Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
He touches my face. “We’ll forget the camera is even there. I promise.”
He drops down in front of me, holding my eyes as he starts to slide his hands up my skirt.
I reach down and grab his hands, but I don’t pull them off. “Start the camera, Trace,” he says. And then to his other brother, “Army, take off her shirt.”
Oh my God.
I can’t get enough air. I’m suffocating.
Army moves, Dallas starts to slide my underwear down, and I suck in a breath and freeze.
Shit.
I start to push him away, but then … a throat clears loudly, and I dart my eyes up.
Santos stands in the open doorway, so big he takes up the entire frame.
I suck in a breath, yanking away from Dallas and fixing my underwear.
What the hell? What was I doing?
Trace and Army twist around, and Dallas stands up tall. I adjust my clothes, pushing hair out of my face that fell from my ponytail.
“Santos?” Army blurts out. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I swallow through my parched mouth, my face hot.
“Macon says to bring her home,” Santos says.
Army moves forward. “What?”
“How did …?” Dallas starts but stops.
Then … they all glance at the corner of the room behind them. I follow their gaze, not seeing anything.
But as I step to the side, the light from a lamp catches a small piece of glass on the corner, near the ceiling, above a deer antler.
A lens. Army had said they have cameras here.
My chin trembles. Macon just saw all of that?
“How did you get here so fast?” Army asks him.
Santos looks down at his shoes, deliberately not answering.
Army laughs bitterly, shaking his head.
“What?” I ask him. What’s so funny?
“He has a guard on you,” Army tells me.
What?
I gape at Santos, not remembering if I’ve seen him anywhere near me other than the restaurant. Why would Macon have a guard following me?
“Since when?” I ask Santos.
“Since you got jumped at the Bug Jam.”
Jesus.
Well, that explains how he got to us so fast. He was already here. All Macon had to do was call him.
“We’ll take her home,” Army says, taking my hand.
But when we move toward the door, Santos doesn’t move out of the way.
“To the Bay,” he commands Army. “He wants her home now.”
“That’s not her home.”
“To the Bay,” Santos repeats.
Army squeezes my hand like he’s gauging whether the three of them can take Santos.
I look up at Army. “He doesn’t want this,” I say. “Which means he wouldn’t use it.”
Even if I went through with it.
I pry my hand out of his and step forward. “I’m going home,” I tell the guy. “To my house.”
“Macon says to bring you to him.”
And then he sweeps me up, knocking the wind out of me as he throws me over his shoulder like a wet sheet.
I scream. “Are you kidding me?”
“Motherfucker,” Army bites out.
But no one tries to stop him, Dallas and Trace saying absolutely nothing as I’m carted toward the field house where their trucks are parked.
We pull up in front of the house, all the windows dark and the garage door closed. The boys jump out of the truck, and I step out of my mom’s Rover, Santos in my driver’s seat. He didn’t trust me to drive here, and even though I bitched a little, he was right not to. There’s no way in hell I actually want to look in Macon’s eyes right now.
We walk through the front door, the shutter hanging above flapping against the house in the wind as Trace and Dallas scan left and right, because they’re just as nervous as I am. We turn into the living room and see Macon sitting in the chair, a stream of smoke from a cigarette rising from his fingers.
Army steps forward. “Macon—”
“Leave her here” is all he says.
I look to Trace, and he darts forward. “Macon—”
“Get the fuck out of my sight.”
I can’t swallow. Shit.
An image of the container he keeps out back flashes in my head.
I look to Army, frozen for a second, but then I nod. I’ll be okay.
Army hesitates, but he backs away. Dallas and Trace follow him up the stairs.
Snuffing out his cigarette, Macon rises and approaches me. His black pants hang too low, his arms looking like dead weights.
I back up. “Don’t hurt me.”
He stops in front of me, the glare in his eyes making the brown look a little red.
But still, he says nothing. Like he doesn’t want to talk at all. He wants to strangle me.
My voice is barely above a whisper as I stare at his stomach, not really seeing it, though. “I wasn’t going to do it,” I say. “I just knew it would solve everything.”
“And when your little brother and sister see what you did?”
I jerk my eyes up. “They would never have known,” I state. “My grandfather would never have let that video see the light of day.”