Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79261 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79261 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Our eyes stayed connected for several seconds. Fuck, it could have been hours. Time just sort of stood still. It wasn’t until my eyes lifted to her old man, who was suddenly standing in front of her with his gun firmly pressed into her forehead, that I almost lost my shit.
I tried to remain strong for her.
It was ripping me apart, crushing my bones, tearing me to shreds.
One by one.
I was a pile of ash.
I thought I knew it all, seen it all, experienced it all.
I was wrong.
So. Very. Wrong.
Her father hummed, “I brought you back to your home.” With his arm at his side, he snapped, “Look at this… there’s no one here but you and me. No one’s going to save you, baby. I don’t need my guards to protect me from you, Sloan. Get that through your thick-ass skull. I own everything and everyone, especially your pussy. It’s mine.”
He gripped her throat, and she angled her head high in defiance despite the tears streaming down her face.
“Don’t fuckin’ touch her,” I warned.
“What are you going to do?” he mocked, laughing. “Untie them.”
They did.
“Now take a look around,” Del Toro repeated. “This is where you’re going to die like a fucking dog I’m about to put to sleep. If you had done business with me, this wouldn’t be happening. Look at all the people who have died because of you. Your men. Their families. Their whores. I mean, there was what? A hundred people at your private party last week? That’s not very good for business,” he mocked in a condescending voice.
“No, those people died ’cause you got your feelings hurt like a goddamn pussy.”
In one quick movement, he moved his gun and shot me in the leg.
“No!” Sloan shouted as my body jerked back from the impact.
I groaned in pain.
“How about that for a pussy?”
Her brothers shoved us into the shitty office where Del Toro proclaimed, “This is where it all started. In this room. It’s where I turned you into a woman. How’s it feel to be in here, baby? Can you sense her? Can you feel her? Can you breathe her in? Tell me, Sloan… Can you feel your mother who died because of you?”
She covered her ears. “Stop it!”
He roughly tore her hands away. “No, baby girl, you don’t get to hide from me.”
Nothing I’d faced…
I’d done.
Come to terms with…
…Could have prepared me for watching this interaction between them. It was by far more grueling than collecting souls. Fully aware he owned her.
“Fuck you!” she bit.
He gripped the front of my black hoodie she was wearing. “I’m not going to kill him until I’m done torturing you.”
“Over my dead fuckin’ body,” I threatened.
“That could be arranged.”
In the end, he didn’t have to kill me.
This was enough.
Sloan’s pleading eyes found mine, and I mouthed, “Te amo.”
She was the first to break our connection, looking at the floor, reacting to and feeling what I was.
My complete devotion to her.
“Dad,” Nav celebrated, clapping his hands.
It boomed off the old walls that held nightmares of my girl’s past.
“You had your fun,” X expressed. “Now…it’s our turn.”
Sloan’s eyes connected with Nav’s.
He grinned at her with an ominous stare before he and her brother sharply turned around, aiming their Glocks directly at their father’s head. Shocking the shit out of her.
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
LUKE
Using his abrupt distraction, I charged her old man, ramming my shoulder as hard as I could into this monster I fucking despised. Attacking him with everything I had left in me for what he’d done to her for all these years.
Her screams echoed off the ceiling.
Del Toro’s back hit the wall, and it broke through the drywall into the next room as another shot rang from his gun. We tumbled to the floor, each of us trying to gain the upper hand on the other.
I punched his ribs.
Fist to his face.
Knee to his balls.
The uncontrollable rage coursed through me at a rapid pace. Everything was happening so damn fast, it was hard to keep up with what was actually occurring.
His words.
My feelings.
It all blended in a giant clusterfuck. I was going to murder this motherfucker with my bare hands.
My eyes watered.
My lips trembled.
My body fucking shook.
I was choking, hyperventilating, drowning deeper in my despair. There was no saving him from me.
The torment.
The remorse.
My demons.
The destruction and devastation he brought into my life and hers was something I could eat him alive for. I’d recall this split second for the rest of my life. I swear it felt like a slow-motion bullet as the sound of gunfire shook off the walls, and Del Toro’s body jolted back from the control of the bullet he just took for her in the side of his stomach.
For a few seconds, no one moved.
No one made a sound, including me.
Watching as this piece of shit started to bleed out.