Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“Are you working for anyone in the Worthing family?”
“Have you installed listening devices on Trace’s phone or anywhere on his property?”
“What information did you tell your team leader about us?”
“Are you working with the police in gathering evidence against Trace?”
“Did you give our locations to any member of the government? Were you taken in for any questioning regarding us?”
He asked the questions over and over again. Everything. Anything. For hours, in between times when they would waterboard me. Experiencing almost drowning over and over again had an effect on a person. I’d aged twenty years over the last three hours.
Or the last few hours.
I had no idea what time it was, but it was starting to get light out. I was guessing it was six in the morning. Maybe five.
I touched my nails, felt how cold they were from my own touch.
“Are you planning on turning evidence on Trace?”
“Are you helping to build a case against him?”
“Did you agree to work undercover against the West family?”
They checked my pulse every time they asked.
They waterboarded me.
They stopped, asked me questions. Checked my pulse again.
They repeated it over and over again until I realized what they had done.
I was conditioned so that if they asked a question I knew would get me in trouble, my pulse would jump at the thought of the waterboarding. It took a long time, but it was effective. I had nothing to hide, but if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to hold it back.
I might’ve fallen asleep.
I must’ve because I woke as I was under the covers, curled on my side in a fetal position, and when I heard the door creak open, I almost pissed the bed. I was terrified but too terrified to leave this bed to relieve myself.
If Ashton hadn’t hated me before, it wouldn’t matter now. I hated him.
He’d reduced me to the six-year-old I used to be, and he’d become my father.
I gritted my teeth, tasting my own tears, and fuck him. Fuck them.
I didn’t move, hearing whoever came toward the bed.
They didn’t touch the bed. They didn’t touch me, but it was Ashton. “Leave Trace alone. After this, when you go back, don’t see him. Don’t call him. Don’t show up anywhere he’ll be. You’re fired from the nightclub.”
God.
He was gutting me alive. That’s how it felt.
“Trace has no idea about any of this, and he won’t because you’re not going to tell him. You proved tonight that you can’t separate him from what he does.” He turned, going for the door. The floor creaked underneath him until I heard his pause again. “You’re not the snitch, but you’re not far from one either.”
I held my breath, my heart pounding against my sternum, until he went all the way downstairs.
I could hear conversation beneath me.
There were voices from outside.
Then, more voices outside, and a door shut beneath me. It was loud enough to shake the house.
I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t. Not yet.
A car started.
Car doors were opened, then shut.
Tires moved over gravel.
Then silence.
Nothing.
I bolted for the bathroom, falling into the shower as my bladder released at the same time I vomited, emptying out everything that was inside of me. Including me.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
JESS
A month later
My phone started ringing as I was balancing a box in my arms, stepping onto the front porch.
Molly came over, pulled my phone out of my back pocket, and showed me the screen.
Trace calling.
“Ignore it.”
She hit decline, put the phone back in my pocket, and opened the door for me.
Of all the places I was moving into, yeah. I couldn’t begin to explain it.
“That’s like the third call he’s made just today, and I’ve only been around you for an hour.”
I gave her a look, taking my box into my mom’s kitchen.
Yes. My mom’s house. The joke was on me, in so many ways.
She looked around the house, noting the musty smell. “Your mom’s where again?”
I hesitated as I put the box on the table and turned right around, heading back for more.
She followed me, taking one of the lighter boxes. “She’s in rehab,” I said as I went back up the sidewalk and into the house.
“You’re moving in to take care of the place. Also, I knew about the rehab, but you hadn’t officially told me, so you know, being considerate here.”
I flashed her a grin and indicated she could put the box on the floor. I put mine down, and we were heading right back. Only about thirty trips left to go. Or sixty-nine trips. I was trying not to count.
“Yeah, well, she’s not here, and I can’t afford my rent anymore, not on my own. So here I am. Moving in here and hoping my mother doesn’t kick me out when she finds out.”
She grunted. “No shit. My dad did that to me one time, pulled a shotgun on me and everything. Saturday-morning breakfast has never been the same between us.”