Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 102929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
After Mom split, Joe came around less and less. Their marriage was toxic as hell. However, it didn’t mean he didn’t love her.
She was the love of his life, and everything went to shit after she left. It wasn’t just her sons she abandoned. It was her husband, too, and since that was too big a pill to swallow, he simply turned his back on us and walked away from the problem instead.
He was forever searching for another escape.
Unless he needed money that we eventually had to hide by burying it in the backyard or else he’d sniff it out in the house and steal it from us, we didn’t see him.
We learned that lesson the hard way, too. Joe had no boundaries left. He’d crossed them all. Deadbeat dad would be too kind a term for him. He was a junkie and a drunk, plain and simple. And when we needed to find him, we usually could. He had his regular spots, and he was well-known in the neighborhood. People knew who Joe Knightly was.
As a thief.
A liar.
A manipulator.
The list was endless, none of which were good things.
Once Roland finished, he declared, “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Gesturing to his hands, he added, “Keep pressure on this rag until I’m back.”
I switched places with him. “Thank you.”
He stepped back, stating, “Don’t thank me yet. She’s still unconscious.”
His words weighed heavily on me as he left. Suddenly, I heard the garage doorframe creak, and I shifted my eyes to Kraven, where he was leaning against it.
Before I could say anything, he scoffed out, “You’re a fool.”
“No more than you are,” I argued.
He pushed off the frame. “She’s just a girl, Julius.”
Not having the patience for this conversation, I lost my temper. “And you’re just my little brother.”
“All the more reason you should listen to me. It’s blatantly obvious that she’s in trouble.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Throw her out on the street?”
“Don’t make me out to be the bad guy, Julius. You know I’m right. She’s covered in blood. Why do you think that is? You may as well spray paint ‘Cops, look here’ on the front door. Better yet”—he paused for effect—“how about I go buy a can and write it for us? Then the element of surprise would be gone.”
“They’re not going to come here, Kraven. Relax.”
Through a clenched jaw, he countered, “There’s an unconscious teenage girl on our dining room table. You lose your shit when I miss a class, but this, this you’re calm for?”
“Kraven… not now, okay? Can you give me a break? Please,” I stressed, unable to justify my answers with a response because he was right.
This was dangerous, and I was being reckless, putting everything we worked so hard for in jeopardy for a girl I didn’t even know.
However, I couldn’t admit to that. He turned his determined stare at me, shaking his head while opening the door from behind him. The loud rumble of the train behind our house came like a warning.
With his voice firm and unnerving, he cautioned, “When all this comes to a head, don’t say I didn’t warn you...”
I grabbed his hoodie that was covered in her blood off the table, tossing it at him, but he let it fall to the floor by his feet. He left it there, slamming the door behind him, and took off. It was what he did best.
Except this was where the lines were drawn.
This was where it all started.
* * *
This was only the beginning of us battling over her.
Chapter
Five
Isla
My eyes fluttered open, only to be met with nothing but darkness. I tried to get my arms and body to move, but it was no use. I was too weak. My lips were dry, my throat raw and burning, making it hard to swallow, let alone scream out for help. I tried to process what was going on, what had happened, and how long I had been out, but I couldn’t push through the haze.
I was so tired, so dizzy, so out of it that panic couldn’t even set in. My head pounded heavily as if it weighed a thousand pounds. All I could hear were my own thoughts. My warm body lay on something soft, but I still felt numb until everything went black again, and I took comfort in the darkness.
The next time, I was startled awake from the hard, jagged footsteps heading down the hall. Boots pounded onto the floors, vibrating through the space between us, getting louder and louder with each passing second.
I opened my eyes, peering around the room that was now pitch black. I couldn’t even see an inch in front of me. Nightfall had taken over. It took me a moment to remember where I was and what had happened.
My mind was still groggy and filled with unanswered questions that never seemed to stop.