Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Something about the way the lights are made to flash in the blades of the fan makes my vision wobble, and my mind flashes back to a time I don’t remember.
Suddenly, I am lying flat on my back. Angelo is standing over me. There is a sharp prick in my arm and the warm feeling I am already suffused in starts to feel swimmy.
I recognize the sensation of ketamine, mixed with a few other things, substances I am less familiar with. I know what is happening to me, though I cannot resist it and I know I will not remember it.
“The federal government has betrayed you,” Angelo whispers in my ear. “Your only choice is to give yourself over to me.”
I look down in my memory and I see myself lying naked on Angelo’s bed. I don’t remember ever having been in Angelo’s bed, but these memories were designed to be forever locked away. Besides. This is probably some kind of therapy designed to help me after my breakdown…
I realize, suddenly, that there’s no scar on my belly when I look down my body. It is smooth and unmarked. In this memory I am intact.
I close my eyes hard and open them again, sitting up sharply as revelations wash over me.
Angelo must have done that to me before I was shot, when I was initially in his custody. He was whispering to the butterfly inside me, the creature yet to spread its wings in a bold display of death.
He has been manipulating me from the beginning. He has taken my mind and my soul and he has warped the path of my fate to his own ends.
I have to find Bobby.
I get up and go and do just that. Bobby is vaping outside, leaning against the wall of the mansion we happen to be in, keeping an eye out for people who look like they might know who we are passing on the road. We won’t stay here much longer. It’s too open. Not enough privacy.
I interrupt Bobby’s scanning of the passersby by walking up and pressing a kiss to his cheek. I feel the muscle contract beneath my lips as he allows himself a smile.
“Bobby?”
“Yeah?”
“Has Angelo ever fucked with your head?”
“All the time.”
“Like, he gives you drugs and makes you think stuff?”
“What?” Bobby’s eyes narrow. “No. He doesn’t give me drugs. Angelo loathes drugs.”
That makes me go silent, because my memory is hazy, and now I am wondering if it was even a memory at all. Maybe it was just a dream. It does seem outlandish, even for Angelo. Besides, he’s not exactly a subtle manipulator.
“Maybe I… imagined it,” I mumble.
“You were pretty fucked up when we found you. Maybe he had to give you something to calm you down.”
“Maybe,” I agree. That would make sense. After all, Angelo wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true. Except I didn’t have the scar yet.
I didn’t have the scar yet.
I wonder if I’m just trying to sabotage the best thing that ever happened to me, becoming a murderous gun-hand for a notorious criminal.
I’m starting to look at Angelo in a different way. I’m starting to wonder if he didn’t somehow manipulate all the events that have taken place since he captured me. I even wonder if my capture was somehow planned.
I have seen how Angelo operates, carefully, skillfully, leaving nothing to chance. Even when punishing Bobby and me for our lustful murder session, I had the feeling nothing had truly happened out of his control. He was punishing us for acting precisely as he had intended us to. We may as well have strings on our limbs for the way he controls us.
The real question I am struggling with is not whether I am being manipulated by Angelo. It is whether I enjoy it. He stole my life. I run my hand down my belly and feel the scar that will never leave. What else did he steal from me?
“You’ve been quiet lately, Riley.” Angelo notes one afternoon. I have been brooding for several days, trying to understand if my memories are memories or twisted dreams. Trying to understand why I want to blame him, and if it could possibly have ever been his fault.
Angelo’s comment makes me feel suddenly seen, as if a spotlight had been turned on me. I feel very seen, and very uncomfortable having been seen. Guilt suffuses me as I start to worry if he somehow knows what I am thinking.
“I’ve never been a loud person,” I reply.
His dark gaze sweeps over me and through me. “Come to my office,” he says.
I have that excited and nervous feeling I only get when I’m in trouble, but not the kind of trouble that’s going to get me killed. I think I’ve done something wrong. Actually, I know I have. I have been doubting Angelo.