AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Not anymore. He’s forcing me to show my loyalty to the family. He’s calling my bluff, and when I don’t rise to the occasion, he’ll know the truth.
I need to get out of here before the tattoo can be done. There’s no more waiting and hoping that my father will go to bed one night and wake up a good man in the morning.
After taking a deep breath, I tuck the phone into my pocket. I turn off the faucets, deciding that my best course of action would be to leave the property as if I did have a hair appointment.
I gather my purse and the cash I keep hidden beneath my bed before heading out the door. The guards peel themselves off the wall, following me down the stairs and out the door. Neither of them says anything as I nod to a white car. They both get in the front seats, leaving me to slide in the back.
“Hair salon, boys,” I say with a smirk as I drape one leg over the other. “If you’re good, I might even let you come inside with me.”
Neither of them replies, and I don’t expect them to. This is the game I play with my father’s employees. They need to think that everything is normal when they report back to him after dropping me off.
We arrive at the hair salon and neither one of them makes a move to leave the car. One of the men is always supposed to go with me wherever I am. I know that neither of them will move. It’s one of the small orders that they are willing to disobey.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” I say before turning on my heel and walking into the salon.
I keep my head high, chatting with a few of the others while I glance around for my favorite stylist. Once I see her, I smile.
“I need a favor,” I say as I follow her to the washing station. “I need to slip out of here so I can go meet with my boyfriend. You know how those damn bodyguards follow me all the time. I just want a few hours of privacy.”
She grins at me in the mirror and nods. “Slip out the back in ten minutes. I’ll take care of everything else.”
She disappears as I sit in the chair, counting down the minutes. As soon as I’m sure it’s clear and her distraction is starting, I head for the back door. I open it slightly, checking to make sure the coast is clear before slipping outside.
I don’t wait to make sure that the guards are distracted. Instead, I take off through the back alley, running a few blocks before I’m in a part of town that my father will never look for me in.
There are people walking around and smiling at each other. It’s the perfect little slice of suburbia. The guards will head downtown, believing the story about me spending time with a boyfriend that doesn’t exist. It won’t be the first time I’ve ditched them to go see somebody else.
I pull out the burner phone and dial Tyson’s number. There are several rings before the call finally connects.
“You know, abandoning a damsel in distress is a bitch move,” I say when I hear Tyson’s breathing on the other end of the line.
He chuckles. “I would hardly call you a damsel in distress. More like a fucking dragon lady who eats poor men who happen to get caught in her path.”
I grin, and as much as I want to continue to pretend like everything is fine, it isn’t.
“You need to come and get me.”
“Aria, I have a plan for getting you out. You just need to wait a little longer until it’s safe for me to do so.”
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “He cornered me today, Tyson. If you don’t come and get me before he finds me, I’m dead.”
14
TYSON
“He won’t kill you,” I say but I’m already leaving my apartment and heading to my car. “You know that he won’t. Your father dotes on you.”
“That doesn’t mean that he’ll have a second thought about killing me if he thinks I’m a threat to his empire.”
As much as I hate it, she’s right. Her father is a bad man who won’t hesitate to forcefully remove something he sees as a potential problem, even if it is his daughter. I have to get her out of there.
What I should do is call Jameson and tell him that something is going down. I know I should, but I can’t hang up on her. I’m not sure I can trust Jameson anymore either. When I approached him earlier in the week about getting Aria out, he said that she could go down with her family.
I can’t let that happen to her.
“I know,” I say as I start the car and race out of my driveway. “Where are you?”
“Forty-three Wallis Street. I’m sitting at a bus stop in front of a little white house.”
