Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Really? This is how you treat your father?”
“Get the fuck off of me.” I shoved away from him and fell back into the other side of the closet.
“Try and leave and I’ll hit you.”
I froze, but kept my eyes on him.
A line of dim red light sliced against his face, showing me only one of his eyes and part of his nose. The rest of him remained in darkness like me.
“We need to talk.” He didn’t smile.
I took that as a good sign. “Why?”
Keep him talking. Find the gun.
“I don’t understand everything that’s going on.”
“Maybe you’re going crazy.” I slowly slipped my foot around the floor to figure out where the gun had fell.
“We both know I’m far past that.”
The toe of my shoe tapped the end of a hard object. I hoped it was the gun. “Maybe you should kill yourself.”
“I should murder you for saying that.”
“You took Troy away from me. You think I see you as anyone I could love?”
“What’s going on, Jasmine?”
“Are you joking?”
“Not what I’ve caused. Where’s your mother?”
I quirked my eyebrows. “At home.”
“How do you know that?”
“I don’t know for sure.”
He muttered something under his breath.
“What?”
“She’s doing something.” He kept rubbing his hands together and never remaining still. Booms continued in the front of the club, but still the men had not gotten through.
Hurry, guys. Before he kills me. Keep him talking. I got to keep him talking.
“How did you know I would be here today?” I asked.
“Your mother told me.”
I should’ve been shocked, but it seemed that nothing could hit me hard anymore. “How the fuck did she know I would be here? Not many people knew.”
“Sherman told her. He said he overheard Vivian and you talking about doing something with a strip club to surprise Chase.”
“What?”
“He walked in on you both in the hotel in London, smoking and talking about surprising Chase with a dance, and that it would be in Miami. It was an off chance that you would actually do it, but I headed straight to Miami and put guys in all of the strip clubs in the city. Days later the call came from Vivian to the Doll House.”
“Now, you and Mom are working together?”
“I don’t know. She gave me all the information to find Chase and you.”
I swallowed all the hope I’d had left. “And now what?”
“I don’t know.” In a sudden moment he hit the top of his head over and over. “Why? Why?”
I edged away from him. “Why what?”
“Why did she tell me?”
Bang.
The men continued to knock at the door outside, and Benny kept hitting his own head.
Bang.
“Ms. Montgomery!” the guards yelled. “If you’re by the door, stand back.”
Shots boomed next.
I should’ve had my mind on escaping, but it left and went to Benny’s statements. Mom told Benny where I would be, with the understanding that he might kill me just like he’d did it to Troy. I looked up at him. “What did Mom say when she talked to you?”
“What?” Benny stopped hitting himself.
“What else did she say? How did the call go?”
“She answered. I told her that I wanted to know where she was. She said that it wasn’t my business. I told her that she didn’t want me to have to spend energy searching for her because if I did, I wouldn’t be nice. Then she sounded real scared for a few seconds. Told me she loved me. Said all these things about us.”
Vomit threatened to come out of my mouth. These were my parents—two sociopaths plotting together and it all made me sick.
“She told me that she would help me kill Chase,” Benny said. “She was mad that he was treating her like a second class citizen.”
“That’s what she said?” I asked.
“Those exact words. And then she gave me the information.”
More shooting sounded far off in the club, but it seemed they still hadn’t opened the door.
“Don’t worry about Chase’s men getting in here,” Benny said. “I bought this club up and had the doors reinforced with ones similar to what you would see in the Pentagon. We have time to talk.”
I’ll have to save myself. I’ll have to kill him. I can do it. I can ....
I gulped in fear. “But you’re wondering why Mom has been so cooperative, when recently she’d been working with Chase out of nowhere?”
“Yes.”
Talk to him. I can talk my way out of it.
The closet closed in on me even more as I stood next to him and tried my best to talk my way out of dying in his hands. He scared the shit out of me, and he’d earned my fear. But, I had to get out of here alive. I would walk out. Benny would leave in a body bag.
“She put Chase and me together,” I said. “Did you know that? She got the garden party invitation from your apartment and brought it up to Vivian. We’re together because of her. How long do you think she has been plotting Chase and me? How far do you think her planning has gone back? I bet she wanted us in the closet right now.”