Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 106948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
“What are you doing?” I asked in a thick voice.
While Diego and Ramón had come to visit me, Fernando had made himself scarce.
“I only have a few minutes before the cameras to your room cycle back, so you need to listen to me.”
My mind shook off the remains of sleep and I sat up, smoothing my hair back from my face as I did. “What is it?”
“You’ve been brainwashed by both Leo and my mother to love him.”
“What?”
“Your feelings? They aren’t real. Leo made you love him. I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.” He glanced over at the door, distressed and swaying. “I didn’t know if it worked until I heard you yesterday, when you were with Joy.”
“How—”
“Cameras, they have cameras everywhere. Even in your apartment. Now shut up and listen, time is running out. I knew his brainwashing had worked on you when you couldn’t tell his enemy his name. When you couldn’t speak? When the words wouldn’t come? That was their brainwashing trigger kicking in to make sure you didn’t betray Leo.”
I thought I was going to be sick. “No, that’s not true, that’s science-fiction stuff. Brainwashing isn’t real.”
His humorless laugh made the hair on my arms rise up. “Oh, it’s real. Those emotions you feel? They’re hypnotic triggers left by Leo after he drugged you and warped your mind.”
“No, no I do love him. That can’t be faked. I do.” My voice had a desperate pitch to it as everything started to fall into horrible place, making sense in a devastating fashion.
I had no idea what love was. Time and time again, I’d fool myself into thinking this was it, the forever guy, and every time I’d been let down. But being brainwashed into thinking I loved someone? I couldn’t even process the idea.
“You know how hot you get for him? He forced that as well with a drug we call D128—an honest-to-god aphrodisiac that can make a woman desperate to fuck. Leo used it on you to make sure you gave him what he wanted.”
“But why? Why would they do that to me?”
“Because Leo wants to keep you, make you his wife, but women can’t be trusted.” His head hung and his whole body sagged like his strings had been cut. “I’m sorry, I promised myself no more innocents would get hurt, that I’d make it up to Jason…but look at you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Everything they told you about my wife and son was a fucking lie! The evil bitch that was my wife had my son kidnapped and held for ransom, she was greedy and stupid, believing the cartel she gave my son to wouldn’t harm him. Instead—instead they killed him, and then my mother killed her. Mom and Leo devised a way to make sure no woman would ever betray us again, would ever sacrifice her child like my dead wife did. So they picked you, a perfectly innocent little girl that Leo fixated on for whatever reason. You’re their experiment in loyalty, and you passed the test.”
“Jesus.”
His wristwatch beeped and he darted to the door. “If I were you, I’d keep this conversation between us. The cameras will be back on you soon, so you might want to pretend to sleep.”
With that, he left me staring at the tangle of blankets, my already shattered world splintering into nothing.
Chapter 16
Leo
In total despair, I stared at Hannah and willed her to acknowledge my existence. For well over a week it had been going on like this, I’d talk to Hannah, try to get her to listen to reason, and she’d pretend I wasn’t even here. And she was good at it.
Nothing I said seemed to penetrate the wall she’d built around herself. It was like she’d never even loved me. Everyone told me to give her time, to let her adjust, but something was wrong. If she was mad at me, I could talk with her, get her to at least give me one brief taste of her light before she hid it away again, but nothing I said made a difference. She didn’t care that the men I’d tortured to death on her behalf had brutalized dozens of girls in the past. She didn’t care when Diego explained how the Cordova cartel actually helped protect people and gave them good lives. And most of all, she didn’t care that I was dying without her.
She’d wake up, eat, then stare out the window like a robot until her silence drove me mad, making me flee the one thing I craved most.
The only time she became animated was when she was doing schoolwork, and even then she’d only do it if I wasn’t around, so I had to force myself to stay away.
Once again the terrible pressure of her silence forced all the air from my lungs, leaving me desperate for a breath only she could provide.