Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88447 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88447 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
“Layla won’t be there.”
“Really? Would be a great place for Layla to try and get new, rich sponsors for the service dogs for foster kids program she volunteers with.”
“How do you know about that?”
His lips firmed, and he gave me a look like he thought I was a dipshit.
Right, because Leo knows everything about everyone.
I frowned and rubbed my face, cursing the day Leo had decided he liked Layla. His curiosity had been piqued when I asked for a full background check on her after our time together in the elevator. Initially, he’d assumed my interest in her was because I suspected Layla of being involved with the power outage situation. Due to that, when the report came in, he read it first, looking for anything suspicious.
What he found was bad.
So bad he at first refused to give me her file. He knew by this point that my curiosity wasn’t professional. He also knew what my reaction would be when I found out the truth. Before he would reveal anything to me, he got me too drunk to stand.
Once I finally got my hands on the report and learned about her past, I understood why.
While it didn’t contain all the details, the report gave a clinical account of a sweet little girl who’d been abused, neglected, and almost burned to death. At the age of nine, Layla was removed from her mother’s tender care—so malnourished she was the size of your average six-year-old.
When Layla was five, her long-distance trucker father died in an accident, and Layla’s mother Marci—a beautiful woman by all accounts—moved them to a remote cabin in Montana. Everyone thought Marci had gone there to start a new life with her young daughter. What no one back home knew was Marci did indeed start a new life—one without her daughter. Layla was locked inside that isolated four-room cabin, with bars on its windows and spotty electricity, for almost five years. During that time, Layla’s mother would come by once or twice a week with supplies and would only occasionally spend the night.
Other than that…Layla was alone.
And Layla’s mother made sure she’d never try to escape. She convinced the little girl terrible things would happen if she ever left the cabin. Horrible threats that she backed up by hurting her own child. Marci played mind games with the little girl until she didn’t know up from down. One day, she’d left the door open on purpose to see what Layla would do. When the little girl wandered out, Layla’s mother shot her in the leg with a pellet gun, but she’d convinced Layla it was an assassin sent to kill her. From then on, Marci set bear traps in front of the door and under the windows to ‘Keep the bad guys from getting in and killing Layla.’ Meanwhile, she constantly tore down the little girl’s self-esteem, calling her an ugly monster that no one could ever love.
Throughout all of it, Layla’s mother lived a separate life in a nearby town. She worked at the local bank and was engaged to a doctor who had a huge house on a lake and spoiled the hell out of her. He’d been told that Layla died in the same accident that claimed her father. Imagine his surprise when the police showed up at his door to arrest his fiancée on a huge list of abuse charges.
A lightning strike is what ended up saving Layla, though it very nearly killed her as well. It started a fire and the forest rangers went out to check all the cabins in the path of the blaze. When they found Layla, she’d been nearly catatonic with fear, certain they were the bad guys her mother had always warned her about. She honestly believed that her rescuers were the ones that were going to torture, rape, and kill her, even as the forest fire glowed bright on the nearby horizon.
To say that Layla had some issues resulting from her childhood trauma was an understatement.
Weirdly, it seemed like Leo admired Layla because of everything she’d been through. He displayed almost a paternal pride in her. By being a survivor, even damaged, she’d proven a strength of spirit that few possessed. Most people thought Leo was a pure sociopath, but that wasn’t true. He could feel compassion and empathy, he just usually didn’t. It was a rare person to stir those sensations in him, but Layla was just one of those women that men like myself and Leo were drawn to protect. We were surrounded by so much filth that we recognized what a fragile gift a loving spirit was in this world.
And Layla had so much love to give despite—or maybe because of—her past. She wanted to help others dealing with their mental demons and didn’t let her agoraphobia stop her. She volunteered at the same pediatric hospital where a lot of her art was displayed, working with the kids on various art projects. She was also very involved in a program that gave service dogs to foster kids called A Kid’s Best Friend, something she was extremely passionate about. Layla credited a huge part of her recovery to the unconditional love and support she got from Vali. With as impassioned as she was about the project, I shouldn’t be surprised that she’d be willing to battle her personal demons in order to get more donors for her chosen charity.