Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“Wh-what?” I tried to push away memories of Tommy threatening to sell me to a pimp in Mexico or Thailand back when we’d first met. I tried hard but I was having trouble with his ‘sold to a slave auction house’ comment, along with all the other stuff he’d said.
Tommy sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands, his elbows to his knees. He was slumped in what looked like defeat.
“Dare’s beside himself. Gone to Thailand with his wife, taking her back to that sex slave shithole so he can rat and get us out of this shit with the Feds. Tia, I’m this fucking close to packing up the whole family and us all fucking off.”
I was trembling.
Normally, I’d reach for him, comfort him, take comfort from him, but I couldn’t. I just sat, caught up in the events of the day, thinking about how mad his sister’s rape made him, when he’d done those things to me.
I was thinking about looking out this window all night at the Vegas strip, almost directly across the street from the last hotel we’d stayed at so looking at, essentially, the same view from the other side of the street.
It was what I’d looked at when he and I were here before we got married, when he lost control, when he bruised my throat, when he’d broken my heart after I’d let him in.
My hand went to my throat reflexively. I stared at his back. My other hand went to my stomach.
I was carrying his baby. I loved him. I loved him desperately. But was my love for him wrong? Was I fucked up and delusional because of all that had happened?
Was this really what I wanted for my life?
Did I even have any choice?
This world I was about to bring a baby into, where our loved ones were kidnapped and raped, where one sister was being traded for another one?
Where the man I’d promised to love, honor, obey, and cherish for the rest of my life had a whole lot of skeletons in his closet? Skeletons? Demons? Both. I’d promised him unconditional love. But at what cost?
His hand reached toward my face and I flinched. I flinched hard enough for him to notice.
“Hey,” he said. His voice sounded funny.
His thumb moved across my cheek sweetly. But a tear rolled out of my eye and hit his thumb.
He moved to me and pulled me tight against him and it took everything inside of me to not recoil.
This was my husband. Being in his arms was my most favorite place in the world. Why was I feeling like this?
“You shook up? I shouldn’t vent at you. Sorry, baby. I don’t want you to be scared. We got this. It’s all gonna be okay. Some way. We’ll get Holly safe. We’ll all be safe. Don’t say anything to Angel. Dare has to handle that delicately with her while we figure out what to do.”
I pulled away. “Gotta go to the bathroom.”
He watched me scoot out of the bed with a strange look on his face.
“You feel all right, Tia?”
“Yep.”
“I scare you tonight?” I asked when she was climbing back into the bed. She’d been in the bathroom a long while.
I moved over closer to her. She was tense, apprehensive.
“What is it?” I pulled her close.
She was acting weird.
“You shook up?”
“I guess. I’m sleepy. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I cocked her leg, pulling her knee up so that her leg draped over me.
“I need you, baby.” I put my lips to her jaw and moved them to her ear. “Just need to lose myself in you for a bit.” I hadn’t been inside her in what felt like forever.
“Sorry, I…” she pulled back, “I can’t.”
“Queasy?” I asked.
She nodded. But she was lying to me; I could feel it in her body language.
I twisted the dial for the lamp and looked at her. Her eyes were swollen and her face was blotchy like she’d spent the night crying.
“Talk to me,” I demanded.
“Just tired.”
“No. Talk to me right fucking now. Tessa tell you something else? Something I don’t know? Don’t lie to me, Tia. I need to know everything. Don’t worry about me getting arrested or hurt, I’m not that stupid. Just spill whatever you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding anyth–”
“Bullshit.”
“She went to bed when you left. She didn’t say anything.”
“Should I wake her and ask?”
“Don’t wake her, she was exhausted. She–”
“Fucking spill or I will and if you think I won’t be pissed at you…”
Tia took a big breath and the look in her eyes, it was an admission of something.
I raised my eyebrows. She had to know I was low on patience tonight.
“Don’t test me, Athena. Talk.”
“I’m just having a bad time being here. Just leave me to stew on it and then when we get home, I’ll be fine. I just wanna go to sleep.”