Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 123575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
My neck feels cold, and I reach up and freeze. “DID YOU ASSHOLES CUT MY HAIR OFF? WHAT THE FUCK?”
I rub my hand up over my messily cut hair and shake my head. I might kill whoever did this. Sure, I’d have had to cut my hair eventually, but shit, it’s my choice.
From my vantage point, nothing stands out, but I know Lee can finagle a camera into anything. My best friend is a genius at computer shit. I wait for a moment, and then another, my anxiety festering with each passing second. There’s no laughter, no asshole friends jumping out of the dark to yell surprise!
Either they really want me to suffer or this is something else.
“Stop being assholes. The joke was fun while it lasted, but I don’t have a kink involving chains, so one of you fuckers better unlock these.”
My voice echoes through the space. Empty. Hmm... I sit on the edge of the cot and immediately thrust my arms out to balance myself so the rickety thing doesn’t tip over.
Shit. What is the last thing I remember?
I filter my scattered memories. Graduation. Laughing with my friends. My stepmother gave me flowers and bourbon. Lilian?
I close my eyes and consider. The stupid overly formal mask I wear in front of my father, the brute I play with my friends...the way Lilan is the only one who looks at me and sees me. All in a couple of hours. Good thing I have practice at this bullshit.
I press a hand to my head as if that will conjure up more. Anything. I took the flowers from my stepmother, said thank you, and then… Empty. Everything is blank after that. I don’t recall eating or drinking anything. Did I get drugged by a flower arrangement?
Unlikely but maybe?
It’s not like me to panic, but there’s no escaping the unease swirling through me. With no answer or options, I shift and rest my back against the cot. It’s barely wide enough for my six-foot-three body and hulking frame. My feet hang off the edge, so it’s not completely comfortable, but it’s still better than lying on cold concrete.
What now? If it’s not my idiotic friends doing this, then who else? I briefly consider my father and his associates. This cell…it looks like there was thought put into it. And they are lazy old fucks.
There’s always my father…
The thought is interrupted by an alarm slicing through the silence, a piercing wail rattling the air around me. I freeze but not out of fear. This is deliberate. A warning. A signal. Maybe even a distraction.
I wait, nerves prickling under my skin, while I scan the blindingly white room. The lone window. No movement. The sound drills on, unrelenting. Minutes tick by, and nothing follows it, no footsteps, no voice. I force my eyes back to the ceiling, but I stay ready for the breath of movement.
After a while, I tune out the sound, and eventually, it stops, leaving my ears ringing in the silence. No. This isn’t the doing of my friends. They wouldn’t be able to pull it off without giving themselves away. Besides, Drew and Seb are both occupied with their women.
They aren’t exactly present lately.
Who else? Father? Occasionally, he might poke his head out of his political machinations, but I doubt he’d stoop to this level. He’s more likely to hire a few thugs to give me a beatdown in an alley, as our past clashes have shown.
Father is a blunt instrument; my stepmother, on the other hand, is the weapon. It’s hard to believe, but there isn’t a doubt in my mind that she could conjure up something this fucked up, and my father, well…he’d move heaven and earth to make it happen.
Not out of love but loyalty. Maybe their marriage started with love, but somewhere along the way, it became a business transaction. There’s still the chance this could be my father’s doing. We’ve been in a standoff about my joining his company for most of my senior year...
I, in turn, gave him the middle finger while fucking the bimbo who used to be his secretary on his desk, just to show him how little I gave a fuck about the family business. I consider my options of who could have done this, and play out different scenarios in my head.
Shit, what if…?
I don’t know why my thoughts drift to my twin brother, Arson. Probably because this seems like something he would do. Lock someone in a cage and torture them to death. Logic tells me it’s not possible. It can’t be him. In everyone else’s mind, he’s dead. I mean we had a fucking funeral for him, but I know the truth. He’ll be locked in that hospital for the rest of his life. His chance of freedom is nonexistent.