Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
He’s my best friend’s hot older brother, and I am the weird redhead who low-key follows him everywhere. He’s soccer’s bad boy, and I am stuck in a dead end job, serving drinks at the local strip club.
Our paths aren’t meant to cross.
Until one day I catch him getting a lap dance at the club and jealousy makes me ruin his fun.
Now he’s made it his mission to make my life hell and no matter what I do, there is no escape.
Everywhere I turn, there he is, waiting for his payback.
He threatens to kiss me one second, and choke me the next.
He promises to bring me to my knees and make me beg.
What started as a little harmless prank turns into a twisted game of blackmail that’s toxic but oh-so-good.
But it has to end.
Because I have a secret...
That ties me to my tormentor in an irrevocable way, and if he ever finds out, it will wreck everything I now crave.
Even his revenge.
This is a STANDALONE set in the world of Bardstown
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue I
Nine Years Ago
He’s drunk again.
I can hear his footsteps. Loud and stumbling. I can also hear his voice, muttering to himself as he opens and closes the cupboard in the kitchen. I’d wonder why no one else in the house can hear him except me, but I already know why. My younger sister, Snow, is sleeping in the room beside mine, and she can sleep through thunderstorms. And my mother probably took her sleeping pills before going to bed and I know from experience she won’t wake up until morning. Sometimes she doesn’t wake up until the afternoon. We sometimes see her stumbling around the kitchen with her coffee when we come back from school, my sister and I.
Which means I’m on my own.
If something happens, that is.
If he decides tonight’s the night he wants to do something. Something more. Something like turning the doorknob and opening the door to get inside my room. Because usually on nights like these, when he comes home drunk from God knows where and makes his way up the creaking stairs, he stops at my door. He breathes, heavy and loud, sometimes frantic. I hear rustling of clothes. I hear movements, fast and quick. Of his chest maybe, his hands, I don’t know. All I know is that I count the seconds until he moves on and goes to his own bedroom, passing out beside my mother.
Before waking up the following morning all fresh and chirpy, making pancakes for all of us, acting like last night never happened. Like he never called home to say he was going to be late coming back from his job. And that he never came home drunk and stood at my door for minutes on end while my heart raced and I gripped a baseball bat that I stole from school in my hands, just waiting for him to do more than stand outside my door. Like he’s the best husband in the world, the best father.
He’s not.
He’s my stepfather, and he’s a very shitty one at that.
It’s not new knowledge; I’ve always known it. I knew it when my mother brought him home and told us she was going to marry this man. I was about six or so and Snow was only two. I didn’t know why I thought he wasn’t a good man; I just did. But when I told my mother, she didn’t listen to me. She said I was making things up, that I was ruining things for her. She said that my biological father was gone now and my stepdad was going to take care of us. At the time I hadn’t understood why my biological dad went away.
But then years later I found out my mother had an affair with my stepfather while still being married to my biological dad. My dad found out, and divorced my mother, leaving me and Snow alone. Even though I made him promise that he’d visit, he never did. And that’s because my mom’s betrayal had been bigger than an affair. She also got pregnant from it and tried to pass Snow off as my dad’s daughter. So when Dad left, he left for good.
And now here I am.
Outsider in my own family. Abandoned by my real dad, hated by my mother and still hating my asshole stepfather and waiting for the said asshole to move on from my door that he’s started pausing at ever since I had my twelfth birthday, and make his drunken way to his bedroom.
I’m not afraid for myself though. I’m not afraid of him coming into my room in the middle of the night to do bad things. Things that I’ve seen on TV and read about. Things that girls talk about at my school that they do with boys behind the bleachers. I’ve got a baseball bat, remember? I’m more worried about Snow. She’s only eight, and what if he starts pausing at her door? She doesn’t know how to protect herself. She doesn’t even know about our stepdad’s drinking problem. No one does, and even if I told my mom, she wouldn’t believe me. Which is why I’ve taken to sneaking into Snow’s room after she’s fallen asleep and sleeping on the floor to keep watch.
Not tonight though.
Tonight, I have a mission. I’m going to change things.
As soon as I hear my stepfather’s footsteps receding, I break into action. I jump out of bed and stow the baseball bat under it. I head to my window and climb, grabbing hold of the tree branch before making my way down to the ground. I do it with an ease that suggests I’ve been sneaking out of my second-story bedroom window for years.
I haven’t.
I’ve only been doing it for a few months, because we’re new in town. Apparently, my stepfather got a new job in town six months ago and my mother packed us up from Pennsylvania and moved us all to Bardstown.