Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79499 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79499 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
That was fucked up.
But it hit a nerve with Cora in a way that Danny intended all along.
And as much as the whole thing felt wrong, Cora proved she could handle herself. I get the feeling that she and Danny aren’t so different. They’re both stubborn and entrenched in their own corners, holding people to standards they struggle to maintain themselves.
As I find some clean shorts and restart my assignment, I conclude that the next few weeks are going to be interesting, if nothing else.
6
CORA
The rage I feel is volcanic. A bubbling, surging, clawing fury that sends me into an emotional state that feels almost like I’ve stepped outside of my own body.
They were fucking in my bed.
My bed.
On my sheets.
With their naked asses on my pillows.
What in the actual fuck?
The floor to my bedroom is sodden, the rug beneath the bed is dark with a huge water stain. The sheets are rumpled, and I don’t want to look at them in detail. With frantic urgency, I begin to pull everything off the mattress so that I can take it to the laundry room. This stuff is all going to be washed on a hot cycle.
I shudder at the grossness of other people’s sex stuff on my bed, muttering that they’ve gone too far and raging that they had the gall in the first place.
The pile of bedding builds on the floor as I fume at Danny’s smile and the way he walked out without so much as a glance in my direction. Tobias had the decency to look contrite, but it’s too little, too late.
And Mark appeared to be as shocked as I was at his brothers’ actions.
I want to hate them all equally, but my hatred has levels, and Danny is currently standing on the top rung of the ladder.
Whatever I said seems to have enraged him more than any of the others, but I don’t give a fuck. It’s obvious that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in this family. Randolph is a cutthroat, selfish asshole, and his sons are the same. Or maybe they’re even worse.
As I heft the bundle of bedding down the stairs, I mutter curses under my breath and pray that I’m not going to stumble across another one of the Carlton demons on my way to the laundry room. I make a mental note to ask Ross to put a lock on my bedroom door that I can secure from the outside. Who knows what they’ll end up doing next? Stealing my underwear? Using my cosmetics?
My mind can’t even go to all the dark places they might be capable of exploring.
As the first pile goes into the washer, I’m torn between staying with it to make sure Danny doesn’t sabotage my laundry again and going back to my room to make sure they’re not already in there, finding new and creative ways to piss me off.
“Fucking Randolph,” I mutter, hating him even more for inflicting his spawn of Satan on my previously quiet life.
Deciding my room is more important, I jog back up the stairs and through the door, closing and locking it from inside. I rest my back against the cool wood, panting and out of breath, with balled fists tensed at my sides.
Why the fuck can’t they understand that I just want a quiet life without having to socialize with people who’ve wrecked my family and ruined my life once before. Instead of just respecting my perspective and wishes, the Carlton brothers are sprinkling salt over every one of my gaping wounds.
And now I’m faced with no other alternative than to retaliate.
I can’t let them think I’m a pushover. I won’t let them believe that they’ve won.
They think they can play a game with me and win, but they have no idea who they’re messing with. I have years of resentment under my belt. Years of raging hatred in my heart, born of missing the person my dad once was to me and the life I used to have when we were a family. All of that can be channeled into showing these flashy, selfish boys that they’re not big and they’re certainly not special. I want to take them down so many pegs that their mouths will be filled with dirt and their lungs choked with dust.
I pace in my room, waiting until I can go down and transfer my sheets into the dryer, but more importantly, waiting until they’re all in bed. Then the fun can really start. When my phone buzzes from its position on the dresser, I glance at the screen. It’s Maggie, my friend from college, who I haven’t spoken to in a while. She’s busy with her kid, and her eleven gorgeous foster-brothers-turned-husbands. It’s a miracle the girl finds time to eat and sleep, let alone keep in touch with friends.