Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 128801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
His head barely shook. “I need you to listen to me, Dakota.”
The words were so low they crawled over me like the scattering of bugs. Chills lifted, and a cold dread slipped down my spine and sank to the pit of my stomach.
“I always knew that I wasn’t good enough. A fool to take a chance with you.”
He came closer.
Hovering.
I managed to mumble, “That’s not true.”
“It’s true, Dakota. You asked me what I was in, and I couldn’t tell you because I was trying to solve it myself. Take care of it. End it.”
I blinked, fighting the way my knees felt weak.
“You asked if I was still using.”
That cold dread sloshed, and I couldn’t speak, I just stood there waiting for him to deliver whatever blow he was going to inflict.
Because I could already feel it pressing down. A frenzy of desperation that clawed between us.
“It wasn’t a lie. I’ve been clean since I was twenty-two.”
Relief gusted, and I exhaled, but it clipped off when he pressed on, his confession so quiet, like he was offering me a secret and he was terrified someone else was going to hear. “But what I never got free of was that life. I became indebted to this small-time dealer when I was seventeen.”
Shivers rolled, dread that crashed through my being.
Ryder only pressed closer, and my back hit the wall. “He asked me for one favor, and I was the dumb fucking kid who fell into that trap. Wound in his chains so quickly that I didn’t know what hit me. I tried for years to get free of him, Dakota. For us. So we could have a chance. And every fucking time, he’s been one step ahead of me. Manipulating me. Threatening me. Tightening the shackles that chain me.”
My throat closed off, and I swore the room spun.
Ryder’s tongue swept across his chapped lips. “But small-time crooks never want to stay that way. They’re fucking greedy, and he pushed that greed on me. He made me a deal when I was twenty-six.”
Twenty-six.
Dread slithered through my consciousness. Vipers slipping beneath my skin.
It was the summer I’d come back. The summer I’d thought…
“I had to do this big job for him, earn us both a shit-ton of money, then he’d cut me loose.”
I blinked, struggling to process. To understand exactly what he was saying.
“But he double crossed me, Dakota. I got the money, but I also got sucked deeper into his sordid world. He made it clear what would happen to the people I cared about if I ever tried to walk. That I knew I was finished if I even thought about getting away from him.”
Misery flashed through his features.
Guttural and bleak.
On his tongue was a secret so sharp and deep and ugly that I couldn’t ask what he meant. Couldn’t stomach whatever it might be.
“He’s been using my shop as a front, Dakota. For all these fucking years,” he continued, his voice cracking through the confession. “I modify the cars so they can be loaded down with whatever shit he’s trying to get to the East Coast, and it’s on me to drive it there. Meet up with whatever slimy fuck is going to distribute it in that area.”
Disbelief pulled through the disorder, and my breaths turned choppy and shallow.
Fear covered, what he was saying, what this meant.
I tried to blink through it.
Process it.
This man who I loved. He was a…drug trafficker? Is that what he was saying?
No.
I gulped.
“No.” That time I said it aloud, refusing it. My hands fisted in his tattered shirt. “No. You’re lying. You’re lying. Tell me you’re lying to me, Ryder. Please.”
He took me by both sides of the face and forced me to look at him. “It’s not a lie, Dakota. It’s who I am. It’s who I’ve been trying to protect you from for all these years. But something happened when you came here.” His voice was raw. “And I knew I couldn’t keep running from you any longer. That I had to stop this. Change it because there was no life worth living if I wasn’t living it for you. So, I called Ezra. I set them up, Dakota. When I go to load the car next week, the DEA is going to be there.”
Fear pounded, so loud, battering my brain and churning my stomach. Disgust and disbelief wound with it.
No.
“I think Dare knows something is up. One of his men was in the backyard. I chased after him to pin him down, but he got to me first. Sent a warning that I needed to remember my place.”
No.
There was no stopping the spiral of thoughts. The questions. Everything I thought I’d known.
My eyes squeezed closed as my mind whirred through the things he’d told me. The things he’d done.
And it all started to fall on me.