Page 98 of Too Late

He hangs up the phone and calls his sister. “Hey,” he says. “I’m sending police to your house. Don’t freak out, I just need to make sure you’re okay.”

When he hangs up the phone, he says, “I’m sorry, Luke. There was no way I knew if he was lying or not. I couldn’t take any chances.”

“I would have done the same thing.”

Ryan makes sure Asa’s cuffs are secured to the mantel and then walks toward the door. “I’ll call the station and have this sorry fucker picked up. I’ll show them up. Keep your gun on him until they come get him.”

As soon as the door is shut, I pull Sloan to me, squeezing her, hugging her with everything in me. I hate that she had to go through all that just to get to this point. She must feel my apologies in the way I’m holding her, because she kisses my neck and says, “It’s okay. I know you were doing what you had to do.”

“Get away from her,” Asa grumbles. He’s handcuffed to the mantel, his jeans covered in the blood that’s coming from his legs. But he still doesn’t seem to care that he’s been shot three times. He’s staring at Sloan, rage in his eyes. I hold Sloan tighter so she’ll feel safe. All I can think about is Sloan and how relieved I am that this fucker is definitely going to prison now.

She’ll feel safer,but she still won’t feel vindicated.

FIFTY

ASA

Stupid cock-fuck. His hands are on her, his lips in her hair. My stomach feels like someone went after it from the inside with a fucking machete. Every time he touches her, I can taste vomit.

“Get your hands off her,” I demand.

Sloan’s eyes meet mine. She casually walks to the door and locks it, then walks back to Luke and presses her back to his chest. She pulls his arms around her waist. “I don’t want his hands off me,” she says.

My breathing is getting real fucking hard to control right now. She’s acting like she actually fuckingloveshim. I’ve never hated something this much. If it took me going to church just so I could believe in a hell Luke would rot in, I’d never miss a fucking service.

Luke’s eyes are locked with mine as he presses another kiss into her hair. I fucking gag.

“Sloan,” I say, my voice desperate. “Baby,stop. Stop letting him touch you like that, you don’t like it.” I’m yanking my wrists so hard, attempting to break this mantel, they start to bleed from the cuffs cutting into my skin.

She leans her head back until it’s resting on Luke’s shoulder, but she’s still staring down at me. “I hate you.”

I shake my head. “Stop, Sloan. Don’t talk like this to me, baby. You don’t mean it.”

“Every time I think about my first time with you, I throw up bile. It fucking burns my throat every time I think about how you took something so special from me and treated it like it was yours to do with as you pleased.”

Luke did this. He brainwashed her into believing that wasn’t love.

I feel stuff on my face. Wet shit. Tears. I’m gonna fucking kill him so slowly until he begs me to take his life.

“I hate you, Asa. I hate you so fucking much. When you would have sex with me, I would cry. When you would come to bed at night, I would pray that you didn’t put your hands on me. When you kissed me, I wondered if death tasted better than you.”

She squeezes Luke’s hand like she’s silently thanking him. Or maybe silently telling him she loves him.What has he done to her?She glances over her shoulder and looks at him for reassurance.

I can’t breathe.

My chest hurts.

She wraps her arms around his neck. “I love you,” she lies to him.

I bash my head against the mantel behind me as soon as I hear her saying those words to someone who isn’t me.

“I love you too, baby.”

I bash my head again for the second time.

Third time.

“I’ll love you forever, Luke.Onlyyou,” she says to him, ripping my heart straight out of my chest.

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