Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 136048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
But not anymore.
Elias is going to pay for the pain, fear, and horror he has caused Harper, and the moment justice is finally served, I can put this behind me and spend the rest of my life groveling for forgiveness.
She should have left me. She should have packed her things and walked away, because who the fuck am I to deserve her now? I barely deserved her before. I was the luckiest motherfucker to walk the planet to have a woman like Harper-Rayn Madden agree to be mine, but now, I wouldn’t blame her if she wanted nothing to do with me.
I can’t imagine what she felt when I told her that her meds were wrong. I told her she was sick, that she should schedule a meeting with Dr. Carzy, that the horrendous things she went through were all in her head.
Fuck, just the thought of it makes me sick to my stomach.
Staring down at my phone, I look over the screenshot of my brother hidden beneath the mask from the morgue security cameras. To anyone else, it’s just some bastard in a mask, but not to me. Despite the mask, I see him. His height, his stance, the shape of his body, and the way he walks. I’ve seen it my whole life. There’s not a single doubt in my mind that this is Elias, and had I had the decency to look into what Harper was trying to tell me, I could have seen it for myself days ago. I could have dealt with this before he beat her in a bathroom. I could have put him down like the fucking animal that he is.
Every single time Harper said he had been at our home, I found nothing but blips on my home security system and figured Harper had turned them off. But looking deeper and after having one of the guys on my team dig through the metadata of the footage and piece together what was missing, I was able to find exactly what I was looking for.
Every single instance when Harper had claimed Elias had appeared was right there to see, and every second of it destroyed me. All I had to do was look a little deeper. All I had to do was give her the benefit of the doubt. And now my failure will live with me for the rest of my days.
Footsteps sound through the darkness, and I throw back what’s left of my whiskey as I lock my phone and slip it back into my pocket, an eerie calmness settling through my body. The footsteps come closer, and just as they finally enter the overly extravagant sitting room, I reach over to the side table and pull the string for the small lamp beside the armchair, flooding the room with a dim light.
“You really thought you were going to get away with this?” I ask my brother, watching as he pauses in the entryway of the room, the slightest widening of his eyes the only hint that he’s startled by my presence.
He recovers quickly before striding across the room to his private bar and pouring himself a glass of scotch. He takes his time, his gaze resting on mine as he lifts the glass to his lips and takes a generous sip. It’s not until he puts the glass back down on the bar and braces his hands against the counter that he finally decides to play his fucked-up little games. “I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t attempt to insult my intelligence, brother. I’m not doing this bullshit back-and-forth with you,” I tell him, placing my empty glass down on the side table. “I never took you for the type not to own your shit.”
He’s silent for a moment as he takes another sip, and as his gaze narrows, it occurs to me that he thinks he’s still capable of intimidating me, just like he would when I was young and impressionable. He believes he’s untouchable, that despite my clear disdain for what he’s doing, he’s going to walk away from this with me bowing my head in resignation. Either that, or he needs the time to figure out how the hell to play this.
“She’s mine, Knight,” he tells me. “She belongs to me, and if you knew what was good for you, you’d walk away.”
I laugh, shaking my head in disbelief as I get to my feet and slowly stride toward him. “I can’t do that,” I murmur, resisting the urge to ball my hands into fists, not wanting to give myself away too soon. “I’m in too deep.”
“What? With her?” Elias scoffs in disgust, looking at me as though I’ve lost my goddamn mind. “She’s feisty and has an attitude that needs to be fucked out of her, but she’s not somebody you get in deep with. She’s a toy to smack around. A whore with a tight little cunt just like her mother.”