Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 141428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Shock held her immobile. No one had ever hit her before. Grabbed her roughly, sure. But never smacked her.
Nothing followed and she carefully sat up as he started searching around the trailer. He moved stuff around, throwing it.
“I have to find some money. Got to find it . . . got a tip off . . . sure thing . . . got to win big.”
Right.
A sure thing?
Cynicism filled her as she watched him. He was such an asshole. Getting up, she picked up the bat and moved into her room. As she was stepping through, something shoved her and she sprawled on the floor.
She gaped up at her father in shock. “What are you doing?”
“Get out of my way! You’ve got to have money in here. I know you do.”
Panic threatened to engulf her and she took shallow breaths to counter it. He didn’t know where her stash of money was and as long as she didn’t give herself away he’d never find it.
She stared at the bat as he started ripping up her room, searching.
What she wouldn’t give to pick it up and start hitting him with it.
Do it, Devi.
What if he finds the money? You need that money.
It’s yours. You owe him nothing.
He whirled toward her, breathing heavily and sweating. “I know you have money. I know you’re holding out on me.”
Shit. Fuck. She should have taken the chance to run when she could. He had that mean look in his eyes.
Rohan was right.
She should have left already. But she couldn’t leave her brother.
And she’d promised her mom to take care of Derick.
But would her lovely, sweet mom have condoned the way he’d treated her? Honestly, he’d grown worse since she’d had to move back in here.
Time to do something.
She couldn’t put up with this any longer. Picking up the baseball bat, she ran at him with a scream and whacked it against his arm.
Crack!
He let out a roar of pain, falling on the floor.
Oh my God.
What had she done? She didn’t believe in violence. She wasn’t a violent person.
Was she? Maybe she was. Maybe she had more of him in her than she would like to admit.
She dropped the bat in horror.
“You stupid bitch!” he yelled. “You broke my fucking arm!”
Holy crap.
Had she?
This was bad . . . really, really bad. She could get into a lot of trouble for this.
It was self-defense.
Right. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her if he could catch her.
Turning, Devi raced out of the bedroom door. Derick let out a roar of fury behind her. But she knew she could easily out-run him.
She’d leave and wait. Circle back later once he was gone and get her stuff.
Then she was out of here.
She was done. Rohan was right. She didn’t owe her mom this.
Let’s see how he did without her paying the bills and rent.
Asshole.
Opening the front door, she flew through it, only to land against someone who grabbed her hard and shoved her back through the door.
She landed on the floor with a cry. Pain shot up her back as she tried to breathe through the pain.
What the heck had just happened? Was that Vega?
But as she opened her eyes, looking up through her blurred vision, she saw it wasn’t Vega.
Who it was . . . was much, much worse.
19
“What are we going to do with him?” Donovan nodded over to Stein.
They were in a dingy warehouse in the same crappy area of town. They’d arrived about twenty minutes ago and handed Freddy Mars over to the back alley doctor. Zander had arranged everything.
Hayes knew Kent wasn’t happy. This wasn’t the way he liked to operate. Sometimes they might bend the laws slightly, but not like this.
Had they even made the right call? Perhaps they should have let the cops deal with this. But from what he’d seen of the police the other day . . . yeah, he didn’t think they were equipped for this. Plus at least one of them was in Mars’ pocket.
Hayes studied Stein. “As soon as we make sure that Freddy is going to be all right and is . . . secured, Stein will be going in to make a statement about his part to play in Rohan Dawson being sent to jail for murder.”
Stein, who had one of Donovan’s socks stuck in his mouth and another one wrapped around his head, started to frantically shake his head.
Hayes sighed. “I’m too old for this fucking shit.”
Donovan winced. “What are we going to do about Mars, though? If he survives, we can’t just let him go. He could tell people, plus he’s a fucking criminal. We take him to the cops, they’re going to wonder how he got shot.”
Yeah. That was the part that they might need Zander and his team for. Luckily, they were on their way. He was just waiting for a message to say they’d arrived in the city. Hayes guessed they’d be a few hours.