Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Aren will give me money if he’s feeling generous, but I don’t like to take handouts from him, and he won’t allow me to get a job. It isn’t for safety reasons, though. He doesn’t much care about my safety or really anything about me at all. If he did, he never would have allowed—but no, I won’t think about that now. I can’t.
Aren doesn’t want me to share anything about the brotherhood.
I look at the time. It’s five thirty-three. I stretch and toss the phone back on my bed, then go to throw some clothes on.
I get up every day before nearly everyone else on the compound except Camila, the resident chef. She’s teaching me how to cook and being in the kitchen with her is the highlight of my day.
I throw on a pair of black leggings and a black top, oversized, bulky, and unlikely to draw suspicion. I draw my fingers through my unruly wavy hair and quickly brush my teeth. I don’t wear makeup or bother fixing my hair. My clothes are intentionally muted and frumpy. The less the men that I live with notice me, the better. Before, they would sometimes look my way, and occasionally one would even talk to me. But not since what Aren calls “the accident.”
I make my mind blank as I go downstairs. I focus instead on the huevos rancheros and quiche we’re making today. Camila’s specialty lies in Mexican foods, but my brother insists every morning they have both Mexican and American options.
“Buenos días, preciosa,” Camila says. She’s a middle-aged woman with dark hair graying around the temples, barely five feet tall. She’s tying an apron around her ample waist.
“You are literally the only person in the world that would call me that,” I say with a self-deprecating laugh. She knows as well as I do that I’m not beautiful.
But she only shakes her head and smiles sadly. “Beauty is inside and out, Caroline,” she says. “Never forget that.” I roll my eyes at the cliché but take secret solace in her words. I have never forgotten that, and it’s the one thing that I hold onto. I work hard at not letting myself grow bitter or angry. In a family like mine, it’s an uphill battle.
The large front door clangs open and shut, and footsteps approach the kitchen. I stare at Camila in surprise. No one ever comes in here this early, and I can’t be seen. My brother would lose his mind if he knew I was in here, doing servant’s work, and if my brother is here to see me, there’s a good chance Andros is with him. And I despise Andros.
Voices approach. I cover my mouth with my hand, stifling a groan, when I recognize both Aren and Andros’ voices. They’re growing closer. I hate Andros with a fiery passion and don’t want either of them to see me. Camila points wildly to the pantry and silently mouths, Go.
I run to the pantry just in time, crouching in the corner. God, I wish there was a door on this stupid thing.
“Good morning, Camila,” Aren says, helping himself to a muffin from a plate she’s already prepared this morning. “By any chance have you seen Caroline?” Politeness is a dead giveaway that he’s about to do something terrible.
“No, sir,” Camila lies. I cringe. If he finds out she’s lying, he’ll punish her, or worse, fire her. She has a family to support. She lied for me. I’ll remember that.
“Really?” he says. I freeze at the icy tone of his voice. I know that tone well, and it sends a shiver of fear skating down my spine.
He knows I’m here.
I gasp when Camila screams. Oh, God, oh God. He’s hurting her.
“Tell me where she is,” he growls, and I feel my heartbeat race at the familiar sound of him cocking his gun. I don’t even make a conscious decision but scramble out of the pantry on all fours, shocked to see my brother holding Camila by the hair and Andros pointing a gun at her temple.
“Leave her alone!” I scream. “My God, you two are monsters. Leave her alone!”
I run to pull him off her, but Andros points the gun at me instead.
“There she is,” he says with sickening delight. “I told you she’d come running if we threatened the old lady.”
Camila whimpers.
“Let her go,” I say through clenched teeth, though my heart pounds in fear when I see Andros’ soulless eyes. “You want me, you have me.”
Andros snorts. “No one wants you, you stupid bitch.”
Aren laughs right along with him. I hate these two so much my vision goes temporarily blurry, and even though I know they’re douchebags, their jeering stings. I know no one wants me. Hearing someone say it is another thing altogether.
I hold my ground and glare at them. “Let her go.”