Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79681 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79681 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
And never speak to me again.
It was ridiculous, but the idea of that sent a pang through me.
It wasn't about him, I tried to convince myself. It was just that I had opened up to him when I never opened up to anyone. I was just having some false sense of connection with him based on sharing my past with him.
Vulnerability, it was an aphrodisiac, I guess.
I had never experienced that before.
I guess because I never let down my guards around anyone. Heck, not even myself half the time.
"Your stomach hurt?" Gunner's voice asked, making me start, not having heard the clomp of his boots in the hallway.
"A bit," I admitted because it was true.
"You wanna talk about the plan?" he asked, moving in a foot as I pushed to sit up against the pillows.
"Sure."
"We got about forty hours left on the drive," he started immediately, using what I could only call his business-tone as he came in and sat on the far end of the bed, the furthest he could get from me while not making it seem like he was trying to keep his distance.
"Okay."
"I have it planned out in four eight-hour days. That's about all my eyes are going to want to take since it is I-80 almost the whole way. Easy to get road-weary. And that is only factoring normal traffic and two stops. If we get caught behind an accident, or need to stop more, the days will be longer. The first night, we will stop in Ohio. The next, Iowa. Then just barely over the border of Wyoming. Then finally Utah. After those four days, it will be a shorter day to Carson City."
"And what will we do in Carson City?" I asked, everything leading up to that sounding almost a little exciting to a woman who had never really done a road trip. In fact, the only traveling I ever did was to Fashion Week once. Other than that, my entire life was in the city. But the part about my new town, my new life, my new everything, all alone... yeah, that part freaked me out.
"We set you up," he said simply.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I show you your new place. I'll help you get some basic furniture for it. We'll grab a used car. I'll grill you on your new identity that we will talk about over the next four days."
"Then you leave," I added.
"Then I leave. You will have everything you need. A place, a couple job options lined up, a way to get from point A to point B. I'll give you a burner cell. You can eventually replace that with a plan phone if you want."
"How?" I asked, shaking my head a little. "I'd need proof of who I am for that."
"You'll have it," he assured me. "Duchess, this is why we cost so much. Not necessarily the escort across the country, but the documents that will stand up to any kind of scrutiny from a basic credit check to the cops looking into you. You aren't just pretending to be Sloane Livingston. You will be her. You'll have the birth certificate, Social Security card, credit history, a couple parking tickets and license from Maine. The whole shebang. You'll never really have to worry about blowing your cover or someone finding you out unless you actually tell them."
"Okay," I agreed, proud that I sounded more confident than I felt. In fact, my head was spinning with all the realities I would have to face in a few days.
"It's a lot," he told me, seeming to read the situation easily. But, I reminded myself, because this was what he did, this was his job. He had seen people in my situation over and over. This had nothing to do with him being able to read me, to see what I was going through. It was simply part of the job. It was in his best interest to keep me calm and focused, not freaking out. "I know it doesn't seem like it now, but you'll get your head wrapped around it. People, as a whole, are pretty fucking adaptable. And certain death, if you aren't successful, is a good motivator."
I needed that.
That reality check.
I wondered if he sensed that, or if he was just being his usual blunt self.
But I did need it.
The reminder of why this was happening.
What could and would happen to me if I didn't commit to this whole situation.
I tried not to think about that night.
The night I saw a man's insides get blown outside, splattering against a filthy brick wall as the man with the smoking gun laughed.
Laughed.
I never really believed in evil before then.
Shitty, selfish, mean-hearted people? Like my mother? Sure. But not evil. Evil was an almost biblical idea. And me, well, I never had much faith in my life. It was hard to believe in a higher power while you had welts on your backside from a mother who punished you because you interrupted her soaps by falling and skinning your knees on your way home from school. I could never reconcile the idea of an all-loving God when there were thousands of children in the world like me - innocent, but living in some hellish world by no fault of their own. And if I didn't believe in an all-seeing good, I could never believe in an all-punishing bad.