Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
“You sure?” the only one who’d spoken called behind me. “You look awful lonely.”
“Yup,” I said without looking back. Covertly, I let my attention swivel from left to right, searching the foulness that wormed through the night.
Vapor puffed from my mouth, and adrenaline thrummed through my veins.
This bastard couldn’t be far.
I was halfway down the block when I spotted him. He was on the opposite side of the street outside a small restaurant. He leaned against the dingy brick wall like it was his post, flanked on either side by two other men.
He was probably in his late twenties and had dark, slicked-back hair. Wearing slacks and a striped button-down shirt.
I felt it swarm.
A cloud of lechery and self-indulgence all mixed in a vat of cruelty.
He was the one.
Didn’t miss that his eyes moved to the girls at the end of the street—checking his property—before he slanted them back to me.
I could feel it burn into my side, and the raucous conversation the other two guys were having clanked off when they noticed where their boss had set his attention.
I kept facing forward, acting like I hadn’t noticed them lurking across the street.
Minding my own business.
Oblivious.
Which wasn’t the smartest game plan, either, considering the fuckers were likely to jump me, though I guessed there was something about me that kept them rooted.
Or maybe some lone bastard wasn’t worthy of their time. They had more important crimes to keep them busy, like coercing vulnerable runaways into chains.
Violence pulled through my consciousness, and I had the urge to turn, rush across the street, and take all three of them out.
But I couldn’t attack without a plan. I had to play this smart. Couldn’t act so recklessly, the way I used to do. Running into situations with guns blazing, not really caring if I came out whole on the other side.
Nothing to lose.
Now I had Aria. Now I had this completeness that throbbed inside me.
Her face passed behind my eyes, and my stomach churned in disquiet.
The last thing I wanted was for her to feel like I’d disrespected her.
Belittled her.
That hadn’t been my intention, even though I’d seen the offense and worry playing through those gorgeous eyes.
But it felt like my responsibility to keep her from this.
I couldn’t imagine her walking down this street with me. Putting her in even more danger than she was already in.
It seemed risky and imprudent.
Unnecessary when keeping her safe was the only thing that mattered.
I had to do this on my own, and I had to get this piece of shit by himself.
Wait it out or come up with a way to lure him out.
Needed this fast and clean so I could get back to Aria.
So I kept moving, making a right at the intersecting road, walking all the way down the block before I made another right, winding around so I would come back toward the girls in the opposite direction from where I’d begun.
The whole time, I calculated.
Figured he’d either come to the girls at some point, or I could follow them back to whatever slum he was keeping them in. So I was going to need a place to hide out until the time was right.
Conceal myself in the shadows and watch.
I made it to the street I’d first come down, and I leaned against the wall and peered around the corner.
This end of the building was cast in a cloak of gloom, the single streetlamp on the other side of the road flickering the barest flashes of light.
The stench of corruption filled the air. As thick here as it had been when I passed by the monsters on the other street.
Blood drummed through my veins. Frustration and determination.
I slipped around the corner and started to slink up through the shadows, and I edged up to a large dumpster that kept me hidden but obstructed my view. I attempted to peer out through the back side of the dumpster near the wall, but it was too narrow, and I couldn’t get tabs on the girls.
I had to get closer, or I was going to lose them at some point.
Only the second I started to edge around the dumpster, I felt a shift in the atmosphere.
Coming at me from both the front and the back.
A torrent of wickedness and a slosh of greed.
I glanced over my shoulder. My chest tightened when I saw the same two guys who’d flanked the man come rounding up the corner of the building.
But it was the fiend standing five feet in front of me who sent a stone sinking to the pit of my stomach.
They had stalked me.
Surrounded me.
The bastard in the front cocked his head.
Pure evil oozed from his pores as he flashed a knife and said, “No one plays with my girls unless they pay for it.”
Chapter Thirteen