Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 125020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“No, thank you,” I murmur.
I fight back tears as I hold my phone in my hands and stare down at it. Joshua was the last person I was expecting to answer Ven’s phone tonight. Hearing his voice only made tonight hurt more.
Danny was going to hit me right in front of Javier and his wife in the middle of the restaurant. If Javier wouldn’t have stopped him, I know he would have. This is it. I’ve reached my limit.
I need out before it’s too late. I called Ven to talk about my options because I’m tired of this. I think I really wanted to say it out loud so it would click in my brain that this isn’t for me. I want out.
I have so much regret now. I had no right to be angry with Joshua. We weren’t in a relationship. If I could turn back time, I would.
I never would have gotten so upset. I would’ve waited to talk to him and asked what was going on before completely shutting him out of my life. I miss him too.
“Get your ass in the fucking car,” Danny growls as he comes out of the restaurant and his car is pulled up.
I should have said something to Joshua, but what could he have done? Danny and the men he’s tied up with could hurt him and then I really would never forgive myself.
Chapter 35
Broken
Shawna
Two months later…
“You’ve really been smelling yourself in the last two months. That fucking mouth,” Danny snarls.
I lie balled up in the corner, trying not to shake, not to breathe, not to move. If I don’t move, he’ll stop. I need him to stop.
“You think you’re so smart,” he continues. “You always have to run your fucking mouth. Didn’t I tell you not to speak?
“I don’t give a fuck who asked you a question. Now look. Your smart mouth got you what you wanted. Always trying to make me look stupid.”
I want to sob out a laugh. I don’t have to try to make him look stupid. He does that all on his own.
I don’t respond. He doesn’t want me to. He never wants me to. I’m to take this beating and shut the fuck up.
I must be crazy. I’ve seen it in his eyes before. I know he wanted to do this so many times before, but I never thought he had the balls. He caught me off guard, and now here I am, unable to help myself.
“You know what, Shawna? One of these days, you’re going to make me hurt you.”
It takes everything in me not to laugh and cry at the same time. My eye is swollen shut. He’s hurt me plenty enough. Usually, it’s not with his hands but with his words.
Subtle comments started to become brittle blows to my self-esteem. It wasn’t like this when we started. Danny was a different man.
Charming, a sweet talker, he said all the right things a shy girl like me needed to hear. I didn’t know I was getting involved with the devil. A hazel-eyed devil with a smile that could fool a saint.
“Why do you stay with him?” My best friend Skylar’s words ring in my head.
Skylar. I miss her. She never understood that it was not that simple. You don’t walk away from Danny Clavier if he doesn’t want you to walk away.
Leaving a man like him comes at a price. It always has a cost. However, tonight, I’m coming to realize staying with him comes with a price I’m no longer willing to pay.
Please, God. If you let me make it through tonight, I’ll leave. I’ll never come back. No matter what I have to do. I’ll leave.
I brace for the kick coming for me, even as I silently plead for my life. Tears leak down my cheeks as the force of the blow knocks the wind from me. A gasp leaves my lips.
“Please,” I plead, my lips chapped, busted, and sore.
“Shut up,” he bellows. “Shut the fuck up. I treat your fat ass like a fucking queen, and you can’t keep your mouth shut when I tell you.”
I’m going to die tonight. As I lie in my torn dress, blood comes from my right ear, and at least two ribs are broken. I feel it in my bones. He’s going to kill me.
God, please.
He goes to grab me by my hair, but his phone rings, halting his motion. He glares down at me as he pulls it from his pocket. Thank God, that phone is going to save my life.
“What?” he snarls at whoever is on the other end of the call. “No, that’s not what I told you to do... What the fuck? No, he’ll kill us both if I don’t take care of it… Don’t do anything. I’m on my way… No, asshat, I’m flying out.”