AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She didn’t tell you?” He gasps. “That’s need-to-know information. She fucking tricked you.” He stands. “She fucking led you on and got the small issue of her virginity out of the way so King wouldn’t want her back, and you, you dumb fuck, fell for it!”
I’m up like a rocket, and I slam him into the lockers, snarling in his face, but before I can swing at him, James is between us, arms extended, keeping us at a safe distance from each other. “Enough,” he yells.
“You’re talking like it would make a difference if she wasn’t a virgin,” I seethe. Has he forgotten how he met his wife? “Either way, we are not sending her back to him.” Over my dead fucking body. And that’s possible.
“Yes, we fucking are,” Danny bellows.
“No, Danny. We’re not.”
“For fuck’s sake,” James roars. “Cut it out!”
“Why, Brad?” Danny shouts, fighting James’s hold to get to me. His scar is so fucking deep, his temper lost. “Why aren’t we sending her back?”
“Because,” I roar.
“Because what?”
“Because I fucking love her!” I yell, shoving James away and staggering back a few paces. “Because I fucking love her, and it’s fucked up, and my head is fucking spinning, but I fucking love her.” I take a few breaths, exhausted by my outburst, raking a hand through my hair, stressed. She told me she wasn’t a mole. I didn’t believe her. Couldn’t because I was so filled with rage. But mixed with that rage was a burning love. I wasn’t letting her run away from me without an explanation. I would not be made a fool of. Manipulated. But now? I feel sick. So fucking sick. “I fucking love her,” I breathe. “And I can’t change that. So, no, we are not sending her back.” I take a few deep breaths, try to appear calm amid this absolute carnage. “We have to find another way.”
James observes me sweating and shaking, and Danny straightens himself out. Curls his lip at me. “Of course we find another fucking way, you dumb fuck.” He pushes James aside and hauls me into his chest, hugging me. “For fuck’s sake. How the fuck is she a virgin at twenty-one?” he asks himself. I don’t even want to know. But I know I need all the information I can get. Danny shoves me away and starts to pace. “For the record, do not try to keep shit like this from me again.”
Well, that won’t be happening because I don’t plan on falling in love with anyone else. What a fucking mess. But my relief? I should have trusted Danny and James. Trusted they would hear me. And he knew. “I need to speak to her,” I say, backing out of the changing rooms.
“You need to get her to talk,” James says.
Except she’s mute right now. I need to get my head on straight and start figuring some shit out. I leave them and go back to Pearl, sitting opposite her, placing both of my hands on the table. She studies them for a moment before she looks up at me, her eyes full of tears. And past the tears, fear. And past the fear? Resignation. She’s sat here doubting me. And I deserve it. Doesn’t lessen the pain, though. “I know Bernard King sold you to the Polish,” I say. “I know virgins get higher prices, and I know he hasn’t been paid because we took you from Winstable.” She just stares at me. “Pearl, please, fill in the blanks for me.”
“Are you going to send me back?”
“God, no. No, never. Do you think I would? Is that why you ran?”
“I realize it’s not only you in this family, Brad. I’m just little me and all your problems will be solved if you send me back.”
“They wouldn’t be solved, Pearl, because if I send you back, I lose you. And that is not an option.”
Her lip wobbles. I can’t stand seeing her like this. It’s the young woman I found on the dirty mattress all those months ago. But more scared. More vulnerable. I stand, moving around the table, and pull her up from the chair, cocooning her in my arms. Her heart pulses into my chest. “I knew I had to leave here,” she says into my shirt. “But I didn’t want to leave you.”
“You should have trusted me. Talked to me.” I kiss her hair, clenching my eyes closed, knowing I’m going to hear things I’m not sure I can deal with.
“I was going to tell you at dinner. But then he followed me and Fury, and I was so scared. I know he just wants me, his money, his deal, so I-I?—”
“Shhhh,” I say.
“I thought if I left it would solve the problem.”
I pull her away and hold her by the tops of her arms. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“But . . .” she whispers.
“Over my dead body,” I grate as she stares at me, her face an unbearable picture of anxiety. “You need to talk to me, Pearl. Tell me everything.” I don’t know much right now. But I do know that Bernard King is going to die a long, ugly, painful death.
53
DANNY
* * *
“That was really fucked up,” James says.
