Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
“We’re all dead if you do. Promise me. Fucking promise me.”
Logan couldn’t form the words on his tongue. Couldn’t tell a lie that great. Because he had to get to her. To his girl and his baby.
Little Star.
He curled in on himself as they traveled through the night.
It passed one a.m.
She’d be waiting for him.
Terrified.
He called from somewhere near Sacramento when Trent stopped for gas, hidden away in the bathroom so his brothers wouldn’t know.
There was no answer.
His spirit screamed.
He tried again the next day and the next.
He called and called for what felt like forever.
He begged the heavens for guidance.
For his Little Star to know he would come for her.
“Even if I can’t see you, I’ll know you’re there, and I’ll find my way to you.”
It took him two months to slip away from Trent’s paranoid eye. He sneaked away with the stone necklace and the ring he’d purchased the week before.
He would go to her father. He would present the one stone he possessed to Andres Costa that he’d been charged to protect and explain to him what had happened that horrible night.
His guts clenched because he still didn’t know Jarek’s fate. If he were alive or if that bullet had put him in the ground.
It didn’t matter, he would beg for a chance.
For a chance to love and protect Aster, swear he would never make that kind of mistake again.
He would give her a good life. A better life. Away from the evil that lurked in that place, just like she’d first begged him to do.
When he got there, it didn’t take long until she wandered out to their secret spot.
Only tears covered her face, and her stomach was flat.
He fumbled out from his hiding place.
Shock filled her face before it twisted with horror.
Or maybe it was the horror that consumed him. The way his knees wobbled in a slash of pain, and the words pitched from his mouth on a plea. “The baby.”
“I got rid of it,” she hissed in disgust and anger, though the words hitched in her throat midway, and she held her middle, too.
Grief whorled through the air as he struggled to process what she’d said.
The hate that had come with it.
He stumbled to the side.
He was going to pass out.
He couldn’t stand.
He gripped both sides of his head. “What are you saying, Aster? What the fuck are you saying? Tell me you didn’t. Oh, fuck, please.”
Sickness flooded his bloodstream.
Their dreams flickered through his mind in black and white.
As if it’d all been imagined.
Unreal.
It was then he noticed the ring that glinted on her finger.
“What the fuck is that?” Pain wheezed out with it, fury following close behind.
“I’m Jarek Urso’s wife. What did you think, you could crawl back here, and I’d just be waiting for you? How could you come here? After what you did? You stole from my father. You killed my uncle.”
Logan’s head shook. “No.”
Her face pinched in a disjointed revulsion. “You chose to leave, Logan. You chose this.”
Logan stumbled forward. “No, Aster. No. I told you I’d come back to you. That even if I couldn’t see you, I would find my way back to you. You promised.”
Her eyes slammed closed when he grabbed her by the upper arms.
Shivers rushed over her flesh, and she tore herself from his grasp.
“Don’t touch me. I belong to Jarek now.”
“Aster.” Her name scraped from his soul. “No, fuck, please.”
He couldn’t fathom it.
What she was saying.
What she had done.
She hugged her arms over her chest. “It was just a stupid fantasy, Logan. I belong here. With Jarek. I’m a Costa princess, and thanks to you, my uncle is dead, and it’s time I took my rightful spot.”
She believed that? How could she fucking believe a word Jarek would feed her?
“Aster, no, listen to me.”
She recoiled when he grappled to take hold of her again, and her voice twisted with spite. “Don’t touch me! Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Me. You were never good enough for me, and we both know it.”
Agony spiraled with the anger. “Are you fucking kidding me? I would have died for you.”
“That’s good because you’re dead to me.” She took a step away. “I hate you, Logan Lawson, and I don’t want to ever see you again.”
“Aster.”
“Go! Do you hear me? I hate you. I hate what you did. I hate who you are. Just…go.”
She turned and rushed back into the foliage.
Numbness seeped into his bloodstream as he watched her go.
Dimness clawed.
He’d lost it all for her.
His brother.
Now his child.
Every hope now slayed.
He vomited the sickness onto the ground.
And as he reached into his pocket and curled his hand around the stone, he let bitterness take over every spot where Aster Rose had existed.
He let hatred reign, and he promised himself he would never be in the same position again. He wouldn’t stop until he held the power. Until who he was counted. Until he had everything.