Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
And look at me. My life hadn’t turned out the way I’d wanted. I’d been beaten down and broken. Now, I had to find a way to put myself back together. I just didn’t know how to go about it.
I risked another glance at Rip’s office… and found him staring at me intently. Though I trembled and had to fight the overwhelming urge to run, I managed to hold his gaze. It was a risk. No man in Kiss of Death was safe. They protected us all, but they’d all killed. Some of them multiple times. But, to a man, they protected women and children. Rip wouldn’t hurt me or he wouldn’t be here.
Slowly, as if trying not to spook me, Rip stood. He took several tentative steps in my direction, stopping well away from the table where I sat.
“Someone hurt you.”
I nodded slowly. “Yes. Someone hurt me.”
“Did you kill them?” His voice was soft and rumbly. The sound reminded me of rolling thunder during a soft spring rain.
“No,” I answered, my voice unsteady as memories of the last time I’d seen Eric flooded my mind.
He grunted, frowning. “Someone else kill him?”
Again, I shook my head, this time in confusion. “Not that I know of.”
Again, he grunted and continued to watch me. I watched him back, not daring to move. Not because I feared him, but it felt like something was about to happen and if I broke the spell, it would vanish.
Finally, Rip shifted and half turned to go back to his office. Then he stopped and took a breath. “If you need me to kill him, let me know. I’ll take care of him for you.” Then he went back to his office and closed the door.
I had to replay the interaction in my mind to absorb what had just happened. Rip had offered to kill Eric. Because he’d hurt me? Surely he couldn’t have been serious.
I hated violence. As much as I never wanted to see Eric again, I could never actually kill him or tell someone to kill him. That just wasn’t me. But, for some strange, godforsaken reason, I felt the corner of my lips raise in a smile. Then a small giggle escaped and there was only one thing to say.
“Oh, how sweet…”
Yeah. That was the stuff of romance novels right there.
Chapter Two
Jade
Today’s girl’s name was Bria, and she chewed her pencil eraser down to nothing while she puzzled over her long division. I didn’t stop her. Eraser-chewing was the least destructive habit I’d seen in this place, including my own. She was ten, with her mother’s tired eyes and a gap between her front teeth that would cost her mom a fortune in orthodontics someday. She attacked her worksheet with the ferocity of someone who had decided that math was a personal enemy, and she was going to defeat it on principle.
“You’re carrying the wrong number,” I said, pointing to the third problem. My sleeve rode up when I reached across the table, and I caught the last remains of the yellow bruise on my wrist before I could pull the fabric back down. Bria didn’t notice. She was already erasing furiously, her small tongue pressed to the corner of her mouth in concentration as the damp eraser left a dark gray streak where she corrected her answer.
“There.” Bria pushed the paper toward me, beaming with the knowledge she’d done excellent work and wanted that fact acknowledged immediately.
I checked it. All correct. “Perfect,” I said, and meant it.
She flashed me a bright smile before grabbing the worksheet and stuffing it into her folder with approximately the same reverence most people applied to fast food wrappers. Then she was gone, sprinting across the common room toward a cluster of other kids near the television, already forgetting I existed.
I stood, and turned around to find Mia standing at the entrance to the common room. She had her arms wrapped around her chest like she was holding herself together, and she was watching me with an expression I couldn’t decode from across the room. She looked the same as she always had. Better, actually, and with good reason. Mia had something good happening in her life. Oktober doted on her, giving her all the love and support a woman could want. If anyone deserved to have that kind of acceptance and appreciation, it was Mia. Her gray-eyed gaze found me and held.
I looked away first. My shoulders curved inward as I tried to make myself smaller. I’d wronged Mia in the worst possible way. She’d been my best friend and Eric had me so completely under his thumb, I’d betrayed her by doing whatever he wanted. Including fucking him. I think he used me for the things he couldn’t get from Mia. Generally unpleasant forms of sex I went along with because he had leverage on me, and I felt powerless to fight back. Those reasons didn’t excuse my actions, and I’d never try to justify myself. Especially not to Mia.