Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 90448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
“Be careful.” Chase rose. Part of his lip lifted in a sneer.
She got in front of him.
“Or what?” She slapped him across the face.
I flinched from the impact. It was so uncomfortable to witness this, both of them at their worst and me being the cause of so much pain.
I looked back down and almost turned the page. I didn’t. My name was on the birth certificate.
Jasmine Bernice Nix.
What the fuck?
I had my mom’s last name, Montgomery.
Nix was Vivian and Benny’s last name. I swallowed and traced my finger to the father’s name on the birth certificate. Benny Cedric Nix.
This can’t be right.
The birth certificate I had in my records left the father’s name blank. It was one of those embarrassing and painful reminders that my dad didn’t care enough about Troy and me to stick around.
Benny is our dad?
The room swirled around me. My mind seemed disconnected to my body. My brain scrambled into mush.
And Chase knew the whole time. Why didn’t he say anything? Why would he keep this a secret?
I thought back to that day outside the police station. Benny had talked about dealing with the girls’ death certificates. Chase had countered that Benny had dealt with other certificates.
Chase had been hinting at Benny messing with my birth certificate?
I scanned the rest of the binder, just in case more secrets lay in the pages. There were old photos of my mom and Benny in a bar on the next page. She’d been a go-go dancer at the Kitty Kat Club. It was the one thing my aunt would remind me about all the time.
“You stick to them grades, girl. Your mama dropped out of high school and used to dance naked for all them white people downtown, getting all used up.”
I realized Dawn’s screen turned quiet and glanced up. Chase held Dawn as she cried in his arms.
“Please. Please,” Dawn mumbled in a soft voice.
“I can’t get rid of her,” Chase whispered. “I just can’t.”
I left the binder where it was. There was no need to take any proof. Even if Benny or Mom denied it, I knew all I needed to know. And it all made sense. This was why he was always there when I needed him. And to think, all those years I felt like a charity case and he’d been doing what he was supposed to.
Now it all makes sense.
I never understood why Troy and I went to nice private schools when our brothers went to the crappy local ones.
Once when I’d asked, Mom told me she’d applied for a low income scholarship and was only able to get it for Troy and me, but not for our older brothers.
Now I doubted it. Especially since we were enrolled in the same schools that Vivian went to. It was how we’d all met.
And Benny was always there.
I couldn’t remember when he wasn’t taking us home from school or picking us up. I’d known Vivian since kindergarten. He’d been carpooling us ever since, from the ghetto to suburbia. We barely saw Vivian’s mom. She’d been in and out of the hospital ever since she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Benny is my dad.
Troy and Vivian’s faces entered my mind.
Oh god. Oh my god! How do I tell them? Should I tell them? Yes. God! What am I thinking? I have to.
This was why Chase stared at Troy and Vivian’s hand holding in horror.
He knew.
“I’ll walk away if she stays.” Dawn climbed out of his arms. “Wendy and Lucy will probably come too. Then what will you do? How will your dick feel about that?”
Chase just stood there, gazing at her.
“I told you we didn’t need another. Every time there’s a fourth girl it causes problems.” She marched off to a tiny bar near her TV and poured clear liquid into a crystal glass. “You and Lucy mourned their deaths. I didn’t.”
“I’m tired of this conversation.”
“You should be, because all three of their deaths are on you.” Dawn pointed at him. Some of the liquid spilled from her glass.
“I deal with my guilt over their deaths. I don’t need you to help me with that.”
“Yes you do, because there will be a fourth death.” She gulped some of her drink. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as she laughed. “Oh, it’s coming.”
“Is it?” Chase put his hands into his pockets and formed his lips into an angry line.
“She’ll reject you. She’ll have that guy’s big dick in her mouth by the end of the week.”
The muscles in his jaw twitched.
“What happened with her would’ve never happened with me. You know that. I’ve been loyal to you.” Tears fell from her eyes as she took another sip.
“I know you have.”
“Where was Jasmine when I was washing Yancy’s blood off your body?” she yelled.
Blood? Oh God.
My own blood raced.