Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Arsen’s jaw pulses. “Politicians. Probably the reason why your brother and your daddy are so concerned about it.”
But somehow I’m not concerned about all this. I should be, but I’m not. Not really. I have something else on my mind. “What happens to the ones who don’t make it through the program?”
Arsen studies me for a few seconds, his features tightening once again. “They disappear. For good.”
I somehow knew it. I’m having a hard time grasping what the program, this Rawhide Redemption, could even mean or what it entails, but I knew this. I knew if you didn’t make it, you’d disappear off the face of the earth. But even that isn’t something I’m concerned about. Death doesn’t concern me anymore. I’m not afraid of it like I was before because of what happened to my mother. It wasn’t love that killed my mother; it was my father. I know now that I’m in love myself. And while love is certainly capable of killing, there’s something else that’s more important to me: him.
“Do you…” I go to swallow, but my throat is too dry. “Do you make them… Were you going to…”
Kill him?
I can’t say it, but he gets it. And locking his gaze tight with mine, he shakes his head. “Mars. He likes to do his own dirty work.”
At last, ever since we arrived at this cabin and saw that man tied up through the window, I breathe in a sigh of relief. It’s so huge that my entire body seems to have taken part in it. Even the tips of my fingers and my toes.
I don’t care what’s happening at Rawhide. I don’t care how many laws these cowboys are breaking, I just don’t want him involved in it. Not because him being a killer would diminish my love for him, but because I don’t think he’d be able to live with himself if he took a life.
I know he wanted to eight years ago, but I don’t think he’d ever be able to come back from that. The reason that goodness in him survived the fire was because he failed to get the job done, and God, I’m thankful for it. I am even if it makes me the most selfish person in the world, but I don’t want my Arsen changing, not even a little bit. Which means it’s even more imperative that I find a way to stop him. He’s the one who needs to be set free from this anger, this fire inside of him, this pain that’s making him do this.
“So now you know,” he says finally. “There’s your fuckin’ leverage. Keep it. Use it. Do whatever the fuck you want with it.” Then, for the first time since he arrived at the scene, he looks away from me and commands to Rad, “Take ’em back.”
With that, he heads to the door. Or starts to, but I say, “It’s my fault too.”
He stops in his tracks, his gaze coming back to me, emotionless now. Hard and dark. But still I continue, “I thought… I thought it was over.”
There’s nothing on his face or his body that says he heard me, let alone understood me. But I have to keep going: “When you dropped me off at the main house. This morning.”
Again, he gives me no reaction, and I’m hoping that’ll change soon because I’m blushing like crazy. I can feel the other two people, Peyton specifically, staring at me with wide eyes. Wide, questioning eyes. But I can’t think about that right now. I have to forge ahead. “And then you didn’t show up for lunch or for dinner and… You never came back to the main house and I thought”—a deep breath—“I thought after what happened this morning that it was over.”
Finally, he breaks his silence and utters one word: “Over.”
Oh, thank God. At least he’s saying something. It doesn’t matter that he still looks detached from the situation, aloof and cool. I’m just glad he’s listening to me.
I wipe my hands on my jeans. “Yes, I thought you didn’t want me anymore. And Peyton’s right. I didn’t want her to do this but maybe somewhere in my head, I was m-mad at you. I was mad that… you didn’t care. You didn’t… You didn’t think about me all day like I thought about you and so maybe I came here because I knew it’d piss you off. If you cared about me, that is, and… It was a mistake. I didn’t think it through. I didn’t think things would end up like they did. So it’s my fault too and I…”
It is, and I’m only finding it out now. I’m finding out that when it comes to him, I’m all emotion and no thought. I’m all heart and no head. All love and no care.