Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
The pain is everywhere, inside and outside, in the very air I breathe. I’m torched alive in scorching flames. I don’t know where I get the strength from, but I manage to twist around and kick him in the gut. He stumbles back, hitting the desk. Using the chance, I crawl on my hands and knees, sticky wetness trickling over my back and sides and soaking my dress where my skin is on fire.
I dare a frantic glance over my shoulder. My father looks dazed, surprised, but he shakes himself out of it and comes after me again. I claw harder, breaking my nails on the carpet as I fight for traction.
Just as he grabs my ankle, the door opens. Leander stands on the threshold, taking in the scene with a slack jaw.
I reach for my brother. “Help me!”
Leander rushes forward.
“Hold her down,” my father spits out. “The whore got herself pregnant with a bastard.”
Leander hurries to obey, grabbing my arms and stretching them above my head.
“No,” I scream, sobbing hysterically.
“Give me his name,” my father yells.
My vision blurs, drifting in and out of focus.
“The bitch fainted,” Leander says, flipping me onto my back.
My father stands over me, staring down at me with loathing. “You can make this stop. Just give me his name.”
Fighting for lucidity, I summon all the strength I have left to give my father my answer. “Never.”
“Son of a bitch,” he snarls. “Very well. Turn the slut over.”
I don’t know how long my torture continues before my mom appears in the door frame in her bathrobe.
“What’s going on?” She’s tying the belt on her robe. “I thought I heard—”
Her gaze falls on me where my upper body sticks out from behind the sofa.
She utters a cry that has the power to tear the sky in two and rushes inside before falling onto her knees next to me.
Her crazed scream is aimed at my father. “What have you done? What have you fucking done?”
My cheek rests on the carpet, stuck there in a mixture of blood and tears, my mouth open but no sound coming out any longer.
My father throws the whip aside and adjusts his cuffs. His chest is rising and falling rapidly from the exertion of beating me.
Sneering, he walks to his desk. “Get your slut of a daughter out of my sight before I kill her.”
He grabs the bottle of vodka and pours half a glass. He’s barely swallowed it down before he pours another.
My mother turns her ashen, tear-streaked face to Leander. “And you.” Upper lip curling and nostrils flaring, she spits on his handmade Italian shoes. “You make me regret the day I gave birth to you.”
Leander wilts under her stare, for the first time in his life looking ashamed.
My mother pushes to her feet, her eyes glittering with something akin to violence. “Help me get her to the car.”
Leander doesn’t argue. He hoists me up with his hands under my armpits.
Always the one to take charge in a crisis, my mom rushes ahead. “Take my car keys. Meet me downstairs.”
My father scowls at her as he sips his drink.
Leander avoids the elevator. He half-carries, half-drags me down the stairs to the underground parking lot and puts me on my stomach on the back seat of my mom’s car.
Leaning a hand on the roof, he leans inside. “You’ve got to make this right, sis. You’ll get rid of the baby and marry Joni Stein, or I’ll cut that bastard out of your stomach myself. Joni doesn’t need to know you’re damaged goods. There are operations that can fix that, that can make you bleed like a pig when your husband fucks you.” He bares his teeth in an ugly grin. “Yeah, Joni will like that. No one has to know you’re a whore.”
My mom comes running from the elevator, looking like a ghost. She’s thrown on a dress and a pair of shoes in a hurry. The buttons down the front of her dress are fitted in the wrong holes, and her hair is uncombed.
Leander shuts the back door, smiling at me as if we’re sharing a secret.
My mom throws her handbag on the passenger seat and starts the engine. Leander makes as if to get in, but she pulls away with screeching tires before he can reach for the door handle.
“Hold on, Tiana,” she sobs, watching the rearview mirror. “You hang in there, do you hear me?”
I wake up under blinding lights in a bed in a white room. The smell of my mom’s rose-scented bath products is comforting amidst the faint odor of disinfectant that hangs in the air. So is the warm, soft hand that’s wrapped around mine.
“Tiana,” my mom whispers.
Her face comes into focus as she bends over me. Her vivid blue eyes are shining with tears. They always look like the color of a sapphire ocean when she cries.