Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79087 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79087 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
But that also meant she had been taken. For nearly five months she had been gone. Five months of her being in the hands of the enemy. What did that mean?
I knew she had been tortured. She was almost unrecognizable.
Victor came to me, and he held my face. “Look at me,” he said.
“She’s alive,” I said.
“And we’re going to keep it that way. Are you good?”
I nodded. There was nothing else for me to be.
The Butcher needed me to be strong.
****
Ivan
In the private room on my island, I sat beside The Butcher. She was hooked up to many machines. The sound of their beeping drowned out the whisper of the ocean. It had been three months since she had somehow gotten past security and made her way through the library, where she had found Freya. Since then, I had gotten the best doctors to work on her. She had needed a great deal of care.
The Butcher had been to Hell within Hell. One side of her face had been completely broken. The bones sunken, and the swelling to the point she was nearly infected.
One of her arms had been shattered, her fingers broken. One of her legs had also been the same way. They had taken her, tortured her, raped her, and left her nearly for dead.
The plastic surgeons had repaired everything. They didn’t know if she was going to remember what had happened. They said she had taken a lot of hits to the head. Also, she’d woken up a time or two and had been confused. She didn’t know where she was, and there was a moment when she looked at him and asked, “Who am I?”
This opened up a ton of possibilities.
The Beast stepped into the room. “How is she?”
Even though he had officially been given Brigadier status, he hadn’t left my island. He cared about her. I knew the two shared a complicated history.
They had been allies, enemies, and then competitors, and yet they always seemed to be there to have each other’s backs. This is what made them unstoppable. No one could think to compete with them, and why they had both survived this long.
“No change.”
“I can’t believe this happened. I can’t fucking believe you were right.”
The Beast and I went back to where he thought we’d lost her. The entrance in was blocked because of her setting a bomb off. The exit was also blocked, but there was a third exit. One that wasn’t finished on the map, and I had a feeling it was because Eric The Tool killed the person before he could finish it.
I had known then that The Grid had seen an opportunity to take The Butcher. I don’t know how she managed it. The doctors who had worked on her had said she would have been in intense agony.
“Nothing is going to kill her,” I said. I’m more convinced of that now than I ever had been.
The Butcher was ... unstoppable.
“We do have a situation,” I said.
“What?”
“The night she came back, she had a bag with her, and inside was the head of Harris Harris. I’ve also been getting reports that The Grid is dead,” I said, and looked toward The Beast.
“Fuck.”
Taking out The Grid was always going to come with consequences, and they were consequences I was willing to take. However, rumor was already circulating about the cause being The Butcher.
“Yes, fuck indeed.”
“They’re going to know it is her.”
I looked at her, hooked up to so many tubes, her face still covered in bandages. She still had a long way to go, and my plan, although fucked up, could help her.
“How far are you willing to go to save her?” I asked.
I was willing to do whatever it took to keep her safe. Bethany, The Butcher, had my back more times than I could count. I knew she made a deal with The Grid to keep me alive, and I will never forget it.
The Beast looked at me, and then toward the bed and back at me. “Anything.”
I nodded. “You will take her to be your wife. We will build a whole new world around her. The Butcher didn’t make it out of that tunnel. She died that day, along with Eric The Tool. She will have a new identity, and we will create memories that she doesn’t remember.”
“Wait, Ivan, what the fuck?”
“If she wakes up, there is a chance she might not remember anything,” I said. “So, we will have everything in place to make her believe she is who we say she is. A whole life, where she doesn’t ever remember what happened. We will take care of her, and we will make sure no harm ever comes to her again.”
The Beast began to pace. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” he asked.
“No. I’m being serious.”