Chapter 6
He looked down at me–crumpled, filthy, barely human–and his face was stone.
“Ready to behave?” His voice was ice. “You finally learn your place?”
I couldn’t even lift my head. All I could do was make this weak, animal sound in my throat.
Seeing me half–dead seemed to satisfy him.
He bent down, grabbed me by the collar, and yanked me up. Dragged me out of that hole
like a sack of trash.
Π
I was a broken doll. Nothing left inside. No fight. No soul.
My ankle caught on broken glass from the picture frame–blood everywhere–but I couldn’t
feel a thing.
In that moment, my soul had already died.
All that was left was a body that still breathed.
He dumped me on the couch. The light was blinding.
Crane tossed me down, walked over to grab a glass of water, then came back with a damp towel. He started scrubbing the blood off my face–rough, like he was cleaning a countertop.
The cold cloth hit my wound and I gasped.
“Oh, now it hurts?” He let out a cold laugh, satisfaction dripping from every word. “Good.”
“Evelyn, you better get this through your head–don’t you ever throw the word ‘divorce‘ in my face again. We’re a family. Everything I do is for this family. For Naomi.”
You Send Your Daughter $or
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Chapter 6
Just like that, his tone shifted back to that familiar “gentleness,” like the man who’d just beaten me unconscious didn’t even exist.
He kept wiping my face, talking the whole time like he was soothing a child.
“You see what happens when you lose your shit? I’m just trying to protect Naomi from your drama. After this project wraps, I’ll take you to New York myself. Deal?”
Talking to me like I was five years old.
I felt ice in my veins.
I slumped against the couch, vision swimming, slowly coming into focus.
That’s when I saw them.
By the door–a pair of women’s heels. Not mine. Brand new. Champagne–colored, rhinestones catching the light.
Young. Flashy. Tacky.
On the coffee table–a designer handbag. Not mine.
And in the air–sweet, cloying perfume I’d never smelled before.
While I’d been locked in that hole, another woman had been in my house.
She’d made herself at home. Left her mark everywhere, bold and shameless.
That shadow family was bleeding into my life.
My chest felt like it was caving in. The pain almost knocked me out again.
He couldn’t even wait.
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