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Daniello flinched in front of the headlights. “Taylor! Stop!”
“No.” I shook my head as he moved toward me and pressed the ready gun into my skin. My body racked with sobs. I was hysterical as he inched toward me, and I took a step away. “If you wanted to destroy me, you’ve done it. I’m a woman with no control. I’ve lost everything. And I would do anything for her. Anything! Promise me!”
His words came out in a low rush. “I cannot make that promise.”
I crumbled as I tapped the gun against my head in frustration.
“Then I won’t give you a goddamned easy way out,” I said before I threw the gun at his feet. “Do it yourself.”
In three angry strides, he was in front of me. His hands gripped my face. “You think I would kill you, Taylor? You think I would do this to you? To Amber?”
I sobbed as he gripped me tightly. “I could never hurt you.”
“Liar!”
“Phoenix, believe me.”
Overwhelmed and exhausted, I gripped his shoulders as I sank into the darkness.
I gripped my phone as I watched her sleep. “I want a meeting. Now.”
“Ah, cousin, are you happy to have returned to your present? I would have delivered it myself, but she was busy whoring at the bar. I thought it was far better you saw her true colors.”
“You will die for this, Rocco.”
“You cannot touch me, cousin. You forget you have your mother’s name for protection. That name is the only reason she is still breathing. His orders.”
“Meeting. Now,” I seethed.
“Perhaps tomorrow after the party. That would work best. I have ordered a special doll.”
“You have gone too far.”
“But you will bend now, won’t you, cousin?” I threw the phone against the wall and Taylor shot up from the bed. Her face paled as she took in her surroundings and her eyes found mine.
I was the first to speak. “I did not know. I did not know.”
“I don’t care anymore.” She lay back down and turned to face away from me. “We probably should have died in that house in Dyer anyway.”
I moved my mother’s old sewing chair next to my bed. Taylor kept her eyes on the floor. “I would not hurt you this way, Phoenix.”
Taylor’s eyes closed as she sank into the bed. “I’m tired of the fight. I’m just tired. Surviving shouldn’t be this hard.” Her face twisted as she touched the back of her head.
“You are hurt.” I moved to inspect her as she spit her venom. “Don’t you dare fucking touch me.” My chest ripped open as she glared in my direction. “My mother beat me over half of my life. I can handle a bump on my head.”
Her words struck me hard as I gripped the chair next to me. “Broom handles, anything that was close. She damned near killed me with a can of Lysol. But Amber—” she closed her eyes as she confessed her deepest hurt “—she tore her apart. She doesn’t deserve the life she was born into. She was so little,” she choked out as she kept her cries inside.
I scrubbed my face as she gripped the pillow beneath her. The fiery woman I met was breaking in front of me. “Don’t look away from me, Amon,” she snapped. “I’m showing you who I am. Not so fucking pretty, now, am I? Not so alluring. Did you know I was a whore?”
“Stop.”
She met my eyes. “I was a whore for a wealthy man to ensure I had a place to sleep while my sister was beaten.”
“No more,” I growled before I stood to look out the window next to her.
“He used me and threw me away like trash. Because make no mistake, lover, that’s what I am. Rocco was right.”
“Stop! Right now, stop!” I clenched my fists beside her.
