Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 33166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Mona moves, allowing the blade to pierce the delicate flesh of her throat. “Do it. If you think you’ll feel better, go ahead.” She laughs. “I bet you’ve never even seen a dead body, have you? You think I’m weak, but you don’t know the first thing about me. You don’t know where I’ve come from, what I’ve endured, and what I’ll sacrifice. Go ahead, big man. Show me what a bitch I am.”
Do it? Fuck, Mona.
The punk sneers and pushes the blade against her throat. “Oops. Looks like the blade slipped a little. I’d hate for it to puncture your jugular. Why don’t you be a good girl and give me your purse?”
I don’t even think. No hesitation, no concern, no plan. I bolt forward, grab the fucker’s shoulder, and twist. That’s when I see the blood.
Mine?
His?
His arms flail, but I dodge his fist as he tries to punch me. I shove him to the ground and fall on him. I pummel him, my fists connecting with his face repeatedly until blood gushes and splatters streaks of crimson onto my face. “She. Is. Mine. And. I. Don’t. Like. My. Things. Touched.”
I’m unaware of the carnage my hands are creating. I don’t care. I’m no longer a man. I’m inhuman. A creature longing for vengeance and blood. I hear screams from behind me, but they’re faint and barely noticeable, much like the soft hum of the wind. Even if the shouts were thunderous, I would ignore them. It’s easy for me to shut out my surroundings when my brain takes on a mission. I see nothing but my target and the completion of the task bestowed upon me. A good little soldier. I know what my mission is and deliver results. The one time I couldn’t complete my task is the same reason I’m willing to murder a man in cold blood.
“Please,” a sweet voice pleads. “Please stop. You’ll kill him.”
“He deserves it,” I spit as my hand connects with the punk one more time, and his head lolls to the side.
Then I turn around, and my heart stops.
18
MONA
It’s dark. I’m freezing. Why am I freezing? My head hurts. My stomach throbs and stings a little—it’s not unbearable, just uncomfortable.
My fingers brush my abdomen, brushing a bandage covering what feels like a shallow wound. I shift in the bed, but before I can move, two hands grab onto my biceps.
“Take it easy.”
The man is tall, and a black balaclava shrouds his face. I can’t help but think how ironic it is to find ski masks both alluring and terrifying. The air of mystery adds sexual tension, but the men who haunt my nightmares also wore those masks. Men who abducted, beat, and harassed women. The same mask worn by the men who killed my father and beat my sister.
I stare into a pair of familiar steel-gray eyes.
“I know you,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I saved you from being robbed last night.”
“No. I know you from somewhere else. Your eyes are so familiar, but I can’t place them.”
He chuckles dismissively. “You hit your head harder than I thought. Why don’t you get some rest?”
Get some rest? I’m in a strange space with a man my body recognizes on a visceral level peering at me. Sure, he seems familiar, but that means nothing. I could’ve bumped into him at the mall. I dismiss the thought immediately. The sensations bombarding me are far from vague.
“I think I should go home.” I try to stand, but dizziness forces me back onto the bed.
The man grabs my shoulder, his fingers warm against my bare skin. “You can’t go anywhere right now. Lie back in bed.”
“Listen, buddy, I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you if you don’t let me go, you’ll be dealing with my family—and trust me, they put the fun in dysfunctional.”
His laugh is warm and sinister. “Kitten, no one you know is more fucked up than me. But I promise you’re safe with me. I won’t do anything to harm you as long as you’re a good girl and do as you’re told.”
“So no harm will come to me as long as I let you rape me? You’ll violate me in exchange for not slitting my throat? What kind of fucking statement is that?”
He waves his hands up and down his body—his extremely chiseled, muscular body. “Do I look like a man who needs to force a woman to have sex with him? If I wanted to fuck, darling, I’d go to the nearest bar and flash some girl my smile and my baby blues.”
“Your baby grays.”
“What?”
“You can’t flash baby blues 'cause your eyes aren’t blue. They're gray.”
His smile deepens before he bends toward me and whispers seductively, “You noticed my eyes, didn’t you, baby?”