I drop the doc copies as in the event that they’re too scorching to carry. My coronary heart races as my hackles rise. I really feel like I’ve been struck by lightning, like I’ve been fooled into believing that this man meant me know hurt.

My intestine intuition takes maintain, urging me to get out, to run away and by no means come again. If he didn’t need to damage me, why the hell did he lookup non-public details about me? Why did he come up with sealed courtroom paperwork?

My coronary heart aches as a lot because it kilos.

I’m falling in love with this man, or I assumed I used to be. Has this all been a lie? Was any of what he stated actual?

Tears blur my imaginative and prescient. I don’t need to go away this, go away him. I don’t need to say that is over, however every thing in me is saying that it’s time to chop my losses whereas I can. This man broke the legislation getting courtroom paperwork. Will he break different issues as effectively?

I take a deep breath and find the final of my issues, then stroll to the door that connects to the non-public elevator calmly. The experience right down to the bottom ground is unusual as a result of the elevator feels so massive and empty with out Santino’s towering body subsequent to me.

As soon as I’m outdoors, I’m going to the closest bus cease and begin calculating my experience residence. As soon as I’m on the primary bus, my whole commute again to my motel passes by in a blur that feels prefer it takes hours. I’m undecided if truly took that lengthy or not as a result of I used to be on autopilot the entire time, nevertheless it was depressing both manner.

I don’t get to linger on my emotions for lengthy. After I get to my room, the door is hanging ajar.

As if today couldn’t get any worse.

The room is in disarray, with my garments scattered in all places and furnishings overturned. Panic units in, my thoughts racing as I go searching. After which the world involves a standstill.

The toilet door slams open and out walks the final man I ever need to see.

“Roy,” I gasp. My breath leaves me in a single massive sweep. My stepdad.

I stare on the large man who made my life a dwelling hell. My intuition urges me to run, however I can’t. My physique is paralyzed with worry.

“Again from whoring your self out, I see,” Roy says with a sneer, working his eyes over my physique. Bile rises in my throat. He sounds just like the final time I noticed him, the evening I’d run away from residence. It feels prefer it was an eternity in the past. I’d gotten residence late from a shift at my first job ever and he beat me, saying I used to be “no higher than my whore mom.”

It was the primary time he’d ever threatened worse than the beating, and that had been my remaining straw. As quickly as he was asleep, I packed a bag and left. As if that did me any good.

Lastly, I handle to suck in simply sufficient air to say, “Please go away.”

“You stole my fucking automobile and now you anticipate me to depart?” he drawls. “Identical to that? In spite of everything I’ve performed for you?”

“P-please, simply go,” I stammer. “I’ll name the police if you happen to don’t.”

He shakes his head, stumbling drunkenly as approaches me. I transfer again a step instinctively, already gauging how rapidly I can get out the door and to essentially the most public place doable. One way or the other, anticipates my motion, grabbing my arm earlier than I may even consider working. “You little slut, are you aware how onerous I’ve been on the lookout for you?”

“Roy, please—”

“I needed to speak to individuals and pay them to inform me they’d seen you,” he barks, wheezing as he leans over me. The scent of low cost whiskey comes off him in nausea-inducing waves. “You’ve been strolling that little ass up and down this metropolis, whoring your self out to anybody who’ll pay.”

I shake my head at him as tears begin to stream down my face. He has it so fallacious, and I do know he received’t hear, however I’ve to attempt to make him see the reality. “That’s not what I used to be doing—”

“You’re out right here, giving paying males what you wouldn’t let me have!”

“Please let me go,” I sob, however Roy can’t be reasoned with. He didn’t come right here to get his automobile again or persuade me to return with him. He’s right here as a result of he misses his punching bag, as a result of he thinks he has a proper to the touch me nevertheless he needs. “I’ll pay you again for the automobile, simply—”

“I determine the way you get to pay me.”

He throws me on the mattress, however I handle to scramble away throughout the mattress. He is perhaps greater and stronger, however I’m quicker and I’m not intoxicated like he’s. Roy swings at me angrily as he growls one thing incoherent. Simply as I’m about to roll out of his attain, he manages to wrap a hand round my ankle.

I scream. After every thing, this man has put me via, it’s solely then that I lastly scream.

After which the motel room door flies off its hinges. Roy spins clumsily to have a look at the noise, just for him to freeze. The room falls silent for a deafening instantaneous and all I can hear is my blood dashing previous my ears.

It takes me a second to register what I’m seeing.

Santino.

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