Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“She didn’t have a weapon,” Vega had told me once, talking about a case she’d seen on the news recently, “so she did what she had to do. She bit the head of his cock off as she damn near yanked his balls completely off his body. Then she ran for help.”
Anything could be a weapon if you tried hard enough. Even your own body. I had to keep that in mind. I couldn’t lose hope.
Intention and mindset could be thanked or blamed for the outcomes of so many situations.
“Yes, lied. To my motherfucking face,” the man snapped, his jaw so tight that his lips barely opened as he spat those words at me.
“What did I lie about?” I asked, trying to distract him, trying to get myself some extra time.
I shifted just a foot, but no more when his sharp gaze noticed the movement.
“Costa. You lied about Costa.”
Damnit.
“I couldn’t have known he was going to come to the shop while you were here,” I reminded him.
“I’m not fucking talking about that. Did it feel good?” he asked, making my spine stiffen.
“What?” I asked, tone an airy whisper. I could feel the heat bloom across my cheeks, and hated that transparency.
“Wasn’t asking if his cock felt good,” he said, eyes slitting. “I could hear you,” he added, making my stomach slosh around, the contents making their way down my throat. I had to concentrate to fight the sick back down. “I meant lying to me. Did that feel good?”
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insisted. Lying through my teeth, and we both knew it. But what could I say? That I’d been sleeping with the man he told me to stay away from? Risking my own and Vega’s safety in the process? Not likely.
“No?” he asked, pushing away from the table, and it took a lot of concentration not to start crying, shaking, begging for mercy. “You saying I didn’t see him fucking you?” he asked, reaching out to put his hand on the table. “Right here on this very table?” he clarified.
Oh, God.
This wasn’t happening.
This couldn’t be freaking happening.
“You think maybe I should take you here too?” he asked, making it feel like all the blood rushed out of my body. I swayed on my feet, too lightheaded to even think straight. “You know… to make things right,” he said, an evil smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Maybe you’d like my cock more than his,” he suggested, taking a step forward.
Everything in me screamed to run.
But I couldn’t seem to make my feet move.
Why the hell couldn’t I move?
The words came back to my mind, ones I’d read dozens of times, heard hundreds of times.
Frozen in fear.
I thought it was a colloquialism.
But it was real.
And I was experiencing it.
Even if I decided to run, I don’t think I could. I felt stuck to the ground, my limbs too heavy.
Suddenly, he was right in front of me, his hand lifted, reaching out to stroke down a handful of my hair.
“Nah,” he said, and up close, that smile was even more chilling even as I smelt the faint trace of cigarettes clinging to his breath. Mingled with the overpowering scent of his cologne, I could feel the sick rise in my throat again. “No. I want to take you somewhere real nice and private. Where I can listen to you scream for hours while I fuck you,” he said.
Just like that, my stomach roiled, the sick rose, and I threw up violently.
All over me.
Over him.
He let out a shocked, revulsed curse as he jerked back.
“The fuck? What the fuck,” he growled, his hands lifted, frozen, wanting to wipe the vomit off of him, but not wanting to touch it.
Suddenly, like the sickness had somehow healed me, my body unfroze.
I was still too far from the razor knives.
But there was a pair of scissors a few steps closer.
I ran toward it, knowing I didn’t have long.
He was too strong.
He would fight me off before I could do any damage to him.
I knew that.
But I also knew I needed someone to know that something had gone terribly wrong, that I needed help.
A sign.
Evidence.
My clammy fingers closed around the cold scissors, and I opened them wide in my hand, then dragged the somewhat dull blade across my own hand.
“Fucking crazy ass bitch,” the man hissed, grabbing and tossing the scissors, then reaching for the back of my neck.
I knew what would come next.
A slam.
Blackness.
Waking up somewhere else.
So I did what I could.
I took my bloody hand, feeling oddly numb to any pain, and dragged it across every surface I could.
Over the table, under, down the leg, on a box, over some white roses nearby.
Then there was harsh pressure on the back of my neck.
I watched in slow motion as my head flew forward toward the table.