Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
As much as it would have been nice to find him on the first night looking, I’d known going in that it wasn’t realistic to believe that would happen.
So I made my way home, telling myself that any progress was something to be happy about. Eventually, I would have hit all of the bodegas in that area. I’d see Kyle. I’d follow him at a safe distance. See where he went. Then, when there was no activity there, go snooping around.
A week or two, that was all I needed.
Even if my stomach twisted at the idea of my brother being in that basement for that long.
That amount of time would also make it so that Kyle started to trust me, to believe I was just going along with the plan, that I wasn’t trying to fight back against him.
After all, Kyle was used to me doing that.
Submitting.
Obeying.
It would be natural for him to think I’d fallen into old patterns.
But I wasn’t the woman I’d been when I was living under his thumb. Everything about me screamed to rebel, to fight. To the death, if necessary. I’d done it before—or so I thought—and I could do it again.
Everything about my new life was fighting against who I used to be. Wearing the things I liked, not what Kyle approved of. Putting on makeup. Dyeing my hair an unnatural color. Standing up for myself. Even just with handsy customers at work.
The trick was retaining my new strength while outwardly appearing like my old, more timid, self.
I was two feet inside my apartment when there was a knock.
My heartbeat punched against my ribcage and my stomach turned upside down as I walked silently over to the door to look out of the peephole.
Then there he was.
Not Kyle, like I was dreading.
Rico.
I should have pretended like I wasn’t home, gone into my bedroom and fought the urge to invite him in.
But before I could even finish that thought, let alone find the resolve to carry through with it, my hand was lifting and I was sliding the chain, then the lock, and opening the door.
“Did I catch you before you made another of those god-awful frozen pizzas?” he asked as he stepped into my apartment, seeming comfortable inviting himself inside, being in my world.
“Ah, yeah, I, er, just got in from… running some errands. I haven’t even fed Evander yet,” I added.
As if on cue, something from the counter in the kitchen smashed onto the floor.
“Yeah, he’s got feelings about that,” Rico said, a little smirk toying with his lips as he walked over to greet the cat. “Let’s get you squared away so we can eat,” he told the cat as he went about getting his food and milk. “So,” he continued, looking over at where I was still kind of frozen a foot inside of the door. “Food?”
“I could eat,” I agreed, even if I knew I needed to keep my distance. I didn’t seem to have any defenses when it came to Rico.
“You feeling like going out or staying in?”
Considering Kyle or his cronies might be watching me at any time? “Staying in.”
Rico reached for his phone, finding the food delivery app, and coming over toward me, both of us looking over the options before settling on Italian.
“You’re freezing,” Rico said as his hand grazed mine.
“Yeah, I was, you know… walking around.”
Rico reached out, tugging down the zipper of my jacket, then sliding it off and leading me over to the couch, pulling me down next to him, then tucking one of my hands between his thighs and warming the other with both of his hands.
“Where’d you go?” Rico asked into the silence of my apartment.
“Huh?”
“Errands,” he clarified.
“Oh, the convenience store,” I said.
“You don’t have any bags,” he pointed out, making panic surge.
I tamped it down. “They didn’t have what I was looking for,” I said, again, telling the truth.
“What were you looking for?”
“Oh, I really like dulce de leche ice cream,” I told him. “Not many places carry it.”
I was getting good at telling half-truths.
Considering the predicament I was in, I should have been happy about that. But I really didn’t want to get good at lying. Least of all to Rico, who’d been nothing but good to me.
Rico’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He released my hand to fetch it. I took the opportunity to reach for the remote and start to click through the options to stream before settling on some drama that I’d been meaning to watch but hadn’t gotten around to.
We sat in comfortable silence, bodies close, watching for a bit until Rico demanded I pause it so he could run downstairs to grab the food.
I didn’t stop to think how dangerous it was for Rico to be coming and going from my building until he was out of my apartment. What if Kyle’s guys saw him? What if they got ideas about me stealing more from him? Like those expensive watches or necklaces he was always wearing.