Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 91560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I don’t feel like tiptoeing around the topic, so I jumped straight in. “What’s wrong with Maya?”
Her eyelids flutter and color floods her cheeks. Maybe she doesn’t want to tell me, but there’s obviously something wrong. I really hope she doesn’t think she can get away with lying about this. I’m not in the mood to have more of my time wasted.
“I don’t think we should talk about this.” Well, at least she’s not giving me some bullshit about everything being fine. I can be grateful for that much.
“I think we should,” I counter. “She called me on Friday night, needing help, and I ignored her. That’s on me. Was there something I could’ve done? Is there something I can do now?”
Her brows knit together over the bridge of her nose while her lips draw together in a thin line. She’s fighting with herself. It kind of makes me want to scream—every second that passes ups the tightness in my chest and the rushing of blood in my ears.
“She’ll be so mad if she knows I told you. But… am I a bad friend if I let her go through with this without saying anything? I don’t even know if there’s anything that could stop her or make it better.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, folding my arms, glancing around to make sure nobody’s listening in. The way she makes it seem, this is pretty serious. “How bad could it be? This is Maya we’re talking about.” Yeah, Maya, whose dad locks her in the house and is probably capable of a lot of worse things.
“It’s pretty bad,” she whispers. When her eyes well with tears, my heart drops like a rock. She steps up closer, so I’ll bend lower to let her speak straight into my ear.
Then she tells me. She tells me everything.
And it’s all I can do to hold back my rage.
20
MAYA
My heart is threatening to beat out of my chest and my stupid hand won’t stop shaking as I lift the pen and bring the tip to the bottom of the paper. I let the metal pen glide right above the dotted line and watch my signature appear in black ink. My mouth goes dry, making my tongue stick to the roof of it.
“Now that we’ve got the contract out of the way,” Lucian says in a friendly tone. “You have one more choice to make before you walk into that room. Would you like to know what my client has planned for you, or would you rather be surprised?”
My mind is reeling with his question. Do I want to know what this random man is going to do to my body before I walk into hell, or should I go in blind? I doubt Lucian could tell me anything worse than what I’ve already conjured up. But what if it is? Could it be so bad that I change my mind or is it already too late? I just signed the contract. Would Lucian still let me walk out of here now?
Fear rises inside of me, dread swirling in my gut as the realization of what I signed up for settles in. What the fuck have I gotten myself into?
“Maya?” Lucian gets my attention when I don’t say anything for a long moment.
I clear my throat and sit up a little straighter. “I would like to know,” I say, making a final decision. I’d rather know what to expect, no matter how bad it might be. I have to know.
“Okay then.” Lucian leans back in his office chair across from me. “My client has a rather rare taste when it comes to his sexual encounters. He likes his partner to be incapacitated.”
Incapacitated? A million scenarios run through my head at the word. Me tied down, unable to move an inch, is high up on that list.
Okay… I can do that. I try to talk myself up. Desperate to find the strength to do this.
“So, I guess I will be tied down then?” I ask, my voice coming out shakier than I wanted to sound.
“Not quite,” Lucian explains. “My client will administer a drug that will incapacitate you to the fullest.”
My eyes go wide, and my mouth opens with a gasp. “He wants to drug me?”
“Yes, it will be given to you with a shot.”
I shake my head, sucking in a deep breath to calm the raging storm inside my mind.
“Don’t worry, Maya. We have a registered nurse on staff that will inject you with the toxin—”
“Toxin?” I shriek, ready to jump up and run out of the place. My eyes flicker to the door as everything inside of me tells me to get out of here.
Lucian must be reading my mind. He shakes his head. “You already signed, Maya. The deal is done. There is no way out of here other than going through hell,” he warns.