Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
“You call your daughter that?”
“I call her a lot of things; that’s beside the point. All kidding aside, not that I’m kidding, mind you, my kid would fuck you up worse than these people ever could, so if you’re not in for the long haul, get out now.”
“We’re here to save lives, to bring those girls back home, but you’ve got more than that going on. It’s rough, I know, and I won’t say it’s the price you pay for fame because that’s bullshit. My kid filled me in on your background; you had it all, you were going places, and that young lady was with you every step of the way. She saw something in you when no one else did, something beyond the fame, I mean.”
“What you failed to realize and still haven’t, as far as I can tell, is that someone didn’t want you whole. That’s the beginning and the end of it. If your brain wasn’t so fried from the drugs, you might be able to remember, you’d be able to see things more clearly, but it’s probably going to be a while before you get your shit back all the way.”
“What do you mean someone didn’t want me to be whole?”
“It’s hard to control someone who has their shit together. It’s even harder to control someone who has their shit together and is surrounded by people who genuinely love them. This town is full of parasites who prey on the innocent.”
“You were an innocent when you came here, just like the ones we’re trying to save now. You had a gift, a talent, and you just wanted to cash in on it, nothing wrong with that. Where you went wrong was you believed that every smile was genuine and every friend was real.”
“You didn’t know how to play the game because no one taught you. It’s for that reason I wouldn’t let my dog move here to get tied up in his shit. A bunch a blood-sucking succubus around every corner.”
He went off on one of his rants, and as always, it was a sight to behold. If I had any doubts about how he felt about Hollywood and its citizens, there would be none left after this latest tirade. He read everyone for filth, going back to the first silent movie producer to the latest. I could remind him that the son and heir to the most prominent studio in this town was one of his men, but I was afraid of what he might do to me.
He snapped back into the conversation as if nothing had happened, and I hid my smile of amusement well. “Your girl saw it happening and tried to stop it; that’s why they had to get rid of her and why they did it in such a vicious way. Your only break is that you were a kid when they started in on you.”
“What do you mean? How do you know that?” His answer was just a look that said he wasn’t going to answer that, and I had enough sense to drop it. “Never mind. Go on.”
“As I was saying, your one saving grace is that you were still a kid when they started working on you, so you never saw it and can’t necessarily be held responsible for what was done to you, not by you. Others might have tried to warn you along the way, but they have their own skeletons they want to keep hidden, so they could only do so much. Your girl was the only one willing to stick it out for you, and with you, so they had to destroy her in any way they could.”
“Once they got you hooked, you were no longer in control of anything; you lost the game right then and there. They knew it, and she knew it. She hung in there, tried to hold on no matter how much you fucked up, until they drove the nail in her and finished her off, or at least they tried to.”
“They never bargained on my little angel getting her knickers in a bunch and going the fuck off. And since she’s in it, now I’m in it, and I don’t fucking lose. Especially not against some pampered assholes who like playing with voodoo dolls and shit.”
Aaaand he was off again. If my life wasn’t in the toilet, this guy would be someone I could spend the whole day just shooting the breeze with. It’s a shame I had to meet him at a time like this and under these less-than-stellar circumstances. For someone as strong as him, I can only imagine how he sees me.
“I say all this to say; you were not to blame for all of this; you were led astray, you were used. I’m sure they’ve done things to you that you never want to mention or even remember again; they’ll use that against you too. The thing you have to do is get out in front of it.”