Total pages in book: 227
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
“Want some help?”
I look back, arms still in the air, bag still wedged against the edge of the rack, a few inches shy of actually being on the shelf. A tall guy in sports pants and a baseball tank smiles at me, reaching up, and he practically flicks my bag into place.
“Thanks,” I say, smiling awkwardly and shuffling into a seat at a table.
“Mind?” he asks, motioning to one of the chairs opposite.
I smile again, not engaging. I don’t want to talk or smile. I look across to the double seats. I should have taken one of those, leaving minimal scope for chatty strangers to bother me. I’d look really rude if I stand now and move. Do I care? No. But the man pulls out an iPad and some earbuds, getting himself set up, and I settle again when he opens a can of Pepsi Max. The hiss melds with the sound of the doors of the train closing. I look at them, then up at the speakers as the driver announces our departure, settling back in my seat, turning my gaze to the platform outside the window as the train starts to pull away.
Goodbye, Miami.
Goodbye, freedom.
Goodbye, Brad.
I sniff and wipe my nose, my body heavy in the seat. It’s for the best. I have to keep telling myself that. Leave so he has no reason to bother Brad or any of the others. All people I’ve become so attached to. Love. I swallow down my emotion.
“Excuse me,” a man says.
I shoot my eyes toward the voice, my heart racing up to my throat.
Brad’s standing in the aisle, suited, my phone in his hand. A mild sheen of sweat coats his forehead. His face is a mess of bruises. What the hell happened? And why the hell is he here? “You dropped this.” He smiles. It’s not a smile I like. “Through the back window of an old Chevy outside the station.” He places it down carefully on the table. “Oops.”
I stare at my phone, my mind a blank mess.
“You don’t mind if I take your seat, do you.” It’s not a question, and I peek up at the guy opposite me. He’s staring at Brad, his eyebrows arched.
“You’re welcome to join us,” he says, motioning to the two empty seats in the group of four.
Brad seems to inhale some patience, and I will the stranger to be wise and just move. “I don’t think you heard me right.” Brad reaches to the back of his trousers, and I shrink down into the seat, worried, anxious, stressed. He pulls his gun and scratches his temple with the end. “Move.”
“Whoa, dude, I’m out of here.” The guy laughs over his words, scrambling up and not only leaving his seat, but leaving the carriage too.
I watch Brad lower to the outside chair, pull the tails of his suit jacket out from under his arse, and shuffle across the small space so he’s in the window seat opposite me. I can see the unbridled rage he’s trying to keep a lid on. “Going somewhere nice?” he asks, laying his gun on the table. It’s so fucking passive aggressive.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask frankly, my jaw tense as I look at him. Steel in my expression. Strength in my voice. He told me he loved me only a few hours ago, although it feels like weeks since I was in bed with him this morning. And now he’s going to kill me?
He flies across the table, the gun in his hand, and pushes it into my forehead, breathing in my face. Out of control. Completely.
“I will fucking kill you, Pearl.”
“What for?” I ask calmly. “Lying to you? Or for sleeping with you? Or,” I murmur, my eyes searching his, “will you shoot me because you love me?”
He scoffs, easing up on the pressure of his gun on my skin. “I don’t fucking love you.”
Child. “Of course. Because the big, bad Brad Black can’t love anyone, least of all a twenty-one-year-old virgin.”
He slams his fist down on the table, and I jump, despite expecting his anger. “You lied to me!”
“Just let me leave, Brad,” I say quietly. “Trust me.” I can make this right as long as no one knows about Brad and me.
“Trust you?” His gun is thrust forward, and I lean back in my seat, looking at the end of it. “I just saw a picture of you with Bernard fucking King, and you want me to trust you?”
I try to hide my surprise. Why would anyone show Brad a picture of me with him? And how the hell does Brad know who he is? My mind spins.
But my mouth remains closed. Brad will never get the truth from me. I will never be that pathetic to him.
“So you’re a mole,” he says with nothing but pure venom in his voice.