AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I need you to come to the office ASAP.
Your aunt is here, and she’s causing a SCENE
Fuck!I hustled to the loading zone, got an Uber, and headed to the South End. Two police cars, lights flashing, pulled up in front of Accommodating’s office.Fuck.Elena was out on the sidewalk speaking to an officer. I’d never seen the Madam look so rattled. When she spotted me, she sighed in relief. “Jenny, thank God. Your auntie Theresa locked herself in the conference room. She’s making all sorts of threats and demands. She said she wouldn’t leave until she talked to you and Mr. Bryson.”
Elena peered past me. “WhereisMr. Bryson?”
“Um.” I scratched my jaw. “He’s not here. Can I go talk to her?”
The officer who was interviewing Elena nodded at me. “If you can get her out of there, it’d be a real help. She’s the one who called us—something about an old attempted murder charge. Frankly, she’s being a nuisance.”
“And she’s demanding money,” Elena added, “lots of it.”
“Great.” I crossed myself, straightened my shoulders, and headed inside the office. AccommoDating had always been a haven for me, with its air conditioning, racks of fancy clothes, and immaculate environment. But as I walked inside, I felt like I was entering a haunted house. There was a ghost in the conference room, for sure. It would be better if she were a vampire; at least then, I could drive a stake through her heart and be done with it.
I knocked on the door. “Don’t bother me unless you’re meetin’ my demands!” Theresa hollered.
I strode through the door. My auntie Theresa was sitting at the table, tapping on her phone with her talon-like nails painted neon orange. Her roots were done, and her stringy, bleachedhair skimmed her shoulders. Auntie’s eyebrows were as bold and eerily symmetrical as ever; she was going to ask me for more money, and I knew it, but what she really needed was a fucking makeover.
“What are you demanding this time, huh?” I asked. “I just paid you twenty thousand dollars. What the hell else do you want, Theresa?”
Auntie narrowed her eyes at me. “Well, if it isn’t Little Miss Stuck-Up, it’s nice of you to finally show up. Where’s your billionaire, huh? Daddy Warbucks said I should talk to both of you.”
At the mention of Cole’s father, I almost lost my nerve. But I had to be brave to finish this once and for all. “Cole’s not here, and he’s not coming here. We’re not together anymore. So whatever his father asked you to do, forget it. All bets are off.”
Auntie Theresa held up her phone. “His father called me this morning. He said you messed up and didn’t do what he asked. He’s the one that said all bets are off—and I’m sure as hell listening to him, not you.”
I sighed. “You want to tell the world what I did, huh? You want to threaten me for more money? Go ahead. But I’m not giving you another cent.”
“That’s fine—I don’t want your chump change. I want your billionaire’s money.”
I took a step forward. “Well, you can’t have it,bitch.”
“Excuse me?” Auntie Theresa raised her ugly eyebrows. “You say no to me, and I’m spilling about you. Everyone will know what you did. You’re going to jail. Not only that, everybody will know you’re a whore! That billionaire won’t want anything to do with you!”
“He doesn’t want anything to do with me, anyway.” I was close to tears, but I refused to cry. “So I don’t care anymore. I’ll tell the cops the truth, and they can arrest me. I got nothing tolose. But you’re not getting another cent out of me. And Cole doesn’t owe youshit. So go die in a hole, Auntie! You’re a piece of crap, and you know it!”
All of a sudden, something unleashed inside of me. If I was going down, I was going down swinging. Things with Cole were over, and I knew it. But this bitch didn’t deserve to walk away. She needed to pay for what she’d done to me, even if it was just by listening to me finally scream my fucking head off.
“I was sixteen when I stabbed that guy. I was just a scared kid! And you tookadvantageof me! You used me! You used to pimp me out to all the disgusting men in our building so you could make FUCKING MONEY! You’re the whore, Theresa! You’re a terrible person! I was only a kid. I never deserved what you did to me!”
Theresa jumped up and jabbed her finger in the air. “I took you in when your father wanted nothing to do with you?—”
“You got money from the state to take me!” I hollered. “Don’t pretend you were anything but a FUCKING PIMP! You made me go with those guys! You used to hit me if I said no! You refused to feed me! You locked me in my room for days until I finally cried and said I’d do whatever you wanted!”
“You’re a liar,” she snarled. “You wanted it. You made money from those guys!”
“They fuckingraped me!” I screamed. “The guy I slashed? He was fucking awful, Theresa! You have no idea what he did!”
Finally, the tears started. Not because I was sad, but because I was so fucking pissed. I was still paying for what that asshole did. I was still paying for my auntie Theresa, my father, and my mother. I was paying and paying and paying, and there was never any getting ahead, getting even, or getting better. There was only the horror of it, of what had been done to me, of what I’d done, and the fact that no matter how hard I tried, I could never escape the truth about my past.
“I hate your fucking guts!You’rethe one that should be in jail! You trafficked me—your own flesh and blood! And I was just a kid! I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve…” The tears took over, sobs wracking my body.
“You should be in jail, and you’re going to jail,” a familiar voice behind me said. Cole and two police officers strode into the room.
“Did you hear everything, officers?” Cole asked the cops.Fucking great.He’d heard everything, and now I was being arrested.
But Cole immediately came to my side and wrapped his arms around me, cradling me against his massive chest.
