Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“She’s a fucking spider and her web goes on and on.” He leaned away from me.
“Let’s leave the closet.”
“No.” He began rubbing those hands over and over again. “What else has she done? What else do you know?”
“You already know that she led Chase to the penthouse and to us in London. And Chase told me about your suspicions on her getting that ... pedophile in the house.”
“So what does she want right now?”
I inched away. “You dead.”
He stayed quiet for a minute, and silence filled the whole club. No chatter came from the women. Security had probably given up on the doors. Nothing boomed or banged.
Finally, Benny whispered, “It’s more than that.”
“What is?”
“Killing me is something that Sophia has wanted for a long time, but she would only go that route if she possessed a clear line of power at her hands. The only reason why I’ve been alive for this long is because I can keep her safe.”
Keep him talking. Get the gun off of the floor. Shoot him.
It was still unusual to hear about Mom in this way. “So if you’re dead, then she doesn’t have a big power person to protect her, when she’s doing whatever?”
“Yes.”
“But then found an opportunity for her daughter to mess with the Stone family,” I said. “It was a long shot, but I’ve skimmed some of your journals and it sounds like that not only is she good at hiding who she is, she enjoys playing around in people’s lives. She thinks she’s a puppet master.”
Benny’s voice came out in a dead tone. “Chase could give her power. She’d been muscling him since you both first broke up. I found it funny at first, then something about her doing it started to make me uneasy. She stopped asking me for help. Had the large sums of money to get the people she needed to do the things I wouldn’t.”
“Muscling him?”
Benny ignored my question. “Then Chase’s girlfriends came after you.” He clapped hard and I jumped. “Those goddamn dirty girls of his tried to shoot you, and I think that was when things got messy.”
“Maybe we should go out of the closet.”
“That made me go crazy.”
“I feel like you were already a bit—”
“All I could think about is snapping each and every one of those sluts’ necks. You shoot my daughter? Die!”
With my foot, I slid the hard object closer to me and prayed with that it was a gun.
He bobbed his head. “Sophia started plotting then.”
“How?”
“I had blood lust and she would come over and we would make love all night in my—”
“Oh God.” I scrunched my face in disgust.
“She whispered things in my ear, after we made love. Told me that Chase should die. He was in the way. ‘He’s making you look like a fool,’ she would say and then kiss me for a long time. ‘We have to get rid of him.’”
I paused from messing with the object. “She told you to kill Chase?”
“Yes. This started with her.” He hit himself. “And then she turned around and took a large part of my savings and hooked up with the boy wonder. Why?”
“I ... I don’t—”
“If I die, then I’m out of her hair. Fine. Chase dies, then what does she get? You’re not his wife. Nothing would go to you.”
And then it dawned on me. “She didn’t consider the fact that Chase would die.”
“She thought he would win?”
“No,” I said with sadness. “It didn’t matter to her. If you went up against him and died, then she’s closer to Chase and getting more power. If you end up killing Chase, then you’re still in her grips and the only one that’s lost is me. And as we know, she couldn’t care less about ruining me.”
“She has no heart.”
“Or soul.”
“You have to get Mom out of your ear.” I moved the gun closer to the wall. “Do the opposite. She wants you to kill Chase. Don’t. She wants you to terrorize us. Stop. You got us to London from all for her plotting, and what happened? Troy is dead. Vivian will never forgive you. I’m terrified of you. So many innocent people have died, and for what? Mom?”
Silence sank into that closet.
Sweat trickled from the side of my face.
I strained to listen for what was going on outside.
Nothing came.
What happened to the girls? Where did the security people go? What’s going on out there?
Then Benny cut through the quiet. “I should kill her.”
And like my mother’s child, I lifted my head and whispered, “You should, Daddy.”
His lips parted when I said the last word.
“You called me Daddy.”
And I forced down the bile in my throat, and nodded. “I called you Daddy because that’s who you are.”
“How should I do it, Jasmine?” He displayed a sad smile. “How should I kill Sophia?”