Sick Hate – Sick World Read Online J.A. Huss

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Dark, Sports, Suspense, Virgin Tags Authors: J.A. Huss Advertisement

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“How?” Nandy asks me, staring me in the eyes. “How does that happen, Irina? You won’t so much as look at a man when I beg you to meet someone, but this freak shows up and suddenly, you’re living with him? And don’t lie to me!” She’s angry, I can tell, but hurt, as well. Tears welling up in her eyes. “You show up on a billboard in the design district with a black eye, looking all heroin chic and—”

This is when I stop listening.

They know. I’m not sure how much they’ve found or when they figured it out, but they know. Probably have known for a long time. Maybe even since that picture of me started popping up all over the world.

And then what? That famous face walks into their restaurant, looking for food. And they take notice, but say nothing. Because they are the Jardinez crime family. They know when to speak up and when not to.

So they… play it cool. Just smile at the sad, lost girl who likes to order Argentine rice bowls and talks with a Russian accent laced with Portuguese and God knows what else.

And then, one day, as this lost girl is paying for her takeaway, sad about being fired from a nice job—a good job, a respectable job—she glances down and sees an answer to her most pressing problem.

Ditch the accent. I can teach you to speak perfect English. Nandy Jardinez, Romero’s daughter. Inquire here.

And, maybe for the first time ever, this lost girl sees a new way forward. She can forget who she is and where she came from simply by changing the way she talks.

Her teacher—the brilliant Nandy Jardinez, first in her family to go to college, majoring in linguistics—befriends her. Not in a pushy way. Just gets close enough to take a peek under this girl’s shadows.

She finds nothing. There’s nothing there. Because this girl knows better than to think about them. She never, ever thinks about them.

She goes about her day. She swims, or walks the beach, or does laundry in her stackable washer and dryer.

She does not drink, or party, or date anyone. She eats, and sleeps, and exists. And the only time she remembers who she is and where she came from is when she’s screaming into a pillow, which she only does when she’s alone, on the floor of her bought-and-paid-for self-imposed prison.

So there is nothing to see.

The shadow fades. Her accent too. She is not quite American, but she’s not quite anything else, either.

Nandy Jardinez forgets why she started being friends with this girl and just… falls into something natural. Pushing aside all her questions.

And then Eason ‘Dead Eyes’ Malone shows up during a blind date, capturing the attention of the entire club—but, most importantly, the attention of Nandy.

Maybe she shrugged it off. Tried to, at least. But even over the din of music and people in that bar, she heard something in the stranger’s voice that caught her attention.

Something that didn’t make sense.

And then she remembered why she befriended this strange girl in the first place.

I never think about them, ever.

But they follow me around like little reminders.

The nine ghosts of my opponents are lined up across the room, right in front of Eason’s terrace window. In all their glorious tattered clothes, and their bloody faces, and utter hopelessness.

And when my eyes meet theirs, when I see myself in them, that’s when it all goes blank.

I used to wonder what it felt like to go blank like that. To just… be nothing.

But now I know it feels like this.

Inside Eason’s penthouse the Jardinez family is yelling.

But I’m somewhere else. Some place dark and filled with noise. A place where there are no ghosts yet. No one haunting me.

Cort is by my side, bending down practically to his knees to look me in the eyes because I am so small. He grabs my shoulders, firm but gentle. “You’re gonna kick this boy’s ass, you hear me, Irina? And after you do that, we’re out of here. Don’t think about it, and don’t hesitate. Because he’s not thinking about you and this boy’s only mission in life is for him to come out of this alive and for you to be dead on the mats. Do you understand me?”

I nod, trying my best not to cry.

That first one is younger than me. Maybe… five?

I can see him now. Not looking like a ghost, but a real boy. Standing with a blank face on the other side of the fight room. We are nearly the same height but even as thin as I am, he is thinner. All his bones are showing. Like he’s never been fed properly in his whole, short life.

Maart taught me how to choke someone just two weeks earlier. We practiced all these choking moves over and over for hours and hours every day.

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