Raging Heart On_ Friends to Lovers Romance(91)

“Kurt,” I mumble, saying the name I do my best to avoid. I wait for the sick feeling to hit my stomach. It always happens when I hear or say his name. It doesn’t now. Maybe Black is right and I’ve let my past color too much of my future.

“How did you manage to get your hands on 50K, anyway?”

“I cashed in my retirement,” I lie.

“Retirement? What the hell do you do? I always thought you’d end up turning tricks like your mom, but then again, your hips are way too wide.” He laughs snidely, and I turn away from him. There’s a thumping noise from the other room where White and everyone are and I wince.

“What’s that?” Rachel asks, looking in the direction of my spare room.

“I have a cat. I locked her in my bedroom and she’s not happy about it.”

“She sounds like she has a temper,” Rachel says, still staring in the direction of the room.

“You have no idea,” I sigh, and then to get her attention away from the room that everyone is hiding in, I take the plunge. “Why is your stomach smaller?”

“I’m dieting,” she says, as if she thinks I’m stupid enough to fall for the fact that her baby bump is completely gone. “I lost weight.”

“In a span of three days?”

“Are you paying me or not? I do have things to do.”

“Paying us,” my stepfather chimes in.

“Us, whatever. As long as we get enough money to get out of town and regroup,” Rachel growls.

I pull the folded check out of the pocket on my dress, watching the two people who made my life hell growing up.

“If I give you this, you promise to leave and stay away from White?”

“Poor little Kayla. How does it feel knowing you have to pay us off to keep your boyfriend away from your sister? I always told you that no man would ever want you. No one ever did—not even your mother,” Kurt replies, and now there’s that sick feeling in my stomach. It’s not as bad. It’s nothing like when he used to say those things to me and I was nine. It’s nothing like the pain I used to carry as a child wondering why I was never good enough.

Rachel rips the check out of my hand, reading it. “Let’s get out of here.”

“In a minute. I’m thinking it might be fun to play with Kayla here a little longer. She’s a little fat for my taste, but I could at least show her what a real man does with a woman.”

“Gross. She’s your stepdaughter.”

“There’s no blood kin, and let’s face it, she looks like she could use a good lesson.”

“If we don’t get out of here, Diego will find us, and I don’t think you want that,” Rachel warns him while I’m still trying to get over the disgust I feel from the look in Kurt’s eyes as he stares at me.

“Remember, you promised if you got that money, you’d leave White alone,” I tell them again, trying to remember what I needed to get them to admit aloud to help Black.

“Don’t worry, Kayla. I’ll disappear. It’s not like White’s going to do me a bit of good now that he’s been cut loose from the team. I don’t need another poor broke bastard tied around my neck. I have enough of that with—” Kurt slaps Rachel hard to stop her from talking. His face goes red with fury. The hit landed with such force that it knocks Rachel’s face to the side and immediately a red welt puffs up on her white skin.

“Watch your mouth! Your damned bet on the Cowboys is what lost us a fuck of a lot of money. I told you not to do it, but you had to prove me wrong and now look at the fucking mess we’re in!”

“Yeah well, I took care of it, right? Just like I always do,” Rachel hisses back, rubbing her face. “Diego wouldn’t be anywhere near us in the first place if you had kept your dick in your pants and didn’t rape his daughter. He’ll kill you now. I’d just rather not be around when he decides to do it.”

“Bitch was begging for it. Much like Kayla, here. Remember all those nights I used to lock you down in the basement Kayla? You’d cry for hours and beg for Daddy. I used to love hearing you. How about I show you what Daddy does these days to bad girls?” he says, grabbing my hand.

Before I realize what he’s doing, he has me slammed up against the wall. He’s so close, I can smell his liquor-soaked breath and another less defined repugnant smell… almost like sweat and musky dirt. I cry out from the pain on my wrist, my body tensing and getting ready to fight. Before I can, however, there’s a loud crash. I close my eyes, thinking Kurt is going to hit me like he did Rachel. It doesn’t happen, even when I hear Rachel’s scream. I open my eyes just in time to see my favorite blue ceramic vase crash down on Kurt’s head. Small pieces of chalk land on my shirt when I look up.