Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 72401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Once I sat, I leaned into Cleo, resting my head on his shoulder as the DA called the next witness to the stand.
“You did good, sweet girl,” Cleo murmured against my head.
“Thank you,” I whispered back. “I did.”
He laughed.
“Yeah, no self-doubt there,” he teased.
I agreed, albeit silently.
I wasn’t a big fan of contempt of court, and based on the glare I was receiving from Judge Judy, it wouldn’t be long before her patience failed her.
Giving him one last kiss on the cheek, I laid my head down on his shoulder and promptly fell asleep.
Chapter 20
I’m sorry for what I said when you tried to wake me up. I don’t control that me.
-Rue to Cleo
Rue
I awoke from my nap when my pillow slid out from under me.
I’d been drifting in and out while my head laid pillowed on Cleo’s thigh. He, Torren and Loki spoke quietly about the day, allowing me the sleep I so desperately needed.
Channing was on her way over with food, Bodacious BBQ, to be exact, and we were all just waiting.
They’d come to my place since the workers had started on Cleo’s house that morning. It was in the process of having a full overhaul, including a built in generator, and a brand new security system.
I’d volunteered to go somewhere else, but everyone, except me that was, agreed that I’d had a long day and I needed to be around my own things.
Secretly, I thought it was because if something did happen, they didn’t want blood on their carpet.
The voices that had been floating around my subconscious in my asleep/waking state drifted away, and I fell back to sleep without thought.
The next time I woke was to a sharp pinching sensation in my leg.
I sat up only to fall backwards as whatever was in the needle that was currently embedded in my leg took effect.
My brain got sluggish, and my arms only worked long enough for me to push myself up completely, propping myself up on the arm of the couch.
My limbs refused to work, and my heart started to pound as Vanessa dropped down to her haunches in front of me.
“What are you doing here?” I slurred.
“How hard is it to not testify?” The young girl hissed.
Vanessa White looked ghastly.
I looked at her with wariness. Would she slit my throat with that knife? Stab me?
I could see why she was using a knife, though.
Anything louder would alert the men in the other room of what was happening.
What had she given me anyway?
My eyes were getting heavy, and I couldn’t even open my mouth to protest.
She’d played the part of a thankful victim well.
Cleo must’ve just let her right on in and not even thought twice.
Hell, I wouldn’t have questioned her wanting to see me either.
While I watched her pace back and forth across the room, I focused on raising my arm.
Just a little bit.
There was a glass jar of marbles on the side table.
The jar wouldn’t shatter if it hit the floor, but it would make a hell of a noise.
Maybe if I could just knock it off, Cleo would come in here.
“I mean, how many ways did I have to tell you to stop?” The young girl hissed without looking at me or what I was trying to do.
My hand rose in slow degrees.
A millimeter at a time until finally I had it resting against the base of the jar.
It was heavy. Really heavy.
“Then daddy wouldn’t let me drop the case, and my poor boyfriend was just hung out there to dry,” she whined.
If I could lift my arm right now, I’d have smacked her.
My fingers inched closer and closer. All the while I prayed I’d make it.
It took another ten minutes of her ranting and raving before I finally got my hand in place.
I pushed with all my strength.
And nothing happened.
My hand didn’t even move a single inch.
“All I wanted was to be a wife to my ex-boyfriend. Then everything was screwed up royally when Brendan went all the way instead of my ex finding him. I’d have gone with it, too, but then my supposed best friend caught us and then told Scooter,” Vanessa spat.
Scooter must be the ex-boyfriend. I hadn’t heard his name before now.
I still couldn’t fathom how this little teenage girl was able to get past the entire room of men, and then drug me.
Why hadn’t Cleo come to check on us yet?
The glass I was pushing against slipped minutely, giving me hope.
“Anyway,” she said waving her hand. “I just needed you to know that there were consequences. You should’ve listened when I had daddy’s friend come to scare you. This all would’ve been avoided, but now I have to prove a point. It’ll be ugly. It’ll probably hurt, too. But it can’t be avoided.”
The girl was fucking cuckoo. What did she think she was going to do with a room full of men on the other side of this wall?
“Anyway, I hate to tell you this, but you’re about to burn, baby,” she said cheerfully as she pulled a bottle of liquor out of her purse, twisted off the top, took a swig, and then stuffed the ugly pink scarf she wore around her neck down the neck of the bottle.
My heart started to pound.
But she surprised me.
She didn’t do what I thought she was going to, which was smash the bottle against the wall once she lit it.
Instead, she walked up to the door, opened it and started walking out.
She stopped, though, looking over her shoulder and smiling widely.
I must’ve had some sort of expression on my face that resembled pure terror, because she started to laugh once she caught a look at me.
“Oh, by the way,” she said. “I sent the guys out to look at my car that conveniently broke down. They are all at the other end of the street.”
Then she wiggled what looked like a spark plug at me and winked.
Fucking winked.
“Peace,” she said as she walked away, disappearing through the door of my bedroom.