Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
I could see the laughter in Mario’s eyes as he saw the terror in mine.
He enjoyed the terror.
It made him happy.
“Get in,” Mario said as he got out of the car and held the back door open for me.
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t leave my car here overnight or I’ll get a ticket.”
Which was the truth.
I’d gotten one the last time he’d forced me to go with him.
Not that I had my car this time, but he didn’t need to know that.
“I’m sure that your daddy will pay the fine.”
He would.
But he’d punch me in the face for getting one in the first place.
Why did I know that?
Because the man that I called father had done it the first time.
“He’ll hurt me,” I tried.
Mario’s eyes gleamed. “I’m sure he won’t.”
I’m sure he would…
“Can I follow you?” I asked. “I swear I’ll go wherever you want to go.”
Lie.
We both knew it to be a lie.
If he let me get into my car, I’d drive off and not look back.
“Get in.”
I swallowed hard.
“No.”
I could practically see the adrenaline flood Mario’s system.
I’d watched it happen so many times that I knew exactly what would happen next.
He didn’t disappoint.
He moved fast, like lightning, and launched himself at me.
I got maybe two steps away when he caught me around the waist and threw me bodily into the car.
Small and curvy, I wasn’t necessarily a doll to be throwing around.
Yet, Mario picked me up and launched me inside the car like I weighed nothing more than air.
I hit the other side of the car door on the inside with a solid thud, my head connecting with the armored glass.
I cried out in pain as Mario climbed into the car on top of me, yanking me down so I was lying flat across the back seat.
I screamed and punched, kicked and bit, scratched and fought all to no avail.
He was bigger, stronger, and he’d done this before.
He knew what he was doing.
He knew how to subdue a fighting woman.
He knew what he needed to do to make me obey.
He caught my wrists and held them up high over my head.
I glanced a look to the side to see what Dario was doing and found him scrolling on his phone, bored.
As if he couldn’t care less that his brother was about to rape someone in the back seat.
I heard him turn on a video and laugh.
Anger surged inside of me, and a punch of adrenaline rocketed through me.
“Stop!” I screamed and pushed as hard as I could.
He went backward slightly and hit his head on the roof.
When he came back down, he was grinning and reaching for his pants.
“No!” I screamed. “Stop! No!”
His body was viciously yanked backward out of the open car door behind him. He hit the ground with a solid thump, and I gasped in shock at the large man standing over Mario’s prone body.
Coffee shop guy.
Dario, finally realizing something was wrong—well, wrong for him in terms of Mario not hurting me any longer—turned and surveyed what was going on outside the car.
He reached forward and caught his seat belt.
I don’t know what came over me.
I seriously don’t.
But I reacted before I could think too hard on it.
The moment his belt let loose, I reached for it and wrapped it around his head twice.
He wasn’t expecting it, so I was able to loop it twice before I hauled it backward with every ounce of strength that I had, pulling so hard that the edges of the belt started to make my hands bleed.
I pulled and pulled.
Dario struggled and struggled.
The stupid video that he’d been watching played in the background on repeat.
His struggles started to slow, and soon he wasn’t doing anything but sitting there limp.
“Hey,” a calm male voice in the middle of my deep, dark, turbulent sea said. “You okay?”
I pulled myself viciously from that flashback, cursing myself for letting my mind go there.
It’d been five years, and that night still gave me terrors.
It didn’t help that my brother never let me forget it.
And tonight I had to have dinner with the asshole.
A mandatory dinner that I would never hear the end of if I didn’t attend.
I didn’t know why they wanted me there.
It wasn’t like it was pleasant for anyone.
My dad thought that I was a failure.
My mom went along with it because it was easier than getting her face bashed in for supporting me.
And my brother? Well, he actually liked me being there. But only because he got to torture me in person instead of leaving me presents to find. Or making it hard for me to find a job in this town.
I’d already been let go from the hospital, a doctor’s office, and an outpatient surgery center.
Though my brother let me get established, make friends, before he went and ruined it for me.