Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“I brought you some food. Angel cooked it. She’s worried about you and asked how you were.”
Lacey didn’t even know the woman and yet Angel was concerned about her. It made no sense to her for another woman who was younger than she was to be worried.
“I’m not hungry.” Her stomach chose that moment to protest.
“You’re hungry.”
“I don’t want anything you’ve brought me.” You’re being petty, Lacey.
Whizz sighed. “I can’t trust any of the other women coming. Your threat this morning stops me. If something happens to Angel, Lash will kill you and castrate me.”
She looked up at him. “I wouldn’t hurt her.”
Lacey wouldn’t. She knew enough that Angel was the kind of woman you were friends with. Throughout the whole of her life, she hadn’t had a female friend. There was only ever Dalton.
“I don’t know that. You keep trying to hurt me, even if you don’t actually go through with it.”
“Angel’s innocent of everything. I wouldn’t harm her. It would be like hurting a puppy or kitten.” She wiped a hand down her face. Her head was aching from the tears.
“Why are you on the bathroom floor?”
“None of your business.”
He let out a breath. “You’re going to continue to be stubborn and a brat?”
She stared up at him, licking her suddenly dry lips. “I’m thirty years old, Whizz. The only friend I’ve ever had is dead.”
“Which one was your friend?” he asked, taking a seat on the toilet.
“You’re not going to mock me?”
“I’m asking you who was your friend? I’m interested to know about you.” His hands were gripped together in exactly the same way as Dalton’s had been while she’d been in the hospital.
Placing her hands on her chest, she stared up at Whizz. He looked sincere, and she didn’t want to fight him.
“Dalton. He was my best friend.”
“The big guy?”
“Yeah.” She started to smile. “He wasn’t always that big. I mean, he was tall, like really tall but never filled out. For a long time he looked like a good gust of wind would push him over.” She stopped talking as the pain hit her hard. “He’s dead.”
Whizz didn’t say anything. She saw his jaw tense at her words.
“He was the one who found me after it happened. After Gonzalez happened. I was a mess. He wouldn’t leave me behind. Dalton never left me behind even when I begged him to.”
“Was he in love with you?” Whizz asked.
She shook her head. “I think there was a time when he thought he was, but I never loved him like that. He was my brother and my best friend.”
Lacey knew Dalton had wanted more from her at one stage. She’d not long turned twenty-one, and his attention had become more intimate. He’d wanted to become hers, but she’d kept away from him. Lacey hadn’t wanted anything from him but friendship.
“He’s dead.”
“No one was left alive, Lacey.”
“It’s all my fault because I came back to you.”
“What?”
She stayed still as she stared at him. “I was selfish. I needed to see you one more time. If I’d not come to you, he’d still be alive.”
“No, he wouldn’t have been alive. The club was full of fucking idiots, Lacey. They were going to die if you came to me or not. It just so happened I got you out of there alive. Their deaths were not your fault.”
She didn’t believe him, but his words helped for some strange reason.
Rolling onto her front, she pressed her palm to the tile and started to get up. Whizz stood up with her. He was taller than she was, so she only came to his chest.
“I hate you,” she said.
“I know.”
She stared at his chest recalling the way he felt against her, not just that morning but the other times they’d been together. Not once had she thought about the club or Dalton. She’d been a woman.
“I need to get out of this room otherwise I’m going to lose my mind.”
“I can’t let you out. No one trusts you.”
“I’ve been locked up in this room. You need to take me to that house.” She stopped talking to grit her teeth. She looked away from him to glance past his shoulder. “I need to see what has happened to it. I need to have closure, Whizz. I need this to suddenly become real.”
“Why?”
“Because right now I keep expecting him to walk through that door and it’s never going to happen. He’s never going to come home.”
“Dalton?”
“Yes. He’s dead, and I need to know it’s over.” She fisted her hands at her sides. This was only going to upset her. There was no way anything good could come from her seeing the evidence of their death or the emptiness of what happened.
“There are no bodies, Lacey.”
She nodded. “Please, let me go and see. I’ll stay handcuffed to you if it’ll make you feel better. I need to see.”