Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Rage blistered.
A forest fire.
Maddie thrashed in a man’s hold who’d torn her out of bed, the fucker wearing all black and a ski mask.
This wasn’t happening. I wouldn’t let this happen.
“You motherfucker.” I didn’t give myself time to process what I was doing. I simply hurtled across the room.
He lifted his hand and pointed a gun my way. He popped off a shot right as I dove for the floor.
Maddie screamed.
Screamed and screamed.
And my goddamn heart shattered at the sound.
My sweet little Button.
The one who beamed all her adorable, innocent light.
I couldn’t let this happen to her.
And I fought harder, reaching out to get the bastard by the ankle just as he angled the gun down.
“Freeze!” Ezra’s voice banged through the room, and that point-blank shot didn’t come for me.
It was lifted and fired in Ezra’s direction.
The fiend kept shooting as he backed out.
Gunshots rang out across the room.
I prayed to God Ezra took cover because there was no chance that he could fire back. Not with the piece of shit using Maddie as a shield. He kept firing the whole way as he jumped back out the window.
And the shots…they just kept coming…just the same as the pain that burst in my body.
FORTY-NINE
BROOKE
EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD
The suitcase bounced on the steps behind her as she hurried downstairs. Tears blurred her eyes and blades of hurt gouged her heart into a mangled, mutilated mess.
It sucked so bad when you loved someone so much and they didn’t love you back. It sucked even worse when that person was in love with your best friend.
Brooke had known it the whole summer. Had known it in the way Cody had watched Hailey like she was an untouchable angel that he admired from afar.
She choked on a tiny sound when she hit the bottom landing and the thought slammed through her aching mind.
Cody wasn’t wrong. Hailey was an angel.
Brooke knew that, too.
She knew that Hailey had watched him the same way, though she had tried to pretend as if she were unaffected. She had tried to be supportive and encouraging while Brooke had thrown herself at a man who so clearly didn’t return her feelings. A man she had told lies to, assuring him that the fling they were sharing hadn’t meant a thing when she’d wanted it to mean everything.
She knew.
She knew.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t agonizing. It didn’t mean that seeing Cody embracing Hailey the way she’d longed for him to embrace her hadn’t cut through her like a dull, cold knife.
It was that pain that drove her through the quickly darkening house and out onto the front porch where the sky was stretched in a wispy gray, the west edge only tinged in pink.
There, she stopped, trying to catch her breath.
To see through the disorder the sight of Cody and Hailey had stirred her into.
The slap of betrayal clashing with the smack of truth of what Hailey had said.
Hailey would never intentionally hurt her, and if she was being logical—rational and real—she’d admit that Hailey had been in the same type of pain every time she’d had to watch Brooke slink into the darkness with Cody.
God. Why did life have to be so complicated? She’d only wanted to have a fun summer with her bestie before she left for college, and now they were here.
Both in love with the same man.
Her phone started buzzing in her back pocket. Hailey, no doubt. She’d answer her later. When she wasn’t so upset. When the sting had faded.
Right then, she just needed to find a place to lick her wounds and come to terms.
Because she didn’t want to leave town like this next week.
With this ache or the riff stretching between her and her best friend.
Inhaling a shaky breath, she swiped some of the tears from her face and wheeled her suitcase across the porch toward the side steps where she’d parked her car.
She slowed when she heard hushed voices carrying from the direction of Mr. Wagner’s office that was tucked just on the other side of the wall, a man she’d taken to calling Dad over the summer since hers sucked and Hailey’s had been kind enough to let her stay there.
The two people talking must have been standing outside the office door.
She wavered when she heard the angered displeasure that reverberated from Hailey’s father when he normally spoke gently, and her feet quieted to nothing as she tried to decipher if she should keep walking to her car and surely interrupt the intense conversation or stay hidden until it played out.
“Asshole seemed desperate enough. He came through on every job I gave him the entire summer. Passed every test. Thought he was going to be game.” The voice sounded familiar, and Brooke struggled to pinpoint who it was.
“Yeah, well, he’s not, and this has now become a very big problem,” Douglas growled. “Cody Cooper cannot be out there knowing what he knows. He goes to ground.”