𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐂 ❶

𝟏𝟑. ✭ 𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐈 ✭

I blink my eyes a few times, trying to rid them of their grogginess, My head hurts from the slight pounding sensation happening behind my eyelids. I try to think back to the last thing I remember as I rub my eyes.

The jet. Brooks. Torey.

He fucking drugged us.

I sit up fast, quickly regretting that as a loud whooshing noise pummels my eardrum. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths to rid myself of the sudden dizziness. After a moment I'm able to open them and take in my unfamiliar surroundings.

Where the hell am I?

"Okay," I snap my head off to my left to see Torey sitting in a chair, "before you lose your complete and utter shit, just hear me out for a second."

I hate this man.

"Hear you out? Did you just ask me to hear you out after you drugged me?" I give him an incredulous look when he just shrugs. I feel enraged at how typically Torey that action is. "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"

"Okay. Yeah, I get it. You're mad and maybe that wasn't the best idea but I didn't want you flipping your shit the entire flight here." He said it like that was justification enough.

"What the hell would I be flipping a shit about exactly?" He puckers his lips and looks away from me, clearly not want to deal with said shit flipping. I look around the room and realize we're in someone's home. "Where the hell are we? Is this someone's house?"

"Yes, we're at my friend's house."

"Oh, you have friends?"

"Ha. Ha." His eyes flicker back to mine. "We're in my home town actually." I'm just now realizing that I have no idea where Torey grew up. It never ceases to amaze me all of the things I didn't know about the man sitting diagonal from me.

"Where exactly is that?"

"Good ole Las Vegas, Nevada." I feel my blood run cold, sweat beading automatically on my forehead. "Why do you look like you've seen a ghost? You have a history here or something?" No. I have a child here. We have a child here.

"No." I swallow. "I uhm... No." I look around the room again, anywhere but at Torey. I can't look at Torey. He'll read me like a book. He always does.

"Dani, something is wrong." He's up and to the side of the bed in an instant. "Are you all right? Do you need some water?" I shake my head.

"Where's Brooks?" He frowns automatically then purses his lips. "Torey. Where is he?"

"I may have left him back in Seattle."

"What!?" I go to scamper off the bed but he's faster than me, standing right in front of me with a firm grip on each bicep. "You promised that if I went with you he could come."

"That was before I knew he is who he is. I'm not taking him along with me anywhere, Dani. I don't trust him. He kept the fact that he was watching you for over a year to himself and started a relationship with you knowing he was supposed to be doing a job. He wasn't supposed to be in between your fucking legs, letting you wither away to nothing." He gestures over my body and I rip my arm away from him and cock back to smack him but stop. "Oh, you want to hit me?" He looks livid. "For what, exactly? Telling you the fucking truth? You are skin and bones. You look like a fucking wreck close to death." I shake my head at him feeling absolutely enraged.

"You don't know a fucking thing about what I've been through these past two years. You don't know what I've had to give up, the sacrifices I've had to make. You have no right to point fingers at me, to judge me, no right!" I shouted at him. "Yeah, maybe I feel like a fucking wreck, maybe I am one too, but you have no idea... None."