Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
“Having Colton in your life, someone you trust, has opened you up to others, and that’s an amazing change for you,” Dr. Butler had continued.
“Because I’m so broken.”
His brows furrowed, and I couldn’t help my smile.
“Don’t default to running yourself down. That helps nothing. You can accept what I’m saying to you without adding anything. Will you try and do that?”
And I had been. But at the moment, I was terrified.
“Hello,” Colton barked at me, and I turned my head so I could see him. After a moment of searching my face, he told the driver to pull over, that we’d walk the rest of the way.
Once we were out on the sidewalk, I realized how cold it was. Chicago in January was no joke. The addition of softly falling snow wasn’t making the situation any better.
“Why did you do that? You’re still going to have to pay for the whole ride,” I grumbled, hoping my scowl was as dark as my mood.
“I don’t care,” he replied, tipping his head to get me to move. “I need you to tell me some stuff before we get to the pub, and I didn’t want the driver to hear.”
“Like what?” I asked, falling into step beside him.
“I want to know about growing up.”
I shrugged. “There’s not a lot to—”
“No,” he growled, rounding on me. “I want to hear it all, because God help me if you make me unseal your juvenile records and read whatever happened to you myself.”
“No one is going to unseal my—”
“Oh no?” he dared me.
He could probably do it. Someone, somewhere, would fall for the lazy grin, the laugh lines in the corners of his warm, honey-colored eyes, and the rumble in his whiskey-soaked voice. It was inevitable. More importantly, the man had so many acquaintances practically everywhere. His network was unbelievably big. I was always surprised when we had to fly to some random place, like the last time when we were in some hole-in-the-wall part of Texas and someone walked up and greeted him warmly.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes,” I said tiredly. “What do you want to know?”
“You were in foster care, right?”
I nodded.
“Where?”
“Los Angeles. That’s where I was born.”
“And?”
And I had all trust beaten out of me by the time I was five. I didn’t say that, of course, and I had to think how to phrase what I wanted him to know.
“Just tell me. Did you get hit?”
I had to be honest. “Yes,” I husked.
“How badly?”
“Very badly,” I confessed quietly, unable to look at him.
“No. Don’t hide. Eyes here.”
I met his gaze.
He took a breath, girding himself. “Were you molested?”
“No.”
“But you had the crap kicked out of you on a daily basis?”
“I did.”
“Broken bones?” he asked, and I heard how professional he sounded, like he was interviewing a witness, and for whatever reason, how dispassionate he was helped.
“Many. Yes.”
“Until when?”
“Until I ran away at sixteen,” I said, starting to walk, knowing where we were headed. He immediately got moving as well.
“You realize the trauma you suffered up until you were sixteen would be enough for a lot of people to be fucked up forever, right?”
I nodded.
“But then something else happened. Someone new came into your life.”
“Correct.”
“How did it start?”
“I got a job at a twenty-four-hour laundromat in West Hollywood, and one night this guy comes running in, and he’s bleeding, and begs me to let him into my cubicle so the guys who are after him don’t get him.”
“And you did that?”
I made a face at him. “Oh hell no. I put him in the big washer for rugs and quilts and whatever and flipped the latch so he could breathe. When three guys came in ten minutes later—all big guys, maybe Russian, definitely Slavic from the accents and the sound of the words—I put on my bored face, and they talked to me through the plexiglass.”
I had described how I was locked in there until eight in the morning, showed them the combination panel on the outside—didn’t show them the override on the inside—and yawned a lot and said they could search all around if they didn’t believe me.
“You have cameras,” one of the men said, pointing at all of them, one in every corner of the room. “Show us the footage.”
“Those don’t work,” I lied.
“Then what is to stop us from shooting you right now?” another guy said, pulling his gun from his shoulder holster and pointing it at me.
I tapped on the six-inch-thick plexiglass. “All I have to do is duck and hit the silent alarm under the counter here.”
They looked at me, at the box I was in, and when I arched an eyebrow, the guy with the gun holstered his weapon. It was a good choice. The police station was five minutes away, and a lot of patrol officers stopped in to say hello at three in the morning when there wasn’t much else to do. Even criminals were in bed at that time.