Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 49989 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49989 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
“That man in 4423 wasn’t worth his skin.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“He was a human trafficker. That girl was his next victim, one of hundreds in their prostitution ring. The younger they are, the more money they can get out of them.”
“And you let the girl go?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t there to kill her.”
So, he saved her? That made her angry. “Why don’t I get to go free, too? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You’re a witness.”
“So was she.” She was bargaining, reasoning, using every tool she had to get free.
“She was plastered. God willing she’ll return home and straighten out her life.”
Cleo was confused. Was this guy a serial killer or a saint? How could he slash a person up and also have a moral conscience? It didn’t make sense.
“What about me?”
“I haven’t decided yet. You’re an unfortunate complication that thoroughly fucked up my entire night.” He turned onto the freeway, heading farther and farther from everything she knew. “I want to kill you, you have no idea how much. It would be so easy to dump you out here in the ditch, end your life with a bullet to the head. Or maybe I’d just snap your neck and save my ammo.”
She opened her mouth to breathe. A full-blown panic attack was brewing.
“But even though you’re a hotel maid with no family ties and no pets but a goldfish, you haven’t done anything wrong besides being an inconvenience to me.”
“So you’ll let me go?”
“No, my boss would never approve of that. I’m stuck between killing you or keeping you prisoner for the rest of your life. And that sounds like a lot of responsibility on my part.”
“There has to be another option.”
He pulled to the side of the road. With no lighting way out here, it was complete blackness. As soon as the car began to slow to a crawl, she opened the door and rolled out onto the ground. Immediately, she started running blind. There was still some light from his headlights and the moon, but once she got far enough, it would be impossible to see. She didn’t care.
The man was going back and forth from one horrible scenario to another. He offered no outcome where she came out on top, so she had to take a chance. She hoped he’d see her as too much trouble and would drive off rather than traipsing through the mucky fields after a hotel maid. When she didn’t hear footsteps in pursuit, a little smile pulled at her mouth. Cleo kept running, needing as much distance between them as possible.
Maybe she’d wait in hiding for an hour after he left, then try to hitch a ride back to the city. No one could be worse than him.
Then everything went dark, and she was falling, her breath stolen from her lungs. Strong hands shackled her wrists.
It was him. He was straddling her body, and the shadows playing across his features made him look like the devil himself.
“You’re a naughty girl, Cleo Bennet.”
Chapter Two
Priest watched her run, and the truth was, he loved it when they had some fight in them. The sobbing, begging, giving up, and just … blubbering always annoyed him. But this woman had a real fight inside her, such a will to live. He didn’t know what it was about this naughty little cleaner, but the game turned him on.
She was an innocent, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He blamed himself to some degree.
In his line of work, it was rare for him to go to a scene to find an innocent who wasn’t part of the plan. She shouldn’t have been there. He was aware there were women within trafficking who actually sided with the men who took them. They helped to capture women, luring them into a false sense of security. He fucking despised them the most. Trafficking was one of those aspects of life he would love to see wiped off the face of the earth, but while there were monsters walking around, there would always be some form of it.
“Please let me go.” She panted as he had her trapped. Her cardio was weak.
Was she turned on by this position?
Staring into her blue eyes, Priest was stuck. Killing her should have been so easy. Just one swipe of his blade across her neck, and it would be done. Problem solved.
As he stared down her body, he looked at her, really looked at her.
Full ripe tits, dipping into a nice-sized waist, going down to big hips, and then thick thighs. He did love a full woman. There was something quite irresistible about these kinds of curves.
She was young and beautiful. Innocent. Something stirred inside him that he tried to ignore.
“I don’t want to die. If what you say about that man back there is true, then good riddance. It’s one less criminal walking on the streets, right? You made the world a safer place.”