His Passion Read Online Free PDF Page B

us to rescue her.
    I opened the door...and knew that wasn't the case.
    The Brittany I remembered had the cocky arrogance of youth. She held her head high, throwing in digs while she took my money and handed me my wife like she was some almighty power.
    The Brittany before me was a ghost of the girl I'd met on that road a month ago. Her electric locks had been shaved off. Her face was so swollen and bruised she was barely recognizable. She was dressed in some torn pink chemise, the front streaked with blood. The visible skin of her arms and legs were covered with painful cuts and marks. A man stood near the window, the doors to a Juliet balcony thrown open as he smoked his cigarette.
    He staggered, the smell of the alcohol pungent even from several feet away. The broken glass from the bottle crunched as he swayed toward us. His lip was busted, his teeth bloodied as he smiled at us.
    Maybe the blood was his... It brought me a small measure of comfort.
    “You guys are a little late for the party,” he slurred, glass crunching beneath his shoes as he leered at us. “This little bitch has fight in her.”
    Brittany seemed out of it, clutching the sides of her head like she was on a roller coaster and just wanted to be still.
    I looked to Lars, who just stood there like he was watching it all from the audience with a bucket of popcorn.
    Cole was devastated.
    His mouth hung open in horror, the hand that held the gun shaking uncontrollably.
    Brittany’s eye that wasn't swollen shut fixed on him and she said his name. “C-Cole?”
    He snapped.
    I heard it, the literal break as he slammed the butt of the gun into the back of Lars' head and the stocky man slumped to the floor like he weighed nothing at all.
    The other man was too drunk or stupid to realize that jumping from the balcony would have been a mercy.
    In a blur of movement Cole grabbed him, the cigarette sizzling as it connected with his forehead. He slammed the man into the wall and his fists met flesh, each sound more absolute than the last.
    The man had no face. It was just a mass of flesh and bone. And Cole would beat him until there was nothing left.
    The rage I felt when I thought he'd hurt my wife...the same bloodlust that swept me up and almost made me commit murder had possessed him.

Chapter Seventeen
    “B reathe...just breathe.”
    Rubber squealed, the SUV flopping like a fish out of water as I took the curb, flying out the gate with a swarm of unhappy guards in the rear view.
    When I glanced back, I barely saw the men at all, likely on orders to follow us, reclaim Lars' property, then wipe me and my brother from the face of the earth. I saw Cole, cradling his sister like she was something precious. Fragile. Breakable.
    Not just breakable. Broken.
    And my heart cracked for what she’d gone through.
    I knew what they'd done. Brittany had plotted, drugged, and terrorized Leila. While Cole's role in the whole affair wasn't what it seemed, he'd still played a role. They were guilty as sin.
    But it was I who felt guilty as I looked at them now. Brittany couldn't stop shivering, her sobs rocking through her petite frame and filling the air with her pain. Cole had her wrapped in his coat, holding her close as he cried silently too, swearing she was okay now. She was safe. The parallels between his words, his need to comfort someone he loved and my trying to comfort Leila wasn't lost on me. And just like my words and love couldn't fix Leila, I knew that no matter how much he loved his sister, he couldn't fix what had been broken.
    She curled herself into a ball, her words wrapped in tears and ache. “I told you not to come here.”
    I arched an eyebrow, a flash of indignation dimming my moment of empathy. Generally, when one is saved from an awful situation, one says thank you or shows some semblance of gratitude. But she was collecting herself, her sobs reduced to sniffles. Her body still shuddered but she fixed her eye on her brother. I turned my attention back to