Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m j-just here working off my penance t-the same as you.” He holds his hands in the air in defeat. “I-I’m a changed man. I’ll never touch a woman again without permission.”
My hands instinctively ball during his last sentence, but I startle like a child who got caught stealing from a charity tin when a man at the side says, “He’s fine, Caleb. He just wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“He isn’t the only one in shock,” I mutter to myself when Jess’s father glides behind the stationery desk to take over from the man sweating enough for the both of us. He’s not wearing the robe that gives me hives just looking at it, but just like I can’t take in Jess’s gorgeous face without my mind eventually straying to my grandfather, I can’t look at her father either. “I’m going to go.”
I’m halfway through the door when Santiago stops me in my tracks. “Attending meetings voluntarily will rate far higher with Kendrick than only attending mandatory ones. One meeting could see your probation sliced by thirty percent.”
I crank my neck back to face him, but my feet refuse to budge. “How do you know I am on probation?” Octavia knows about the bar fight, but she is clueless about the sentence I got slapped with.
Santiago’s dark brows slant before he mutters under his breath, “Jessmina didn’t tell you.”
“Didn’t tell me what?” Now my feet move. Not far. Barely two steps, but since my legs are shaking enough to have me worried about them buckling out from beneath me, it is a victory that deserves noting.
An unexpected bout of humor smacks into me when Santiago faintly curses before he locks his eyes with mine and says matter-of-factly, “She called me that night.”
“That night?” I prompt, completely lost.
I take a step back when he answers, “The night you were arrested for battery, Jessmina called me and asked for my help.”
“She was there?” As the words leave my mouth, a brief memory filters in my head. It is quick, but it involves Jess’s big hazel eyes and skin softer than a feather.
Too shocked to strive for more hidden memories, I seek them from the last man I should. “Why would she call you?”
His smirk doesn’t seem like it belongs to an evil man, but I’ve been fooled in the past.
It won’t happen again.
“She cares for you, and she didn’t want to see you get in trouble, so she asked for my help.”
The truth hits me like a ton of bricks. “You were the defendant advocacy who got me probation instead of months behind bars.” I know his answer, but I’m still stunned when he bobs his chin. “Why would you back me? You don’t know me.”
“I know what you’ve been through.”
“No, you fuckin’ don’t. No one knows what I’ve been through.”
My raised voice gains me the attention of the security guard manning the door, but Santiago signals for him to stand down like I’m not close to blowing my top. “Are you sure I don’t know you, Caleb? The anger. The rage. The hurt. We’ve all experienced it—”
“Not how I experienced it,” I interrupt, banging my chest. “You didn’t feel the hurt I felt. I experienced that. Not you.”
Once again, he murmurs, “Are you sure about that, Caleb?”
The same hurt, humiliation, and anger radiating out of my eyes are mirrored in Santiago’s, but his words won’t sink in because he is not a man to me. He is a priest. A monster who preys on the vulnerable. He is the exact replica of my grandfather, and no matter what he says or does, my opinion will never change.
“You don’t know pain. You cause it.”
Even with my brain fritzing and rage boiling my blood, my drug and alcohol-free mind knows I’ll be in more trouble forging AA attendance than deciding not to attend, so with my hands balled and my eyes locked on the register, I stomp to the table Jess’s dad is standing behind, snatch up the pen, then attempt to scribble out my name.
I say ‘attempt’ because before I can drag ink across the ‘C’ at the beginning of my signature, Santiago snatches the pen out of my grasp, then swivels the clipboard to face him before saying the last thing I expect him to say, “You protected my daughter, Caleb, so I will continue protecting you.”
With that, he requests for the attendees to take a seat before he moves for the chair in the middle of the haphazardly put-together circle, where he introduces himself as a thirty-year sober addict, alcoholic, and sexual abuse survivor.
CHAPTER 29
CALEB
VALENTINE’S DAY
“Keep the lid on it. You can’t trust any of the guys here. Including the staff.”
Even with her secretly loving my protectiveness, Octavia rolls her eyes as if annoyed. Our new year didn’t start as expected, but things have been going surprisingly well for us the past two months. It helps I’m not an ass who takes his anger out on the first person he sees.