Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 86052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
One thing’s for sure. I want him in a way I have never wanted a man before, and the thought terrifies me. Wanting him like this is handing him the power to hurt me.
I’m so caught up in my inner battle that I don’t notice them until it’s too late. Far too late.
Thoughts of Xander are lost the second a set of hands shove hard into my chest, and I’m jerked back against a brick wall along the main road. My eyes barely have a second to bug out of my head before I’m dragged into a side alley, hidden away from the rest of the world. I try to scream as panic tears at my chest, desperately trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.
With another shove, my head rebounds against the side of a building, and my heart rate spikes, focusing on my bitch of a stepmom before me. I swallow hard, fear pulsing through my veins. How did she find me so soon?
The bitch gets so close in my face that I hardly notice her drugged-up boyfriend has come along for the ride. “You have a lot of explaining to do,” she spits as she grips me by my arms, pulling me back enough so that she can slam me against the wall again, my head bouncing off the brick wall with a sickening thud.
Pain rockets through me as my head spins, feeling like that terrified little girl she turned me into. “I . . . I . . .”
“How cute,” she mutters, her lip pulling up in an irritated sneer. “Stuttering like a piece of shit.”
Anger pulses through me, but I zip my lips, terrified of what’s going to come next. I just hope she says her piece and leaves me alone rather than dragging me back to that house.
Clearly not getting what she’s asked for, she slams me against the wall again, getting a sick enjoyment out of my pain. “Where the hell are they?” she demands, finally releasing me and ripping my handbag off my shoulder. She shoves it into her boyfriend’s chest, and he immediately dumps its contents out onto the ground, searching through all of my things . . . things I’ve worked hard to purchase over the past few weeks.
“I don’t have them,” I yell, devastation crippling me, watching as her boyfriend destroys all of my things in his desperate bid to find the flushed pills. I plead with her, hoping it’s enough to make her go away, but I know better than that. She won’t be going anywhere until she knows exactly what I did to her damn drugs. And when she realizes . . . well, fuck.
She slaps me hard across my face and I cry in agony, gripping the side of my cheek. “You’re a liar, Charli. You always have been, just like your deadbeat father. Now tell me where they are,” she demands, raising her voice too loud for the side street we’re on.
The mention of my father has the blood boiling under my skin, and I can’t hold it back any longer. I shove against her chest, forcing her back a step as my head continues to spin. “Don’t you dare speak about him, you fucking dirty junkie,” I spit. “I told you, I don’t have your damn drugs.”
“Oh, getting smart, are we?” the boyfriend says, taking a step closer. He pushes my stepmother out of the way, and she falls to the ground in her drunken stupor. He grabs me by the neck of my shirt and slams me hard against the brick wall. My eyes lose focus, but I don’t have a chance to dwell on it before he’s in my face. “Tell me where they are before I have to teach you a fucking lesson.”
The rage is like nothing I’ve ever known, and instead of shrinking away from the asshole, I find a twisted smirk stretching across my face. I look up at the bastard, letting him see the vile disgust in my stare. “They’re long gone, asshole. Probably in the middle of the fucking ocean by now.”
“Fuck,” he roars, his grip too tight on my body. “You fucking whore. You’re going to pay for that.”
“Funny,” I scoff. “I did pay for them, with the money her broke ass stole from me.”
I see the anger in his eyes, and I know I’m moments away from being slammed into the wall again. I shrink back against the wall, trying desperately to find a way to lessen the blow, only it never comes. Instead, my body is torn away from the wall with the force of the boyfriend being ripped off me.
My eyes fly open as I scramble, trying to catch myself before I fall, but the sound of flesh being beaten has my stare readjusting.