Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 54645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
But then it started to come together. The white paint on the side of his Mercedes. The white paint of their van. “Did you do this?”
His eyes were red rimmed as he brought a crystal glass to his lips, drinking down the last of an amber liquid, then throwing it out the window to shatter beside me. He looked blank, dead somehow. Unfeeling. Unbothered. He adjusted his jacket, flashing the glint of a gun in a holster near his shoulder. “I will remember your face. I will find out who you are and where you live. Trust me.”
I blinked, trying to understand what was happening here. I felt the color drain from my face.
“Mouth shut, you live. Mouth open, you die,” he said. And then rolled up the window, and sped away.
As the Mercedes rounded the corner out of view, I knew I would never forget that face, nor that voice. One glittering gold tooth between yellow and brown teeth. A scar under his right eye. And that voice. I’d never be able to forget that voice.
The blood from my dad’s head dripped down onto my hand as I held onto him through the van’s broken window.
And from there, it’s just a blur. A blur of sirens and lights. Of loss and doctor’s coats, of kindly nurses and orderlies and forms. Then the sinking, sinking, sinking realization of what had happened.
Still and cold in my memory.
Death certificates and an empty house. The best coffin I could afford. The funeral, and me weeping over a stupid typo in the program of services. Sad about everything. Devastated and lost.
The nightmare did not end with the funerals. The black Mercedes continued to drive past the house on Pacific Avenue for weeks, circling and circling. A knife in my mailbox. A dead crow on the back step. It was so terrifying, so constant, that I didn’t dare reach out to Trent’s unit liaison at the base. There was no way in the world I could ask him to come home and keep him safe, because if he knew about the man in the Mercedes, I’d lose him, too.
I was able to figure out who my stalker was in time. Corsicov Rominovski was a bad guy of the old school variety. Russian mob in Detroit. No joke at all. They dealt in death and pain like penny candy.
But Rominovski was good at keeping up a front. He’d occasionally be on the news, and always when I googled him there were new hits, brimming with good news—funding new foster programs, donating to good causes. Shaking hands with local police chiefs. The mayor. The governor himself.
After the house was taken by the bank, I hid myself in the most dangerous part of town where I became invisible sure.
But he found me all the same and if he sees the moving van today, he’ll find Trent, too.
I have to tell Trent.
But what if I don’t?
Just as my thoughts are about turn toward thinking about real danger, real threats, not just to me but to Trent as well, I hear the sound of the garage door rumbling up its track. I run through the kitchen, into the back hallway to meet Trent as he comes through the mudroom door.
“Are you okay?” I ask, more urgency in my voice than I’d planned. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
Trent looks cocky. And sexier than ever. “You’re welcome, Kitty Kat. You’re right—moving is a pain in the ass. But anything for you.”
I swallow hard, not sure if I like the anger in the voice. Or fear it. Or both. “Sorry. Thank you. For doing that for me.”
Trent walks past me. His gray shirt is dark with sweat and he smells like cologne. My pussy clenches in almost unwilling response.
“Was… was everything okay?”
“No, everything was not fucking okay. You told me you’d rented somewhere nice, but that you weren’t sure how long you could stay. You fucking lied, Kitty Kat.”
“I know, I—”
He cracks his neck side to side. “Never lie to me again. I mean it. Got that shithole of yours all emptied out. No thanks to that dickhead landlord of yours. Like doing business with some fucking Pablo Escobar complex. And what the fuck is with him calling you Margaret Hoover?”
Oh no. My ears buzz, my brain racing between telling the truth and coming up with a solidly believable lie.
But as he walks over to wash his hands in the kitchen sink, he seems pretty unbothered.
“I couldn’t afford anywhere better. Mom and Dad, they had some debts when they died. Things you didn’t know about. There was this investment thing. Someone they must have trusted but they had nothing in the end. I didn’t want you worrying, being distracted. I pay cash because that’s how I get paid, and called myself Margaret Hoover because I didn’t want anyone there knowing my name and they didn’t seem to care as long as you paid your rent. I didn’t want you to worry about me.” I shrug, trying to be as nonchalant about it as I can. And the thing is, it’s not a complete lie. So that’s good. Hopefully.