Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
I double-click.
Static. Then a voice—two men, both distorted, but I know one of those voices so well. Knox.
“We got him running the shipment,” the other man says, a voice I don’t recognize.
“Yeah,” Knox’s voice, cold, efficient, nothing like the way he talks to me. “He’s an idiot, but he’s perfect for this. I need him gone, out of the picture. Harper’s not the same since he’s been around. She’s up to something, and the two of them are going to get in trouble, or worse, killed. I don’t know what they’re doing, but that fucker is an addict and I don’t want him around.”
A pause.
“Long as it doesn’t land on me, we’re good, brother.”
“It won’t. I’ve got it all covered. Just make sure Ruger goes down clean. If he brings anyone else into it, I’ll do what I have to,” Knox murmurs, low.
The air goes out of my lungs.
I listen now, numb, as they keep talking—details of the route, set times, names I barely recognize. At one point, Knox laughs. It’s a hard sound, nothing like how he laughs with me.
The file ends.
I don’t move for a full five minutes. When I finally do, it’s to close the laptop and set my forehead against it, trying to breathe through what I just heard. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it is a misunderstanding.
I know I’m not wrong.
It was clear as day what I heard.
My brother’s in prison because of Knox. He lied. He set Ruger up. He did it for Harper, but that is beside the point. He has spent the last month lying to me, fucking me, making me fall for him when all along, he knew why my brother was gone and he did nothing to change it.
He didn’t tell me, he didn’t even try.
Not to mention Ruger and Harper were up to something together, another blow, another betrayal from the people I love the most. Everything in me is ice and glass. I want to throw up, or smash something, or just cry from the sheer broken pain in my chest.
He let me fall in love with him, and all along he has been lying.
I drill my nails into my palms and try to figure out if I want him dead, or if I want to crawl into his lap and scream in his face until he gives me his heart so I can crush it in my fist. Either way, this pain is unlike anything I have ever felt.
It is bitter, broken, and empty.
My phone pings beside me, and I look down to see a message from Knox.
Morning sunshine, thinkin’ about those sweet lips. Ride?
That actually hurts, so badly a pained noise is ripped from my throat.
He is acting like we could be something, like one day, when this is all said and done, I might mean something to him but the stark reality is, I will never mean a single fucking thing to Knox. I am a plaything, something for him to do to bypass time.
If I mattered, he would have told me.
I don’t fucking matter.
Harper was the only one who mattered.
Not me.
Never me.
I AM A QUARTER OF A bottle down, some cheap alcohol I found in my uncle's cupboard, when the rumbling of a bike alerts me that Knox is coming. I have ignored every message, every call, and I knew eventually he would show up.
So, I have sat here, on the porch, drinking the pain away, but only making it a million times worse.
It hurts.
I’m angry.
I want to scream.
I hear his boots hitting the front steps before I see him—slow, measured, deliberate, that I-own-the-world way he carries himself. I want to disappear into the planking, fall through the porch and into some fucking alternate reality where none of this has ever happened.
The door creaks and then he’s there. He just stares at me for a second, all that lazy confidence, like he could just walk back in and everything would go back to normal.
“You’ve been hiding out?” he says finally, boots thumping across the porch.
I don’t answer him.
I don’t even look at him.
I roll the bottle from one palm to the other, staring out past the yard.
“What the fuck is going on?” His eyes flick to the bottle.
I set the bottle down, stand, and refuse to look at him.
He grunts, like he’s getting impatient, but I guess even he can feel this is different. “Callie.”
I just turn and walk straight through the doorway and into the house. I don’t even check to see if he’ll follow. I know he will. I grab the laptop off the counter and jam the USB in. My hands are shaking, but I don’t care if he sees that. The audio file is still there—just sitting, taunting me. Knox comes up behind me, looming. I can hear him breathing.
“You want to tell me what the fuck is going on?” His voice is already changing, sharpening.