Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
She’s not my daughter. She’s not my sister. Yet in some way she’s both. She’s the person I’d steal and lie and run for. She is what the word family means to me. She’s more of a family to me than my own flesh-and-blood father ever was.
I can’t let the chef have her. I don’t care if he says he won’t touch her. He’d be lying. I don’t care if he thinks she’s a pawn he can push two squares at a time. She is a child. She will not learn the taste of lime and garlic marinade the way I did.
Not because of me.
Not again.
Not ever.
“Dani…” Raven’s voice.
I meet her gaze.
“This note,” she says. “Let me see the note.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant.
Raven shakes her head. “That’s bullshit and we both know it. What does it say, Dani?”
“It’s disgusting,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t repeat what it says.”
“Dani…”
“Please,” I say. “Don’t make me show it to you.”
I have to let Raven think it’s something disgusting that embarrasses me. If I show her what it really says, she won’t let me out of her sight.
That can’t happen.
Because I am going. I can’t not go.
I recite the note in my head.
Meet me alone tomorrow morning, 8:00 a.m. Wear the blue thing I like.
“Did you hear me?” she asks.
I nod.
“Hey,” she says. “Are you okay?”
I unclench my hands. “Just tired. Has Vinnie found anything new?”
“He’s cursing at three different databases,” she says, clearly trying to ease the mood…and failing.
I leave the envelope. “You may need this for fingerprints,” I tell Raven. Then I feign a yawn. “I’m going to go back to my suite. I’m exhausted.”
“Dani… Please let me see the note. I can take it.”
I paste on a smile. “I will. I just need a few minutes.”
She sighs but nods.
I walk down the hallway to the door that leads to my suite from the house and head straight to my bedroom.
I sit on the edge of my bed with the note in my lap and try to think.
I can tell them. I can take the letter to Vinnie and Raven and say, “Here. He wants me. He’ll trade me for her.”
But if I do that, they’ll call the police, and the police will set up a sting, and the chef will smell it from a mile away. He’ll take it out on Belinda. He’ll teach her the kind of “lessons” he taught me in the pantry.
I cannot let that happen. Not to Belinda. Sweet, talented Belinda. She’s not innocent, thanks to her father, but how can she heal if Chef takes the bit of herself she has left?
If I keep the letter and go alone, I know what happens next. He will do what men like him do with women like me. He will hurt me because he can, and he will make me say please and thank you and anything else he wants to hear because I don’t want Belinda hurt.
I could tell myself that the police would be faster than Chef, that Vinnie would find him in time. I could tell myself that the chef is a coward and cowards prefer threats to action. But something could go wrong in either scenario, and I can’t risk Belinda. Not for a minute.
So I’ll go alone.
I’ll wear the fucking dress.
I still have it. It was so beautiful I couldn’t stand to part with it, but I never wore it again after that night.
I’ll wear it. If I can find it. If I can look at it. If I can stand the feel of it on my skin.
And I’ll trade myself for Belinda.
A breath in. A breath out.
It’s an easy decision. The simplest one in the world.
Belinda for me.
What it does to me is irrelevant. I’ve paid worse. I survived worse.
Not because I’m brave. It’s not a courageous thing I’m doing.
I’m scared to death.
But Belinda is more important than my fear.
I set the note on the nightstand and stand. My legs tremble a little, and I let them. Then I go to the closet and move hangers from right to left.
The blue dress is there, because of course it is.
I should have thrown it out long ago. Why didn’t I?
Maybe because I knew I’d need it someday.
And I was right.
I run the zipper down the garment bag and peel the plastic back.
I lift it off the hanger and hold it to me in front of my full-length mirror. The person looking back is a woman who has made it through hell and is still standing.
Still fucking standing.
I smile at her without teeth.
“I’m not yours,” I tell the dress.
What I mean is that I’m not Chef’s. I lay the dress on the chair by the window gently, as if it has meaning.
Which it does, of course. Just not good meaning.
I’m going in the morning.