AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She was willing to let a woman bleed so a monster would die.
He appreciated that within her, respected that—with anyone that wasn’t his woman. And Anastasia was his.
He’d known this, of course, since the beginning. He hadn’t understood it. The visceral part of him had discovered that. Fuck, Duke had winced for each of his friends as they’d experienced their own courtships. It wasn’t just the unexplainable connection that the men felt with the women, it was that each of the women encountered hurt, pain and situations that left scars. He saw them every day. Even though that shit was behind each of them, even though they slept with their women every night, had families, Duke saw that shit. How it had marked them.
And yeah, the payoff was arguably worth it, but Duke hadn’t felt eager to get into that impossible shit. He’d been perfectly content with the lifestyle he’d been living.
Until Anastasia.
Then the switch went off and the choice was taken from him. It sounded fucking pathetic and unrealistic, that instant connection, that knowing. But it didn’t fucking matter what it sounded like. It was just what it was.
He knew that it would be hard with her. She’d be stubborn, guarded. Fuck, he didn’t blame her. Every new detail he found out about her past, her life, it cobbled together the image she worked so hard to portray. The one she’d perfected so well that it had even fooled Duke.
Until the ranch.
He hadn’t been lying to her that day with the sun setting over the fields, with her looking so fucking beautiful it had hurt his heart—you couldn’t lie under Montana skies.
So he’d braced, prepared himself for the shit his friends went through. Technically, they were already in the middle of shit, but he had faith in the Greenstone Security team and himself to keep her safe. With the updates he’d been getting, Kitsch had been nowhere near getting info on her.
That was after they’d all fucked up with the assistant. Watching the pain etch into her very bones would be something he carried around forever.
None of them thought that Kitsch would be as bold or stupid to go that far. Mistakes in their business were rare, because when you made a mistake, someone could end up dead. They weren’t going to make that one again.
Or so they’d thought.
Duke had let the rhythm of the ranch, the breeze of Montana, and the company of his family lull him into a false sense of security. He forgot everything he’d learned watching all the other Greenstone courtships. It wasn’t always the outside forces that invited the most danger.
It was the women intent on fighting their own battles, or escaping relationships that scared them.
He wasn’t angry with Anastasia. He was furious at himself, and okay, slightly pissed at her.
Duke was planning on fucking her to get rid of the worst of it, then fucking her sweet later. Then a mix of the two for the rest of their lives—which would be long.
But he’d made another mistake. He realized that when he got out of the bathroom and was presented with an empty room.
I didn’t get far.
Because this time I didn’t steal Duke’s phone to call yet another queen-wearing designer to come and save me.
They’d done their part.
All of them.
They’d given me my life back. It was my responsibility to figure out what the heck to do with it now.
Apparently, what I did was run from B&B rooms without a key, a phone, a wallet or anything that would actually help me. It wasn’t smart. But I was too busy trying to hold a broken heart together, and it turned out movies were right about people who did that—they ended up doing stupid things.
The beach called to me because it was almost empty and there was a storm on the horizon. Barely any light was left from the sunset now, and I liked that. I didn’t want the beauty of it.
Salty air stained my skin as I sank down to my knees, staring at the waves. What was my plan now?
After Duke dropped me off at the house I owned, I’d be reunited with my phone. Most likely it would be full of emails, voicemails, alerts from news outlets wondering where the fuck I was. Not messages from Andre, though.
Pain hurtled through my body.
I’d have to go back to everything I knew that was missing—the only thing that mattered. For the sake of sanity, I skipped over that. I’d grieve with a bottle of vodka and some Valium later.
There would be interviews. I’d have to explain my absence one way or another, and then the police. Rosie had already assured me that nothing would trace back to me, and I trusted her. I figured someone like her, along with a notorious motorcycle gang would know how to cover up a murder.
