Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
He looks at me, and I can see that warmth shimmer through his gaze. “You’re a good person, Waverly. You understand me in ways nobody ever has.”
Believe me, buddy, I don’t.
“What is going on?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Are you well? You look like you’re tired.”
Goddammit, he’s skipping past my question. “I’m just really exhausted. My ex has been calling and . . . we’ve been fighting. I took some stuff a few nights ago and it just . . . I feel like I’m weakening . . .”
I’m a liar—a filthy liar.
I don’t even know what stuff I am talking about. I just know that he thinks I’ve had a rough past and I need to keep that little act up.
“You said you weren’t going to keep using,” he says, narrowing his eyes.
“It’s hard for me. I’m living on friends’ couches and I just . . . I have nothing . . .” I put on the big sob story, letting a tear leak out and roll down my cheek.
“Come and live with me, Waverly. Come here; let me take care of you. I can give you a good life.”
Well shit, that took a dramatic turn that I really didn’t see coming. “We’re not . . . we’re not together, Dax.”
He steps forward. “We can be. I want you. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another human. Let me have you. Come, stay here; we can enjoy our lives.”
“I don’t . . .” I shy away and look at the ground, because honestly, looking at him right now is making me nervous. Really bloody nervous.
“Think about it,” he says, his voice a touch harder. “Just think about it.”
“I will,” I say, to keep the peace. “I really will. But, right now . . . there’s just so much going on here. We need to work it out.”
“I’ve got a plan. Come, sit down. Let me tell you what’s going on, or better yet, let me show you.”
Show me?
God, that doesn’t sound good.
Not at all.
He takes my hand and leads me through the house, and then, before I know what’s happening, we’re going down to the basement, my stomach is turning and I know whatever is about to happen, it’s not good. He’s going to show me something that I’m not going to be able to fix—I just know it. He’s going to make sure this is something I never come back from.
“You’re on my side, right?” he asks me, stopping at the door and turning towards me. “You know what I’m doing here is actually helping these women?”
No.
“Yes, I know that. Why?”
“I just need to know you’re not going to freak out.”
Not freak out?
I’m already freaking out.
God, I’m freaking out so damned bad.
He pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the door and when we step inside, every bad thing I could have imagined is nothing compared to what’s in front of me. There’s not one, not two, not ten, not twenty, but at least fifty women in here. They’re all seemingly having a great time, with music, drugs and booze, and he’s got the basement set up like a party house. He’s making damn sure it looks fun. There are beds strewn around in the corners, and food wrappers lying about, but the women . . . they seem, I don’t know, out of it.
He’s got them drugged, probably something they don’t mind, but all the same, they’re seemingly not concerned that there is a massive group of them down here, or that they’re locked in and can’t get out, and they’re being fed a shit load of free drugs. Are their lives truly so bad that this situation doesn’t scare them? Or do they just think they’re at a party? But what will happen when they realize they’re not and freak out?
What then?
“What?” I say, stepping in. Dax locks the door behind me. There’s no getting away from this. This is an overload, an extreme, something that I honestly don’t know how to process. “What is this?”
“These women are all getting sold. Do you know just how much money there is sitting in here? Millions. Men, especially those overseas, will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for women like this. All I have to do is sell them. It’s a fuckin’ perfect plan. Peter won’t care that Bennett is dead, because we’re going to do the transaction of a lifetime that’ll set us up long enough for us to find another cop to do our dirty work.”
Oh god.
That’s a terrible, terrible fucking plan.
I’m freaking out. Every nerve ending in my body is on high alert. My knees are going to give out. I feel like I’m going to scream, yet there’s nothing I can do about it. I know I have to play along—I have to, now more than ever, because if don’t I might very well not walk out of here, and he’ll get away with this monstrous act.