Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
I stopped, rolling my shoulders back and bracing myself. “You got the wrong cousin, Viv. I’m not my brother. His body was lifted up with fishing nets. Maybe shut the fuck up with more fishing metaphors, hmmm?”
My comment was mean.
I didn’t care.
Chapter Five
Sawyer
I heard what he said to his cousin.
His brother died? Did I get that right?
My heart hurt for him.
“I’m Vivianna, sweetie. What’s your name?” She held her hand out to me, and man, she was so skinny.
I wasn’t sure what I was doing with these two, but I also wasn’t going to complain. I’d seen the other woman get brought in and we’d locked eyes. She and I weren’t in the same league. That was obvious. She looked like a model or had been a model and me, well; then there was me. Sooo not a model. But in that moment when we locked eyes, we shared a connection. Sympathy for the other. That was it before she was hauled to the back area.
When she came out, saw me, I knew she was going to do something.
I had no clue she was going to be the reason I got to leave that police station, but again, I wasn’t going to complain about it.
I shook her hand and hoped she couldn’t feel how wet my palms were. I was all a mess inside. I think anyone would be if they were hauled to a police station and left to sit. I’d been teetering on the edge, not sure if I was going to be arrested or not. The guy said he wasn’t going to charge me, but I wasn’t criminal-savvy. Getting a speeding ticket was the furthest I’d been in dealing with the law in that way.
“Sawyer.” I had to cough to clear my throat. My voice came out so timid. Jesus. That was embarrassing. I snuck a look at him.
Him.
I couldn’t believe it when he walked into the police station. Or more like, stalked into the station. It took a second to hit me, but when I realized this was the same guy from the subway . . . Floor, open up and swallow me now.
“What were you in for, Sawyer?” Vivianna was asking me, but she was having a hard time focusing on me. Her eyes were all glassy, and her head kept falling to the seat behind us.
Her cousin was on the other side of her, on his phone, but he growled, “Leave her alone, Viv. You’ve already pulled her enough into your mess.”
That’d been the wrong thing to say to her.
Her glassy eyes flashed, focusing, and she snarled, turning to him. “Just because you’re emotionally stunted doesn’t mean I am too.”
“Except you are,” he drawled, still focused on his phone.
“You’re an asshole.”
“Yes, I am, and you’re a drug addict.”
Also the wrong thing to say.
She came alive.
I needed to detach from this situation. This was family history, and she began laying into him about things that I did not need to know about. She was talking about someone named Remmi, and now she mentioned someone named Ashton. That name got his attention.
Jakie. That’s what she called him.
Jake.
Jake Worthing.
I played with his name in my mind. I liked it. Detective Jake Worthing.
It’d been loud in that entryway, but I was able to hear enough that he wasn’t a cop anymore. And that other woman. Hot jealousy struck me like lightning. She’d touched him on his arm and he hadn’t even noticed.
They’d been intimate.
That was obvious. Painfully.
Were they still intimate? Was that why she called him to take his cousin out of there?
They had a moment, their heads close together, before we left. I tore my gaze away, my stomach shrinking because I didn’t want to see any more little lovey-dovey touches between them.
Fuck.
That jealousy still pooled in me, and it was spreading, like poison.
I did not need to lose my mind over another guy. Hadn’t I learned from Beck?
“What are we doing here? I thought you were taking me to my place.” Vivianna stopped in mid rant when the cab pulled up outside of an apartment building.
Jake handed some money to the cabdriver, before meeting my eyes. He nodded to the door behind me. “Get out.” He answered his cousin. “Let’s go.”
“What? But—what?” She got out, glaring at him as the cab took off.
Jake ran cold eyes over her, taking his keys out and going to the door. “You’re going to rehab, Viv. I’m not fucking around with that, but I ain’t taking you in a cab. I need to grab something from my place.” He opened the door, looking to me. “She brought you into this, but you can take off from here if you want. I can call another cab.”
“What? No!” Vivianna shrieked, literally throwing her arms down, her hands balled into fists. “She’s my friend. I want her with me.”