Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Whose lipstick is in the house?”
“What?”
“The lipstick. Whose is it?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks but only after a pause I might have missed if I wasn’t paying attention.
“Abel, the lipstick. It’s the same brand and shade I wore to the gala. The same shade the woman who pretended to be me wore when she tried to kill my husband.” God. To say the words is still unreal. Someone tried to murder Santiago. And what I’m holding in my hand…no. No. It can’t be.
“Ivy. Where are you?”
“Was it you?” I ask, my voice small.
“Where. Are. You?”
“Tell me, Abel. Tell me you didn’t do this to him. To me. Please.”
There’s silence then, just before I hear the sound of a car. A glance in the rearview mirror tells me it’s two cars, actually. One parking along the street, one directly at the end of the driveway. My brain is slow to process what’s happening until I see the men climb out, two from each vehicle. One flips his cigarette onto the lawn.
These are the friends Abel sent. They’re not Santiago’s men. He wouldn’t send these particular men. I know it.
They're early.
I drop the phone, the lipstick slipping from my hand when I try to grab the door handle, almost managing to pull it closed as I put the car in reverse and slam my foot on the gas, instinct taking over now. Adrenaline as one of the men jumps out of the way while another yanks my door open, and I ram my car into the one parked at the end of the drive, my forehead slamming into the steering wheel with the impact.
One of them yanks me out roughly. I open my mouth to scream, but someone slaps his hand over it, and I just see one of them slip into the driver’s seat of my car as I’m lifted off the ground, my kicking, my struggles meaning nothing. I’m carried into one of the waiting vehicles, the stench of cigarette smoke overpowering as my hands are dragged behind my back and bound just as I manage to bite the hand still closed over my mouth and scream the instant I can. But almost in that same instant, I’m struck so hard, my head whirls to the side, the impact of the man’s knuckles against my temple making my brain rattle and my ears ring.
The driver is in the car a moment later, and we’re moving as the man beside me slaps tape across my mouth, and I turn my head just enough to see the two cars behind ours, mine and the other sedan, the one with the huge dent I put in the side. But it’s the last thing I see before the man beside me slides a sack over my head and forces me down onto my knees, holding me there with a foot at the back of my neck, my forehead pressed to the floor vibrating beneath me as we speed off into the night and I think about that lipstick. About Abel’s silence.
I think about Santiago almost dying. Santiago out there looking for me. And I know I’ve made a terrible mistake.
One that won’t cost only me but possibly the baby inside me.