Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Floating hopelessly in his pain.
Lost to the misery of where Milo Hendricks lived.
TWENTY
MILO
NINE YEARS AGO
Milo tremored where he sat against the wall in the murky shadows of the dingy hall. The shouts and cheers of the depraved echoed from the bowels of the basement.
He thought their greed had grown claws and sank into the concrete, chains that clanked and clanged, shackled to his bitter soul.
Holding him hostage.
He struggled for a breath and brought his blood-stained fists to his eyes.
The violence spent.
Another man beaten close to death.
The stench of the possibility hung fast to the sordid atmosphere.
It was what fed the morbidity. The barbarity and inhumanity that brought men here in droves.
And he prowled through it night after night, like a rabid beast in a cage.
He slammed his head back against the rough blocks like it could knock him out of the vengeful cycle that would never end.
The weight of it lessened a fraction when he felt the shift in the air.
The cool breeze of her presence.
“There you are,” Autumn murmured as she neared.
He rolled his head to look at her, his heavy heart lightening at the sight. “Were you looking for me?”
A flirty smile edged the side of her mouth. “I’m always looking for you.”
“Is that so?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Come here,” he muttered, stretching out a hand as he straightened his legs out in front of him. Autumn didn’t hesitate to straddle his lap.
Relief wafted around him like a summer breeze, and he exhaled as he curled his arms around her. “You shouldn’t come here anymore.”
She pulled back, studying his face in the wisping shadows that haunted this place. “Why not? This is where I found you, isn’t it?”
She touched his face, her fingertips running over his lips. He took her hand and pressed it closer, the gentle kiss to her knuckles filled with devotion.
He wanted to take her away from this place.
Protect her from it.
Protect her from him.
“Still don’t understand that,” he muttered as he kept sweeping his lips along her knuckles.
She pulled back, care written in the curve of her brow, her brown eyes sincere. “How I could love you?”
His nod was hard.
She shook her head. “I loved you from the second I saw you.”
“I think you just loved the idea of slummin’ it with me to get back at your parents.” He forced a grin, sick with the idea that it might be true.
Autumn frowned. “You know that’s not true. Yeah, I came here that first night because I wanted to piss them off. Among a thousand other places I went that they would never have approved of. But it was here that I found you. And you are the reason I returned. The reason I stayed.”
His chest stretched tight. “You’d do a hell of a lot better without me.”
The lines on her pretty face deepened, and she sat up higher on her knees to hover over him. He tipped his head back so he could meet her stare, and she slipped her hand up his jaw until she was cupping his cheek.
So soft against all his hard.
“You don’t have to listen to that voice inside your head anymore. He doesn’t matter. You aren’t worthless, and you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”
She inhaled a desperate breath. “Your father can’t hurt you, anymore. Can’t hurt your mother. And he can’t hurt me, either—not unless you let him. Not unless you give him that power and you push me away. We deserve each other, Milo. You are what matters. We are what matters.”
“Autumn.” It was a plea.
A plea for freedom.
A plea to be someone else.
Someone better.
“Let’s leave this place, Milo. Let’s leave and never come back.”
“Need to have a way to support you.”
God knew he didn’t have anything else going for him.
At his response, her gaze dimmed.
She knew his reasons went so much darker than that.
That he fought for release.
To prove he was something. Someone to be feared. Something to be revered.
And now, he fought for Stefan. Other than his mom, he had been the one person who had believed in him. Picked him up and made him someone when he’d been little more than a kid.
Shown him he had value. Gave him a direction to channel the wrath.
He was indebted to him, but that debt had twisted itself into something morbid.
In the end, he’d only fostered what his father had bred in him.
A sickness there was no healing from.
Gore.
Both her hands came to frame his face. “You don’t have to fight anymore, Milo. I don’t need anything but you.”
Thickness clotted his throat, and he reached out and ran his fingertips along the angle of her jaw, forcing out the confession, “I’ve only loved two people in my entire life…my mother…now you.”
Tears blurred her brown eyes as she stared down at him. “Well, now you’re going to have to love one more.”