Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“I didn’t know it was him,” she said petulantly.
“Well who the fuck else were you hoping that it’d be?” I asked. “Me?”
She was silent for a long moment.
“I don’t know who I expected,” she admitted. “Why are you on his lap like that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Trick and I are lovers. We’ve been lovers since before he went to prison for murder, you know? Then I became his prison wife and now we’re discussing our actual marriage. However, I’m sorry that he led you on. Also, and I can’t stress this enough, stay away from us. After you almost severed his carotid artery, I feel that maybe that’s for the best.”
“I was nowhere near his carotid,” Ignacia argued.
“Actually,” the doctor said as he held up his arm in a defensive position. “The way this looks is that you would’ve been really close to it. I’d say a couple of inches.”
He moved, making it to where his forearm was level with his neck as an example.
Ignacia snorted. “That’s ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous is that you thought that you needed a broken bottle in the first place,” I disagreed. “And I still can’t quite understand why you were in my back alley. Nor why you thought it was necessary to cut someone with said bottle when literally the only thing he was doing was walking down the alley. And I’m sure he wasn’t doing it quietly, either.”
Ignacia said nothing.
“Ma’am, we’re going to have to ask you to leave,” my nurse said.
“Are you two really together?” Ignacia asked, shaking the woman’s arm off.
Just as I was about to roll my eyes and say ‘no, he hates me,’ Trick placed his hand on my neck.
“Yes. We tried dating other people to see if it was a fluke, but it’s not. We’re in love,” Trick lied, his hand tightening around my neck.
I would’ve laughed had he not placed his hand over my face and pushed it down into his crotch.
I squeaked in protest.
“That’s just disgusting.”
And for some reason, I had a feeling that she wasn’t talking about Trick’s open gash.
• • •
An hour later I was walking/limping even more than usual down the street when I heard my name called.
I was unsurprised to find Trick sitting on his front steps.
“Thought they said to take it easy?” Trick asked.
I shrugged. “I am.”
“Come over here,” he ordered.
I would’ve, but I was kind of scared to hear what he had to say.
“I think I’m all right,” I lied.
Then I went into my loft and didn’t look back.
And it was definitely not because I cared what he had to say. Or that I was scared to hear it.
CHAPTER 12
Dreamed I was a muffler last night. Woke up exhausted.
-Swayze to Trick
TRICK
“There’s a woman helping them,” Hunt said as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the room around him. The table was crowded with men. Well, there were two women there as well, but they were so busy talking to each other and cooing over Trouper’s baby that neither one was counted.
“What makes you say that?” Laric asked, petting the kitten in his lap.
The kitten didn’t actually belong to Laric, per se. It belonged to his dog, or his current dog anyway. The dog, Kookie, used to be a military working dog—or MWD for short. Apparently, the dog had bonded with the kitten, and since the dog needed any help he could get since he was traumatized by a multitude of things, Laric had decided to allow the kitten to stay. We liked to call it an emotional support kitten.
“Because nobody but a woman could get another woman into a car so easily,” Beckham piped in. “There’s no way in hell that I would’ve gotten into a car with a man if I was broken down outside of town. I would’ve kept walking.”
“Agreed,” Six supplied.
“I was going to say that the surveillance videos that I’ve been able to pull from the stores that they pass show a woman with long brown hair,” Hunt said. “But yes, I agree. Women in trouble hesitate to get into a man’s car.”
When I’d first come into this group of misfits, it was because I’d promised to help any way that I could with the human trafficking threat that hung like a pall over our area.
I guess when I’d said yes, I had no clue just how bad it was. And not just in deep East Texas, but everywhere.
For instance, we’d had seven teenage girls go missing over the last month, and all of them had last been seen on a highway as their cars had ‘broken down’ in the middle of nowhere.
“Where’d the last one disappear?” I asked. “You said the first couple were near our area. But not the last couple.”
“In a town called Bear Bottom. It’s about an hour…”
“That’s where the prison was, dumbass,” Sin interjected. “We know where Bear Bottom is.”