Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
“They never caught you? They don’t know you killed him?”
I shake my head again. “They know. I confessed, but it was considered self-defense.”
“Self-defense.” He bites out the whispered words like he’s preparing himself for the answer.
“He didn’t touch me while I was pregnant. He had that much respect at least.” I close my eyes, to block out the image maybe, it doesn’t work. It’s even more prominent than before. “I wasn’t pregnant anymore. And you know how hot I was. He’d wanted me the moment he stepped into Mee-maw’s kitchen and saw me sitting on the breakfast bar. I remember his eyes going up my skirt. So I played him, I played on that.”
Kane’s hands ball into fists. “He hurt you?”
“Naw.” I smirk evilly. “He didn’t get the chance. I knew what was coming. I let it happen. The moment his guard was down I stabbed him in the back.” My smirk fades. “I didn’t feel a thing. Because they did break me, just not in the way they wanted. They broke my mind. I had a psychotic break.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. I was numb. Couldn’t feel a thing. Had to go into a federal rehab facility so they could prepare me to testify against the entire institution and its staff. Had to speak as a witness for other kids there but needed to be sane while I did.”
“I heard about some of this but…” He looks so disbelieving and I don’t blame him. It’s hard to swallow and I’m making him fucking chew it first.
“They put me into witness protection to protect me from the powerful parents who put their kids there and didn’t want the world to know what happened. See most of them were brainwashed, but some of them, like me, made it out with something left.”
“Your brother was different when he came back. But we all thought it was rehab.” He’s breathing heavy, his nostrils are flaring. “He kept saying you were happy and to leave you be. I wouldn’t leave him alone. And then he got sent down anyway.”
My brother’s actions that night with Poppy and Bradley cost him his entire future. Bradley’s more so than my brother’s. Bradley got an infection in his shattered femur and ended up losing half his leg. They threw the book at my brother who with his new morale self, pleaded guilty and apologized.
“I know. I found out after I was in my right mind. Marshall checked in on him. He’s not brainwashed anymore, but he is high again apparently.”
“Still in prison?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Understandable.”
“He left me there. He knew what was happening and he agreed with it. He left me there.”
Kane starts pacing. “Are you sure he was the only one who knew?”
“Matthew?”
“No, the fucker who got what he deserved. What he earned. Are you sure he was the only one who knew about our kid’s whereabouts?”
“Webber looked into it for me and I haven’t stopped. He was the agent who saved me from myself. He paid a private detective too with his own dime. The trail was deader than the fucker I severed.”
Kane scratches the stubble of his jaw. “Fuck. I don’t know what to do with this. Any of this.”
“I told you that you didn’t want to know.”
He doesn’t agree, instead he asks, “That why you stayed away?”
I lift a shoulder. “That and because you became the catalyst for all of my fucking problems. You’re in every bad memory I have Kane.”
He rears back like I’ve slapped him and silence falls over us both. We stare at each other, his vibrant and alive eyes holding the dead in mine. “Fuck you, Immy. That was uncalled for.”
“Yeah well, I’m vicious now Kane, just like you were once upon a time.”
“I’m seein it, don’t fuckin’ like it. Don’t know what to say to make this hurt less.”
“For who, you or me? Because trust me, I don’t feel a thing.”
He blows a breath out of his nose. “About me? Or about all of this?”
“About everything.”
“You must feel somethin’, you’re still chasing after our kid.”
“I just need to see her. I just need to know she’s safe and loved.” It’s become an obsession. I’m almost scared of what will happen when I do find her. I put out a kidnapped child report, but without a photo to go on or even a date, finding her will be impossible. All of the records were destroyed in that fire we stupidly set but he didn’t keep adoption files there anyway. I know because I looked.
“So you’ve said.” His eyes are set with determination. “I’ll find her Immy.”
“You didn’t fucking find me.”
He throws his cup against the wall, it shatters and I don’t even flinch.
“This is a rental,” I say flatly and I know I’m being cruel but it’s all I know how to be anymore.