Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 129408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
One last glimpse.
Because the next time he saw her, she wouldn’t be a little girl at all. She’d be changed, matured beyond her years, something ripped from her soul that would ensure the absence of carefree happiness.
“Yeah, I’m not doing anything,” his father murmured, little more than a whisper. “And that’s how I’m helpin’ ’em.” The last part was barely audible.
“What are you talking about?” Luke’s harsh adolescent yell somehow didn’t seem as loud as his father’s muted whisper. “You have to help! That’s what you do. That’s your job.”
His father finally looked at him then. Luke thought he glimpsed something like shame, but it was quickly replaced by something just as unfamiliar.
Anger.
“No, son. My job is to keep Amber safe. Keep you and your mother safe. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’ll hear no more about it.”
“But—”
“I’ll hear no more about it!”
Luke flinched at his father’s cruel tone. He didn’t want to be quiet. He wanted to yell, scream at his father that he was doing it wrong. Being wrong. Beg him to at least take him back so he could do something for that little girl.
But he did none of those things. Instead he folded his arms across his chest, staring out the window and trying to blink away the tears that inexplicably rose behind his eyes.
No, Luke could not remember when he started respecting his father less. But he could remember when he stopped respecting him altogether.
That moment right then.
And he’d always thought it’d been because of the injustice of letting outlaws make their own justice, which turned out to be revenge. Thought it was encouraging lawlessness.
Or maybe he’d forced himself to think that.
Because it was actually none of that.
It was because he’d driven away from that little girl before Luke could do anything.
Before Luke could protect her.
Present Day
Rosie
I was roughly yanked out of the bed of truck that I’d been hurled into an hour before. My arm caught on a protruding piece of metal, sharp pain followed by the warmth of blood radiating from my bicep.
I didn’t flinch, keeping my body slack as they muttered to each other in Spanish. My eyes stayed squeezed shut, but I keenly took notice of my surroundings: the smells, the crunch of gravel, not dirt, beneath their feet.
They didn’t know I was awake. Nor that I could understand how they were arguing over who would “fuck the mouthy American first.”
Of course, they counted on me still being unconscious for that particular rape. They’d make sure I was awake for the rest of them. They’d try not to hurt me too badly, or bruise my face. Couldn’t damage the merchandise before they sold me.
Then I’d be raped again. But it would be by someone different. Someone richer, most likely. Maybe I’d get brutalized on a private jet, surrounded by beautiful things. But a woman may as well be surrounded by filth—she always would be at the moment a man took something brutally that should never be taken. That was never his to take.
In the States, back home in civilization, there is a reported rape every six minutes. That’s just what’s reported. Here, who the fuck knew. Who the fuck knew how often a woman had that innocence, which she didn’t even know she had, stolen.
She’d know she’d had it the second it was taken. The absence of it would eat her up inside.
Which is why I’m here. To hopefully take it right back.
Along with their manhood if it was a slightly less shitty day.
It didn’t look like it was going to be difficult. The idiots didn’t even notice me swapping out my dosed beer for the one I’d stashed in the corner behind me. I always chose a seat with a view of the door and my back to a wall. A little of my brother’s advice sticking, or just common sense in this particular line of work.
I let myself be groped and roughly tossed around, gritting my teeth when the dirty paws of some animal cupped me between my legs. Even though I was prepared, even though I knew I was in control, it didn’t make that moment any less degrading, didn’t mean it didn’t take a tiny slice of my dignity from me. Every time it happened, I was back in that room—he was touching me, violating me. It was almost too much in those few seconds before I got a hold of myself. And I did. Remembering that I couldn’t stop what happened to me in the past, but I might be able to do something for someone else who hopefully would never know what I did for them.
The stench of sweat and human waste was thick enough to choke on in the room they planned on being their house of pleasure and my house of horrors. I could taste the sorrow and the pain of the women who came before me. Or maybe I was imagining that because I knew those women were lost. No matter what I did now, they would be lost.