Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 108616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
She leaned back, throat dry, and forced her eyes to remain on his. “I have a job to do. If I fail, you’ll be digging my body out of the backyard to fuck it.”
The skin around his scar strained. “He doesn’t bury bodies back there.”
“Yet.”
He plucked the toothpick from his mouth and pointed it at her. His lips parted to speak and a gust of frustration grooved his face. He knew if she didn’t meet their deadlines her threat was a dead-on promise.
Whatever he was going to say was abandoned as he dropped his brow to hers and pressed the seam of his lips to her bottom one. She fought a shiver. This bond wasn’t romantic. It was unwanted, sad, and it thrived on her fear of him.
The slide of his tongue along her inner lip hitched her breath. He wouldn’t fuck her here and sabotage the mission, but he always made time to fuck with her. To speed it along, she remained pliable in her stillness.
With a disappointed sigh, he returned the toothpick to his mouth and started the car. “Let’s go get your boy.”
Chapter 2
Liv wanted to be anywhere but in that car, on her way to uproot another life, facing the next ten weeks behind a whip and a mask. She trained them. She delivered them. And after?
They were dead to her. They had to be. Sometimes, it was the lies she told herself that kept her going. Believing anything else made her a danger to the captives she sold.
She pressed her fingertips against the window. If only she could find the strength to end her own life.
The suburban conveniences of Waco, Texas, swept by in the form of drive-throughs, water towers, and churches of every denomination. As Van drove toward the outskirts of town, the scenery transformed. The wide-open freedom of the crop fields, cut by a swath of tarmac and hangars beneath the moonlight, haunted her vision.
Memories took shape, a tapestry of the private airport in Austin where Mom instructed skydiving courses, the adjacent corn field and its maze of childhood adventures, and the acres of paved airstrip where local teens roller-bladed until dusk.
Until one of the kids was taken.
The old sore in her chest opened. Her exhale erupted in a choke, and she feigned a cough.
Van’s hand swung into view and collided with her throat, squeezing. Oh God, her mind wasn’t on the job, and he had the unnerving ability to mark every fucking move of her body.
She tried to draw air, an empty effort against the vise of his fingers on her windpipe. His I-control-your-thoughts conditioning was a technique that once worked on her, and experience taught her the best reaction was no reaction.
Lips pinned in silence, she sought out her defense, a song, any song, and grabbed hold of “Gods and Monsters” by Lana Del Rey. Saturating her thoughts with the lamenting chorus, she sang in her head. The rippling effects numbed her heart—and her throat beneath his fingers. Singing was her tonic, the only trace of self she had left.
“Is your head on straight?” He tightened his grip, gave it a shake. “Feels like it is.”
Lungs burning, fingers digging into her thighs, she steadied her pulse to the slow beat of lyrics spilling through her mind.
The clamp vanished and his hand returned to the wheel. She let her lungs fill with quiet stoicism and loosened her muscles limb by limb.
“Your mind is wandering.” His impatience pulsated between them. “Pull your balls out of your cunt.”
She wanted to hate him, but he was all she had. She wanted to love him, but memories tore deep and scarred. “My head is straight. Balls are out. What other body parts are you concerned about?”
Passing headlights illuminated the stone set of his jaw, his eyes piercing the road. “Tell me what you were thinking about.”
That command had more power than it should. She summoned a reply with control in her voice. “Your first capture.”
“My first…” His hands tightened on the wheel, slackened, and a sick kind of attachment slithered into his tone. “My favorite capture.” He squeezed her knee.
Mom used to say no one had truly evaluated their life until they looked at it from 10,000 feet. Liv’s arrangement allowed her a certain amount of freedom, so she still skydived between jobs. When she did, her falls always retraced the same path of should-haves.
Should have jumped with Mom that day instead of staying behind to roller-blade. Should have skated away from his car when he stopped to ask directions. Should have screamed instead of getting in when he aimed the gun. A wave of revulsion surged through her. “Your first capture was just a stupid girl.”
“A stupid girl who incorporated the client’s requirements. Tight seventeen-year-old ass, perky tits, all that innocence bouncing up and down on skates.” He hummed. “I have no regrets.”