Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
“He’ll do it again,” she said, and a sob came out. “He said he’s staying for the next week and it’s got my name all fucking over it. Seriously, Paige, I need to get out of here, the guy’s gonna fucking kill me if I don’t. I can’t take it. Not for all the cash in the world. It’s not worth it, some of it’s just not fucking worth it.”
My gut tightened. Fear. It was really fear.
Because she was right. I didn’t trust this place. Not like I trusted the other. I didn’t trust Mr Sinister, and I didn’t trust the security guards, and I didn’t trust the way Brandon’s brother had whispered to me on pain of death.
I didn’t trust the people who were coming here, or what they would do to us. I didn’t trust anything but the fact we needed to get out of here, especially with Rebecca’s body too much of a state for her to do anything but whimper.
“We’ve gotta get out of here, Paige,” she whispered, and squeezed my hands. “This isn’t like the other place, not in the fucking slightest… really, I can’t take it… not this stuff…”
I nodded, and she cried harder as I laid down next to her and put my mouth to her ear. Her body was trembling, her skin cold to the touch as I tried to ease in closer and warm her.
Her tears were hard and fast, her fear alive between us as I tried to soothe her. Tried to tell her it would be ok. That we’d get out of there. That enough was enough and the pay out was worth nothing, not this kind of terror, but she shook her head, shook her head and kept on crying.
“How?” she said. “How are we gonna get out of here? They’re never gonna let us get out of here, not before our contracts are up…”
My hand was a vice around hers. Fingers crushing as I warned her to keep a secret. Warned her she needed to, on pain of death along with me. And she nodded. She nodded hard, her eyes tight on mine.
“He’s coming,” I said, in barely more than a breath. “Brandon’s coming for me, and when he does, I swear we’ll be taking you with us.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Brandon
The place looked inconspicuous. Just a small terraced house with a quaint little front garden. Nothing much to look at from the outside.
I parked up on the road opposite and settled down in the driver’s seat for the sure to be excruciatingly long hours until morning. The stakes were ridiculously high in this place. I needed answers. Answers and condemning evidence, beyond the words of an aging caretaker and some hand-scrawled notes from my long passed father.
I just hoped I’d find them in this place. Fred had seemed pretty damn confident.
It was no good waiting in the driver’s seat. The night was stretching on ahead without a hope of sleep finding me. With the moon high overhead I opted to venture out to explore until the darkness turned to the first hints of the morning light. The town was small. Barely more than a village. It was easy to find the slope of a hill road down to the beach front without too much exasperation.
The sandy shore was deserted, as you’d expect from a tourist town in the depths of winter. I kept my shoes on as I descended down from the harbour to the pebbles then dunes, treading carefully until the sand evened out. I’d barely even noticed the power of the coast down south. Barely given a thought to enjoying the beach in the months I’d been holed up there on sixty day business. It was just another change to observe amongst the masses.
The crash of the waves was a truly awestriking sound under a twinkling sky. I headed to the shoreline enjoying the white rafts of foam on the water, soaking in the salty breeze like a lifeline in the storm.
And all I could think about was her.
Her big eyes, so nervous. Her beautiful smile, so honest. The touch of her skin to mine. Her elfin hair around my fingers.
Her tight little cunt milking me dry and begging for more.
Her heart. So fucking hungry for love.
And so was mine.
I’d never have anticipated it in a million fucking years, but so was mine.
I lit up a cigarette, bracing myself against the wind. I paced like a lonely wanderer back and forth along the beach, my whole spirit consumed with the need for her.
I wondered all over again if she was thinking of me. If she was looking up at the same cold night sky somewhere and thinking of me doing the same. If she was as desperate for me as I was for her.
I damned well hoped so.