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20
CAMBRIA
Rain pours down in sheets as I crash through the back door of the club. I’ve humiliated myself twice for someone who doesn’t give a shit about me at all. Abram just wanted a plaything, a fun new exotic pet to keep until he got bored of it. Maybe I’ll find Jaden’s card and give him a call after all.
I feel completely lost in life. I’ve let myself down. I’ve invaded Marcus’s old life in order to do nothing but get petty revenge and satisfy my curiosity, even though I knew it would end badly. Allowing Abram to use me like that was completely of my own volition, and all I can do now is blame myself.
The version of me that never got to grow up properly is the person in my head who is screaming the loudest right now. If I had been able to develop normally instead of being forced from one tragedy to the next, maybe I would have the self-worth to avoid men like Abram.
But I don’t, and now I’m here.
In the parking lot of a strip clubwhere I work.
I walk briskly to my car in the rain, feeling the sting of Abram’s comments beginning to really settle in and release their poison. Everything he said was completely out of line, but the comment about my red corset really hit me hard. I thought he loved that outfit, and now I feel like I’ve made an idiot of myself for wearing it.
Before I’m able to get into my car, I hear two voices around the corner of the building. They sound vaguely familiar, but I can’t place them well.
Suddenly feeling my curiosity override my embarrassment, I quietly step closer in the direction of the voices as I try to make out what they’re saying. It’s hard at first, but when I’m closer to the building, I can make out a few details.
I glance around the corner, and at first, I’m convinced that I see Jaden and Abram’s uncle Josiah speaking to each other. Josiah has this black trench coat that he wears everywhere. It’s unmistakably his.
There’s no way it would be the both of them; Jaden’s entire job is to shut down Josiah’s business.
Then I look again, and it’s true.
Jaden’s face is harder to make out, but the longer I watch, the easier it is for me to confirm that it is really him.
Why would they be speaking together?
I’m immediately compelled to take a picture and send it to Abram. I take my phone out of my coat pocket and swipe into the camera right away, trying to keep it out of the rain as my swipes don’t make contact through the droplets.
I swipe the camera icon again, immediately lowering the brightness of my screen to keep me from getting caught.
I snap a few photos, hoping that the rain hasn’t obscured their faces too much in the little evidence that I have that Josiah is the one trying to ruin his business, not me or Marcus.
Hesitation overcomes me before I can send the picture, though. After everything he said to me, why would I ever try to save his empire? It looks like it’s already rotting from the inside out. I could save myself the trouble and just move on. He can’t manage anything worth a damn, so this could be the best thing for him.
I could let everything collapse under its own weight, keeping my hands clean.
But for some reason, I just can’t.
So I hit send.
I hide underneath the awning of the back door until I hear Josiah and Jaden leave. Then I sneak over to my car and peel out of the parking lot as quickly as I can.
I haven’t gotten a response from Abram yet, and I doubt I will until at least morning. He has a habit of ignoring my messages when he’s upset about something, and right now, he’s upset atme.
Funny enough, his anger and the potential collapse of his business isn’t even the most important thing to me right now. There’s something else that’s been weighing on my mind since I realized that I only really feel sick in the morning.
I haven’t had a period in at least two months.
Usually they’re so regular that I don’t even need to keep track of them, but I haven’t been keeping up since I got to the club. All the shit that happened with the attack, as well as with Abram, has taken up all of my mental bandwidth.
There’s a corner store somewhere along the road just a few blocks down, and I figure that’s my best bet for getting a pregnancy test. All the other buildings are restaurants or nightclubs, which is great if you’re a tourist but not if you live here. I have to go out of my way for literally everything that I need unless I want to pay to have it delivered.
Driving the speed limit seems impossible with all of the negative emotions swirling inside of me. I can’t decide what I want to be more upset about – Abram’s comments or the possibility of carrying his baby.
What kind of woman would I be if I allowed myself to become impregnated by someone who has definitely killed more than one person? How could I bring a child into an environment where I was damn-near murdered alongside a number of other women who were held at gunpoint?
