Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 168587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 843(@200wpm)___ 674(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 843(@200wpm)___ 674(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
“Son, you’re in no position to negotiate.” One of them laughs.
The other one holds up his hand and steps forward. “What is it?”
I come to a stop and look at his mask. “I get to marry whoever I want when the time comes.”
Their masks look at one another.
“Free and clear. No initiations. No stipulations. Nothing. Who I want. When I want.” If Frank wants to fuck me, I’ll fuck him right back. Big, blue eyes and long dark hair is exactly what I want to take from him, and I’ll remind him who the fuck I am as I parade her around this town like an obedient slave with a collar and leash. I’ll make his last daughter my wife, and she’ll choke on the words that bind her to me.
“Done.”
“You set me up,” I say, more to myself than anyone. “I can’t prove it, but you had Luke, Miller, and Jackson pretend to call me for an assignment my senior year to make Whitney my chosen. You wanted me to come off to the public as an obsessed, stalker boyfriend. So when she came up dead, her phone pointed the cops directly to me.” That’s why I didn’t find Whitney’s phone on that day she had called me crying and lost. One of them had already handed it over to the cops, leading them right to me. It wasn’t a hard sell really. I had a tracker on her cell. I had been texting and calling her for days. I said some really shitty things to her during the days she would go MIA. A few of my condoms with holes poked in them were found in her purse—it too, was conveniently not at the house where I found her. They were to be used against me as I was trying to knock her up so she couldn’t leave me. I set myself up as the perfect suspect, playing right into their hands.
I stand next to the bed, arms crossed over my chest, and watch the man come to. I didn’t give him much. Just needed a little time to get him where I wanted him—stripped down and naked. He was planning on getting fucked, but I have different plans for him.
He’s on his back, spread-eagled with a gag in his mouth—he’s here to listen, not speak. His eyes open, and he looks around aimlessly for a few seconds. They meet mine, and he begins to yank on the ropes, mumbling nonsense.
“We’ve been here before,” I tell him, getting to the point. I’ve got somewhere to be. “Years ago. This all started because I filmed you with a woman in this very room. But you have to understand it wasn’t my doing.” I snort. “Like I care who you decide to fuck, but the Lords did care that you were pushing for more. Getting greedy.” I remove the lighter from my pocket, and he begins to yank harder, screaming louder. “You wanted to be State Senator, and they wanted my father to have that position. So they had me set you up with a woman and film it.”
I just recently found out that she was one of those women who went missing. “Miller and Luke killed her, didn’t they?” I found out later that she was last seen exiting this hotel with a smile on her face. I sigh, hating the fact that what I asked her to do got her killed.
The best I can come up with is that Miller followed his dad. Saw him enter the Minson Hotel with her and then watched her leave alone. He followed her to the bar down the street, made his move, and she left with him, never to be seen again. She was among one of the many women whose bodies were never found.
“It’s brilliant, really, that you use Minson Hotels for a front.” Frank wasn’t innocent. He may not have killed and sold women for money, but he knew what his son was doing, and he allowed it. “Your son and his best friend kidnapped women, brought them here, and put them in a room, and then they come and go as they please. They’re registered under Minson or Cabot, and no one was the wiser. They’ve just vanished.” They knew every camera angle, where to take them, what to avoid.
Pushing off the dresser, I light up the lighter and hold it over his skin, smiling as she thrashes on the bed. “I consider myself a reasonable man. A patient man. I waited three years to marry Lake.” I can’t figure out why he made her wait until she was twenty-one to marry Luke, but it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.
“You’re as fucked as they come, watching me fuck your daughter.” I flip the lighter shut, and he sags into the mattress. I pull out a knife, and his body goes rigid. “You will bleed on this very bed for me just like Lake did.” I stab him in the hip and pull out, smiling as the blood starts to pour out of the wound. His mumbled scream makes my smile widen and his body shakes.