Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
A feeling of doom settled in my stomach. None of this was making that lessen.
He stopped to study the closed door, his forehead furrowing. “The reason we needed to take her tonight was because she’s usually protected by a small army of men. She wasn’t tonight. According to new information that Ashton got, the reason she didn’t have Lane’s small army following her is because he doesn’t know she was here. That won’t last. He will find her, except this way, he’ll have to go through me.”
I rocked back in my seat. That meant he was her stalker. I shot to my feet. “We are not going to hand her over.”
Jake went back to pacing. “I need to think.”
“No, Jake! No. He’s her stalker. She was here hiding from him. You can’t do that. We can’t do that.”
Jake folded his head down, his hands on his hips, and he shook his head slowly from side to side. “This is the only way I can get to him.”
“That you know of,” I retorted.
He spun to me, his face tight. Furious. “That I know. I know. I was an organized crime detective. I know how this world works from both ends.”
“This is wrong—”
He thundered, “I don’t give a fuck.”
My body wavered backward. His anger was palpable.
He choked out, “If it means you’re safe? If it means you’re alive? I don’t give a fuck. If it means you or her?” His eyes grew so fierce. “It’s you, Sawyer.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sawyer
I shuddered.
So many emotions and thoughts were spinning inside of me, but I had to know about the girl because that might be his choice. It wasn’t mine. I had some responsibility for that girl and she was not going to be harmed because of us. She was innocent. I wasn’t. If it came down to a question of keeping her safe or me, my choice would be her.
“What are you planning to do with her?”
Some of the harshness from him faded. He drew in a sharp breath before answering, cupping the back of my head, his fingers threading through my hair. “When I’m ready, I’ll reach out to Lane.”
I tipped my chin up.
He touched underneath it, running a thumb over the corner of my mouth, lingering over my cheek, cupping the side of my face in his palm. His eyes held mine.
“She needs to be kept safe.”
He was reading something in my eyes I didn’t want him to know, something I didn’t want anyone to know, but whatever he saw, he didn’t comment on it. He only nodded before stepping away, his arms falling to his sides. “She’ll be kept safe.”
Good. Relief filled my chest. Good.
I glanced at the door behind him. “I should check on her.”
He caught my arm, stopping me. “This is the only way for us to get to him.”
I frowned, pulling away from him, and moved to the door.
Right as I touched the doorknob, his words stopped me again. “Sawyer.”
I looked over my shoulder.
His gaze was soft, but there was a lethal promise lurking in them just under the surface. The memories of how easily and quickly he’d killed five men flashed in my mind. How easy it had been for him to kidnap her, how smooth the operation was handled. How he’d threatened that drunk guy who grabbed me. How he held a gun as if it were the most natural thing in the world to him.
What happened to him in his childhood?
I needed to acknowledge another truth about Jake to myself, one I couldn’t forget. Jake Worthing might not be a Mafia head boss and he might not want to be a Mafia head boss, but he was every bit as dangerous as they were.
He might be worse.
He added, “You or her, it’s you. You or me, it’s you. You or your aunts, it’s you. Your cousin or you, it’s you. Anyone or you, it’s you. I don’t care who the other choice is. It’s always going to be you.”
Why did those words feel like a looming warning?
And why did that make me feel things that I never thought I’d feel in my life?
I was falling in love with him. I just didn’t know what to do with that now.
I turned the doorknob, took a step inside, and it took a beat before I cleared my mind of my muddled thoughts and registered the empty bed that I was seeing.
I gasped. “She’s gone!”
Jake tore into the room but stopped as soon as he saw the window open. He looked down, cursed, and sprinted out the door. His gun was out and in his hand. He held it pointing down at his side, but it molded to him like another appendage. It was a part of him.
It was his skin.
He yelled over his shoulder, “Stay here. Lock the door.”
“Where are you going?” My heart was in my throat.