Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
His gaze lifts from the game to my shoulder where blood is already flowing. “What the fuck, man?”
I raise my voice and smash into him. “No. Stop it, Urbano. It’s okay. I’m not here to spy on you. Stop it. Fuck. That hurts.” I bellow for the guards, yelling for help.
He frowns and tries to get me away from him. His eyes darken, first in surprise and then in fear. I’m on him then, taking the weapon and jamming it into his throat. I pull fast, and his artery spurts blood in every direction.
His hand slaps over the wound. Blood pours between his fingers. His chin lifts. Dread and an odd acceptance crosses his face.
I jam the weapon right above his hand and into his neck. He’s too weak to stop me. An alarm blares, and running feet clip through the shrill squeal. I leave the shiv in his throat and back away, hands up, dropping to my knees. The door slides open, and two of the guards run inside.
“He stabbed me.” I look down at my shoulder. “I’m not sure if he hit an artery.”
One guard quickly cuffs me while the other drops near Urbano, but he’s already dead. The room begins to waver around me. I may have stabbed myself a little deeper than I planned, and then everything goes dark.
I wake up in the infirmary with a bandage across my shoulder, my wrists shackled to bars on either side of the bed, and a beeping sound above my head. The scent of vanilla tugs at me, and I open my eyes to see Rosalie sitting by the side of the bed, her face pale, an attorney’s badge on her lapel.
“Hi, Peaflower,” I say.
She leans toward me, worry in her eyes. “What in the world happened?”
“Got in a bit of a scuffle.” It had cost me an absolute fortune to pay off the guard to get that weapon, and he promised me that Reyes’s prints would be on it when they investigated the death. The guy better keep to his word.
“I’ve already asked for the security feed, and somehow, it went down. Do you think Reyes bribed somebody?”
My shoulder feels like I stuck a hot poker in it. “Reyes had friends everywhere in this prison.” It’s the truth, and there’s no need to tell her I bribed the security guard for not only the shiv but to take down the cameras. He has a sick dog and needs the money for surgery.
She shakes her head, her face pale. “I’ve already made a motion to get you out of here. It was irresponsible for you to be put here in the first place after your entire ordeal.”
It actually had cost me quite a bit. “Thank you.”
“I can’t believe you were attacked. Don’t worry. We’ll create quite the lawsuit over this.” Now, red highlights her sculpted cheekbones, and I quite enjoy her anger on my behalf.
“I don’t want to sue, Rosalie. I just want out.”
She sighs. “I can’t get you out until Monday, but at least you can stay here in the infirmary until then.”
I look down at the bandage covering my left shoulder. “How bad is it?”
“Twenty stitches,” she says.
Interesting. I did stab myself deeper than I thought, but at least this masks the bullet wound.
She holds my hand, worry screwing up her face. “Don’t say anything here. You’re under drugs.”
“I didn’t kill Hendrix, Rosalie,” I say. “I promise.”
She blinks once. “It’s not like you have an alibi.”
I lean toward her. “I do but you’re not going to like it.”
She pales. “You were with another woman?”
I don’t want to lie to her, but I’m going to protect her from my world as much as possible. “I’ll give you the truth this time because we’re still new at this, but after that, you’re away from my business. Completely. It won’t touch you unless it’s in a way to protect you.”
Her strawberry-red lips purse as she moves her ear closer to my mouth. “Where were you?”
“Killing a guy named Howard Fissure,” I whisper. Her chin drops. “He was a drug dealer and a child trafficker.” Although I probably would’ve killed him anyway, considering I made a deal with Reyes and hadn’t decided to renege until it came to Ella.
Rosalie’s eyes widen. “I don’t want to know that.” Yet she looks relieved, anyway. The idea of me with another woman would crush her. I like that. We’re on the same page.
In addition, she needs to trust me. “The last thing in the world I would do is implicate you by using your letter opener to kill somebody, Rosie. You have to know that.”
She slowly nods as realization dawns in her expression. “Yeah, it’s from my office.”
“You need to figure out who got their hands on that.”
She shrugs. “It could be anybody. We have people coming in and out of the law firm all the time. If somebody wanted to set up one of us, they could have easily dodged into my office and grabbed the letter opener. I always leave it on my desk.”