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)
Around the room, phones began to ping with alerts. Knight must have sent out a mass message to the brothers. I turned toward Jade automatically, watching as phones at her table lit up one by one.
The women checked their screens. Their faces hardened simultaneously. Hannah spat a vile curse. Violet put her hand on Jade’s arm in silent support.
“Excuse me,” Hannah said. She stood to leave. As she passed by Jade, she squeezed her shoulder, leaning down to whisper something in her ear. Jade nodded, and Hannah stalked out of the common room. No doubt, Knuckles would have his hands full tonight. Hannah had hunted and killed more than one fucking bastard like Eric. I had no doubt Knuckles would be tying his woman to his bed tonight. Not necessarily for sex, though I figured he’d use sex as a distraction, but because Hannah could and would kill this guy. Tonight. While I had no doubt Eric would, in fact, end up dead and likely very soon, now wasn’t the time. There was absolutely no way I’d allow Eric’s death to touch Jade, and killing him now would force the authorities to look straight at her.
I started toward their table. Jade had frozen again, retreating into herself like she had earlier. She looked up and found me approaching. Our gazes locked across the room. For a long moment, she just stared at me. I could see her processing what was happening. But instead of crumbling, instead of the panic I had witnessed before, something else flickered across her features. She drew a slow, deliberate breath. Then she straightened her spine.
I reached the table just as she spoke. “OK then.” Her voice was quiet but steady. “I want to hit him harder. I’m done hiding from this. Maybe with what Mia put together, I can push back.” Jade turned to look at me. “I want to press every charge I can, Rip. What can your brother or Ms. Thompson do?”
I knelt beside her chair so we were eye level. “You sure about this?”
She held my gaze without flinching, actually snarling in anger as she spoke. “I want to take my story back.” Her hand found mine under the table. “I’m not running or hiding anymore. He does not get to keep doing this. Not to me. Not to anyone else.”
Pride welled up in my chest. This woman. This incredible woman who had endured so much was finding her strength right in front of me. I squeezed her hand gently. “Then that’s exactly what we’ll do.” I kept my voice low, just for her. “Whatever you need. However you want to fight. I’m right beside you.”
Jade looked around at the circle of fierce, tattooed women who now watched her with newfound respect. “Thank you. All of you.”
Mia refilled Jade’s shot glass. “To taking back what’s yours.” She raised her own glass. Every woman at the table lifted their drinks. Jade took hers and raised it with only the slightest tremor in her hand.
“To taking it back.” She tossed back the shot without flinching.
Chapter Fifteen
Jade
I never thought a storage room could feel like freedom. Mia had transformed the small space at Haven into a makeshift photo studio and workspace. White sheets tacked to one wall and lamps positioned strategically around the room created a soft yet stark space to capture the essence of light and dark. Sunlight streamed through the high windows, catching dust motes that danced above cardboard boxes of old supplies pushed against the far wall. The air smelled of paper and ink and possibility. We had spent the morning sorting through dozens of photographs spread across a folding table in the center of the room. We arranged and rearranged the black and white images that told the story of my time at Haven and the journey I’d begun.
“I had no idea you were taking pictures of me back then,” I said, picking up a photo from my first week at Haven. The woman in the image barely resembled me now. Her shoulders were hunched protectively, eyes downcast, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to disappear. My stomach tightened looking at her.
“I started documenting women’s journeys when I first came to volunteer,” Mia explained, adjusting one of the lights. “It’s part of my own healing process. I usually have clear permission, but… Well, I hadn’t planned on keeping the pictures. I just needed to see you through something other than the situation I thought I knew.” Her voice softened. “I thought you hated me. That maybe you blamed me for what happened to you with Eric.”
“I never hated you,” I said quietly. “I was ashamed.”
“I guess we both need to see things through a different lens, huh?” She handed me another photo from two months later. I stood at the kitchen counter in Haven, my posture still guarded but my gaze level with the camera.