Total pages in book: 238
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
We all backed away, the guys probably waiting to let me have first go as Damon took out the phone and started filming.
I paused. It was stupid to document this, but…
I licked my lips, seething and still tasting the bourbon I’d had in the car.
I wanted to watch it. To relive it. To see him suffer over and over again.
“Look at me,” I whispered.
He breathed hard, and I walked over and took off his duty belt, dropping it to the ground.
“Look at me,” I growled again, low.
Slowly, he raised his eyes and met mine through my mask. The corners of his gaze crinkled in recognition.
And then…the asshole smiled.
“You think it’s my fault?” he asked in a quiet voice between us. “That she rejected you?”
I tightened my fists.
And then he laughed, despite how his teeth glistened with his own blood. “I would’ve been happy,” he told me. “Even better if she would’ve gotten pregnant. Having an inside to all that money, power, and connection? Priceless. She would’ve finally been useful.”
I stayed frozen, barely breathing.
He spit, spattering blood from his mouth all over me.
But I didn’t even blink.
“She knew you were a loser,” he said. “You’d just be the drunk womanizer you are now, not fit for her life.”
My blood boiled under my skin.
He knew who we were, but I didn’t care. The masks and whispering were for the camera, not him.
Was he right? He wasn’t right. She didn’t say it, but I knew she loved me. I felt it.
It was him. He made her forget about me. He made her scared.
“And this is just a reminder,” he continued, “that she’s long gone and fine without you, but you’ll never be more than this. You’ll never be enough.”
I shook my head, my eyes burning.
Kai cleared his throat behind me. “We can’t stay here forever, Will,” he whispered. “Let’s do this.”
But Martin Scott just smiled, seeing what he was doing to me.
“She never looked at you again,” he said. “Did she?”
I stopped breathing.
“She’s never called. Even since she graduated and got free, right?”
How did he know that?
She could’ve called me. There was no reason not to once he was out of her life.
He laughed again. “You’ll never be enough.”
I swung my fist back, gritted my teeth together, and growled as I punched him across the face.
Fuck you.
A sob escaped, but I covered it up quickly.
Motherfucker.
I hit him again, hitting and hitting until long after he’d stopped laughing and my knuckles ached like they were on fire.
Tears welled and poured, and the whole world tipped on its side as I brought my fist down again and again.
Fuck you. Fuck you.
Kai came in, threatening him not to go near a minor again, and then I came back pounding, kicking, and punching some more until eventually my hands dripped with his and my blood, and I could do nothing else but laugh.
Until he passed out and they had to pull me off him.
We dumped his body on the side of the road, peeled out of the area in Damon’s SUV, and used a burner phone to call the police to tell them where to find him.
And I didn’t care if it brought her back or not. He deserved it.
If he had any sense, he’d keep his mouth shut, too. He knew we knew he’d had River Layton out there.
Witnesses.
If she talked, she could be a liar.
But not all four of us.
Damon dropped Kai at home and then me.
“Wanna go drinking?” he asked.
I shook my head. I had better stuff in my room, but he wouldn’t be down for that.
“See you tomorrow.” I shut the car door, and he drove off as I made my way up the steps of my house, staring down at the blood all over my hands.
I didn’t want to go inside. I looked up at my house—gray stone with three floors, a wine cellar, and a basketball court in the back.
I was a lucky boy.
And a fucking loser.
He was right, and nothing felt better.
I turned around and walked, leaving my truck and clutching the cell phone in my pocket.
I had no desire to ever watch it again.
I walked down my driveway and headed down the road, back toward the village in the black night as I took out the phone to delete the video. I wanted it gone.
I wanted to erase everything about me, because I hated me as much as she did.
“Hey, man!” someone called.
I looked up, closing the phone before I could finish and stuffing it into my pocket.
Bryce rolled up, peering at me through the open window. He had a girl in the car, and I leaned down, forcing a smile and stuffing my bloody hands into my pocket.
He studied me, sensing something. “You need a ride?”
I shook my head. “No,” I told him. “Thanks, though.”
He nodded slowly, still unsure. “O…okay.”