she’d told me the fucking truth about what happened to her.”
My eyes widen. “She … she didn’t tell you either?”
“No. She refused to talk to anyone.”
“Because she knew you would never give her justice,” Orion says, licking his lips.
“I would have,” he says. “If she’d given me a chance.”
Orion ponders. “Who could ever trust, when man always abuses?”
And I realize, even if I am a man, that he is right.
Men …
Are always the ones to hurt women.
No wonder she couldn’t trust anyone with her secret.
Atreus releases me from his grip. “I know how to get the info you want. An insider.”
I grimace. “Oh, now you suddenly want to help us?”
His nostrils flare. “I’m trying to do you a favor. Take it. Before I change my mind.”
My eyes narrow. “I should pummel you in the face again.”
“And how’s that going to help you get the information you seek?”
Righteous motherfucker.
I keep the gun pointed at his chest. “You’re just saying that so you can catch us committing a crime and arrest us too.”
“We’re here for the same reason. Justice. As long as our goals align, I won’t pursue anything against you.” He swallows, unintimidated by the prospect of death. “Besides, she’s been through enough.”
“Ah … so you’re just concerned with how she’ll look at you if you try anything on us,” Orion muses. “If she’ll ever even look at you at all.”
His eye begins to twitch. “I am not. I don’t care. Not in the slightest.”
Orion chuckles and pats him on the back as he passes us both. “Right. Keep telling yourself that. Welcome to our side.”