Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 61042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Veda glanced at all the shit spread out over the table. “Doesn’t look like there’s anyone left to give them consequences.”
Lana gave Knuckles a hard look, but she spoke to Veda. “You let me worry about that. Seth has a plan in place once he has enough information to move. Then you can watch as much of it play out as you want.”
Veda didn’t look convinced but she gave Lana a small smile anyway. “Thank you. For looking at all this. For taking me seriously.”
“This club has your back, Veda.” Knuckles spoke gently. Hannah, his wife, crossed to Veda and put an arm around her shoulders to comfort the younger woman. “And Seth and Tonio have ours. We will take care of this whole fucked-up situation. I can’t promise we’ll get Tessa back, but I can promise we will find her.”
The meeting broke. Knight and Lana remained at the table, heads bent together over the laptop as they murmured and pointed to various things on his screen. Hannah stepped away from Veda to speak with Knuckles, then I crossed the room to Veda’s side. She didn’t look up as I approached, her gaze fixed on the stack of papers regarding her sister.
“Come on, honey,” I said, my voice quiet. “You’ve done enough for one day.”
She looked up at me, her eyes hollow. She didn’t argue, just gave a single, jerky nod and let me take her hand to lead her out of the common room and toward the lift that would take us up to our apartments.
I took her back to my apartment. The silence between us was thick, not awkward, just heavy with everything unsaid. I unlocked my door and followed her inside. She went straight to the bathroom. I’m not even a hundred percent sure she knew she wasn’t in her own place.
I let her be. Soon after she shut the door to the bathroom, I heard the water in the sink running. I stayed in the main room of the apartment after she shut the bathroom door. At first I figured she needed a minute to herself. The meeting with Lana had been a lot. Seeing her sister’s entry in that ledger, the word “Special” underlined twice in Carl’s cramped handwriting, had to have gutted her. I leaned against the kitchen counter and gave her space.
The water ran nonstop for a full five minutes. So I straightened and looked toward the bathroom door. Something didn’t feel right about the situation. She had to be hurting, and I knew I couldn’t leave her in there alone with her pain any longer.
I pushed off the counter and walked over. The door wasn’t locked or even shut all the way. I didn’t knock because I didn’t want to startle her. Instead I put my palm flat on the door and eased it open just enough to look inside.
The bathroom was small, the kind of utilitarian space built into the smaller warehouse apartments most of the guys used. All of us had been in prison for one thing or another and we were kind of used to the minimalist way of living. A sink against the far wall under a mirror with a light bar across the top, a toilet, a shower stall with a frosted glass door were pretty much it. She had her back to me, her shoulders hunched. The water ran hot enough to steam the mirror at the edges.
She used a wash cloth to scrub her nails, getting under them as best she could. Then she got more soap and started using the washcloth to scrub the backs and palms of her hands.
With a start, her gaze landed on a nail brush I kept on the cabinet next to the sink. We all tried to keep ourselves clean and free from oil and grease in case we were needed at Haven. Greasy fingerprints were not welcomed on the walls and counters. She picked up the brush and doused it with liquid soap before starting to brush her nails and the backs and palms of her hands all over again.
The cut on her palm had been bandaged fresh by Nadine that morning, but Veda had removed it and scrubbed that palm just as vigorously as she did the other.
I leaned in the doorway and watched her. Her grip on the plastic handle was white-knuckled, the muscles in her forearm corded with tension.
“You’re gonna hurt your hand worse, honey.” My voice came out quiet. She didn’t look up. I moved closer to her but didn’t touch her yet.
“I can still feel the blood from the man I shot.” Her voice was flat and far away. She wasn’t talking to me so much as she was talking at the sink, at her own raw knuckles, at the memory of what she’d done in that apartment. I also knew from experience that she was focusing on the second most horrific thing to happen to her in a short period of time to keep from focusing on her sister’s fate.