Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 79020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
It makes me wonder what else she gets sloppy with. Is she involved? Does she lure unexpecting women into sexual slavery? Does she coo and flirt with men, convince them to meet her after work, only telling them there's a fee right as she's unzipping their pants?
The way she continues to grin at me makes my skin begin to crawl with a different kind of urgency.
"Beer. Bottle. Cap on," I repeat.
This time she dips her head in a nod, and I fight the urge to stare at her ass when she turns around. I let my eyes float down the bar.
A man sitting on the end dips his head—what normal people do when a big surly motherfucker catches them being nosy. It's what the bartender probably should've done rather than grinning at me like she's found her next mark.
I pull a ten from my wallet, leaving it waiting on the bar when she turns back to hand me my beer.
"Here you go, stranger," she says as she slides the beer across to me.
I take it and walk away, not giving her a response. I don't miss the way my heart pauses for a second while she's speaking.
The calmness inside of me only lasts as long as her voice does. Then the shadows and racing pulse take back over.
The only time I feel that sort of calm is when I'm coated in an evil man's blood, his life in my hands.
An eerie, ominous feeling washes over me as I pull out a pub chair in the far back corner of the bar, hating that it could be some sort of premonition about what that woman will mean to me. I've been very diligent about not hurting women. Even on my darkest days, it's never been something I’ve struggled with.
I watch her as she works, her smile wide for every person she speaks with. It was nothing special for me. She's working. It's that simple.
I can't shove away the idea that she could very easily end up at the tip of my blade because of her involvement with this place.
The glances my way never stop, but even as the night drags on, no one else steps out from the back. Once the older lady walked away, replaced by the smiling one, I never saw her again.
It's very possible that Tommy doesn't get involved in the day-to-day activities of this place. He could be as innocent as his lack of criminal history makes others believe. It's up to me to determine why this place was listed with others for Nathan Adair.
I leave the bar before the last two people do. I don't want to be here with only me and the smiling woman.
I sit in the shadows until everyone else gets into their cars and drive home for the night, leaving without waiting for her to exit the building.
Chapter 2
Zara
I don't know why I reach for the rearview mirror, turning it so I can see my reflection. All it does is make me realize I can already smell the inside of the bar on my clothes, despite them being fresh out of the wash. It seems as if the place is ingrained into my very being somehow.
Pushing a tendril of hair behind my ear, I stare at what little I can see of my face.
I told myself that I'd do better, that I'd make a concerted effort to start over and have a real life, but words aren't actions.
I should know. I listened to words for years. I believed what people told me.
I believed Billy when he said he had to work late at the garage. I believed him when he said perfume rubbed off on his clothes from driving a car around the block during an inspection.
I believed until I no longer cared what he was up to. I figured it was another woman, and since he wasn't coming to me for sex, I stopped caring altogether. It's not exactly how anyone would anticipate their marriage to lead them, when they said vows with such stars in their eyes the second they were legally old enough to go down to the courthouse and get a marriage license. The hearts, rainbows, flowers, and stars in our eyes faded quickly once we realized that being adults wasn't all it was cut out to be.
The constant fight to keep the lights on became the focus, both of us working as much as we could to be successful in life. Although, by the time everything blew up in my face, we were practically living as roommates and leading different lives.
We were ten years into our marriage when I was left wishing it was only another woman. There were affairs. The numerous women who showed up on my doorstep looking for him after he was arrested for selling drugs proved that.