Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
If tonight was the night of swallowing my pride for the sake of my daughter, I knew somewhere else I could take her.
Somewhere that she would be cared for and appreciated.
Somewhere that wouldn’t make me feel like dirt on the bottom of a shoe.
“Don’t ever come back here,” Travis called as I reached to open the front door.
He always liked to have the last word.
But just this once, it was mine.
“If I ever come back here again, I’m taking all of this from you,” I said, watching his face fall, knowing it was possible.
I didn’t mean it.
I never wanted to see him again.
But I wanted those words to roll around in his head every night before he fell asleep. I wanted them to haunt his dreams. I wanted him to forever be looking over his shoulder in fear that I would make good on that threat.
Because we both knew it wasn’t just his daughter’s care and keeping and schooling I could make him pay for.
It was every shady, underhanded deal I knew about. Every time he lied to a collaborator. Every dirty little secret he kept. Every carefully stacked lie he built his little empire on.
I could expose it all.
I could burn it all down.
And the only thing keeping me from doing it was the fear of him leveraging custody or visitation with Lainey against me.
But still.
I wanted him to sweat.
I wanted him to know what it was like to be under someone else’s thumb.
I wanted him to be afraid each time he thought of me and what he put me through.
And I never, ever wanted to see him again.
“Well, that was the closure I didn’t know I needed,” I told Lainey as I strapped her back into her seat.
I climbed over from the passenger side seat into the driver’s, worried that if I slammed the driver’s side door too many times, that spiderwebbing on the glass might fully shatter.
Then I reversed away from my old life for the last time.
And drove all the way back to Golden Glades.
And the one person I knew, despite whatever might be going on between us, would help me and my daughter.
No questions.
No demands.
No guilt.
“Want to see Coast again, baby?” I asked Lainey.
“Ooh,” she hooted back.
“Yeah, me too.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Coast
The ride didn’t do shit for my mind or my mood. But at least it kept me out of the clubhouse and away from the guys with their questioning eyes and probing questions.
When I made my way back, the party had mostly died down.
Velle was still at the pool with his music and several of the women who didn’t make their way upstairs with one of the brothers.
I underestimated him when it came to his particular kind of charm with the opposite sex.
Because he had three girls hanging on his every word. Two were on the loungers to the side of him. One was resting against his chest.
Did it sort of have ‘cult leader’ vibes? Sure. But you had to respect his game.
I offered him a nod before making my way through the back door and into the kitchen.
Eddie had already put the food away and headed home for the night. The dishwasher was humming and sloshing its way through a cycle as I walked over to Mackie’s cage and carefully shut him in for the night. He was already asleep inside, his head tucked into his back, feathers all fluffed up.
Upstairs, various stereos and TVs were playing, masking whatever extracurricular activities were going on behind closed doors.
I knew I should go right out the back door, make eye contact with one of the girls, and nod her into the clubhouse, take her up to bed, then try to fuck Zoe’s memory out of me.
But I knew that wasn’t even remotely possible. So I grabbed a sports drink out of the fridge and used it to wash down one of Eddie’s brownies he had left on a tray on the counter. He didn’t even bother to cover them, knowing they would be gone before the end of the night.
I was still polishing off my drink when there was a knock at the front door. Tentative at first, then harder and more desperate.
My gaze flicked to the clock.
No one good would be calling at that time of night.
I walked across the kitchen, reaching up to the top shelf in the pantry for the gun I knew was hiding there, then made my way to the front of the house.
I kept the gun hidden as I reached to open the door, not wanting cops to see it if it was them darkening our doorstop.
But I damn near dropped the thing when I saw who was standing there instead.
“Zo?” I asked, not quite believing I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. It was the raw vulnerability in Zoe’s eyes that had the relief washing away, getting instantly replaced with concern instead. “What happened?”