Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
The woman put her hands on her hips, everything about her just so irritating. “All you have to do is talk. I’d like for you to tell me a few things, that’s all.” She slipped her hands in her pockets and aimed for another fake smile. “I know you didn’t take the money yourself, but make this easier on all of us and tell me where it is.”
I clenched my teeth together.
“Tell me what you know.”
Fat fucking chance. How stupid did she think I was?
“At least tell me what you think you might know about it.”
Rubbing my hands up and down my arms, I just kept looking at her.
After a moment, she raised an eyebrow and her chin a little. “How about a little more water?”
Oh, she’d gone there.
“I get nothing from hurting you, Altagracia. All I want, all my family wants, is their money back. It was ours. Help me, and you can go home.”
The money was theirs. Give me a break. And home? Really?
I rubbed at my arms as I shivered and told her so, so quietly, mostly because with every word out of my mouth, my throat hurt worse, “Then don’t and let me and the man leave. He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t even know my last name. We had just messed around. He doesn’t deserve this.”
The woman came forward and crouched. Out of the corner of my eye, behind her, I saw my torturers step forward too. “Why won’t you tell me what I want to know?” she asked deceptively sweetly.
“Why won’t you believe me when I tell you that I don’t have it? I haven’t seen or spoken to my parents since I was five years old.”
An edge came over her sharp features. She was pretty fair-skinned, a lot lighter than me. A little older too, I was pretty sure now that I’d had time to think about it, even though my head hurt so bad it was hard to think or focus on anything. “You expect us to believe that you don’t know where the money is, but you’ve been trying to hide from us for years. Innocent people don’t hide.”
I kept my mouth shut. Was there a point in explaining that innocent people understood that they were going to be blamed for something regardless of what they did and said? Wasn’t that exactly why I was here?
“Maybe you think you’ll escape somehow and run and hide, and we’ll never find you again. But we’ll always find you. We’re never going to quit looking for you. Twenty million dollars can pay for a lot. Your cousin sold you out for a ten-thousand-dollar debt.”
My cousin? I didn’t have a cousin. Maybe a second one in Costa Rica I’d never met before.
But as far as I knew, no one had kept in touch with my grandparents since that letter had arrived from my mom.
“Tell me a little something. I’ll even tell you who gave us your new name, and you can do with that what you will. Family should always take care of family.”
My eyes wanted to widen. I didn’t want to believe that that was how they’d found me, but… what? Before we’d changed our last name, my grandma used to talk to someone on the phone. Her sister maybe? Niece? I knew there had been someone obviously, since my mom had found a way to get in contact with them the one time. I hadn’t thought about that in forever. And if someone in the family knew something, why had they waited so long to rat us out? Rat me out? Because of desperation? Because of a debt?
Ice snaked its way down my spine.
“I’m ready when you are,” she said with a mocking smile.
I knew in my heart that there was a good chance I wasn’t getting out of here alive. Maybe The Defender wouldn’t be able to get us out. Maybe this raging asshole would really drown me or cause me some kind of brain damage and life as I knew it would end.
My life had been so small for so long, I hadn’t had a whole lot of opportunities to prove to myself who I was. But I did know who I’d always wanted to be. Someone I could or would admire.
And being a snitch to save myself some pain—or a whole lot of it—wasn’t worth it. Not when I would be betraying someone who might not exactly be the person I’d thought he was but still did the right thing. And maybe that was more impressive than if he did what he did because of some altruistic gene in his body.
She could eat shit.
All of it. She could eat all the shit in the world. Her and her whole fucking family and every person she knew and every person she would ever know.