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)
I tried calling Ryder’s number, but once again, there was no answer, but my mind was clear enough this time to realize that his phone must’ve been turned off from the automated message. Could he have changed his phone? Now that I think about it, it had been a while since I’d had to call him, and he hadn’t been answering me either after he’d disappeared a few weeks ago.
Real panic started to set in as it became clear that this was really happening. This wasn’t some PR stunt that his team or mine had come up with to get attention back on us and keep me relevant; he was really back with her. What had I missed? How had I missed the signs?
I kept on top of him for five years, and the one time he got away from me, this was the result. Was he in bed with that MengeLiNi? Was he working with them? How long had he been planning this? This was all my dad and Mary’s fault.
I was so busy doing everything to keep them off my back that I’d messed up and let Ryder slip through my fingers, and now that I needed them most, they were nowhere to be found.
I couldn’t call Mary for help, and Dad wasn’t answering my calls. I felt alone and scared, and it had nothing to do with the darkness outside my window. This was really happening; this was happening. Maybe it’s because I was able to get a few hours of sleep after not resting well since before my hospital stay, but I was seeing and feeling things more clearly now.
I had no choice but to take stock of the situation and see it for what it was. Ryder had somehow tricked me into signing divorce papers, in which I got nothing. My private stash was gone, and all I had was my Apple Pay account because my wallet with all of my credit cards was missing.
I started to shake and scream until I lost my voice. And when the lights of a car came on a few feet ahead of me, I somehow saw my reflection barely, and what I saw only made me scream louder. My face, how could I have forgotten what I’d done to it?
I turned on the inside light and flipped down the visor for a better look, and the sound that came from me, something between a moan and a groan, was felt in the very pits of my soul. I’m finished; I have nothing; he’d left me with nothing and gone back to her.
“ELENA! I hate you. I hate your name; I hate your stupid ugly face.” I screamed her name so loud it reverberated in the dusty confines of the car. I beat my fists against the steering wheel until they hurt and kicked the floorboard in a fury before turning the key in the ignition. I won’t let them be happy together. If my world is going to be turned upside down, then so will theirs.
*Mary*
Noel and Nicole have been calling me nonstop for the last half an hour. I was too busy packing to get out of dodge for a while, but by the fifth time the phone went off with Noel’s ringtone, I thought I’d better answer in case there was some kind of emergency.
Not that I could be of any help right now, I was too flustered with my own issues to think about theirs. For the first time since I made the decision to set out on this course to give myself and my kids a better life, I didn’t have all the answers. Whoever was behind this, and I refuse to believe it’s a little child at the helm of my destruction, was moving too fast for me to keep up.
I’d already been threatened by more than one of my clients, but it was that last one that had really spooked me into action. Scott had left to go back home after hours of trying to come up with a solution to no avail, and he, too, had been pissed that I’d let things get to this point as if it was all my fault.
I have no idea how that twit got ahold of the information she’d shared with the whole world, and though she hadn’t named any names, she’d said enough to put fear in my clients’ hearts, and they, in turn, were out for my blood. Though the last caller wasn’t my scariest client, he had enough power and was close enough that it lit a fire under me.
I knew that most of these people would go to any lengths to keep their dirty little secrets hidden, even if it meant killing me to make it happen. He hadn’t come right out and threatened me, but his cold dialogue and those few words he’d spoken so deadpan over the line had sent slivers of ice down my spine. “How do you plan to fix this?”