Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 101001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 505(@200wpm)___ 404(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 505(@200wpm)___ 404(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
The guy shoved her toward Lance with little to no care for her balance. She tripped and hit the hard concrete ground.
Olivia winced. With nothing but a miniskirt on her bottom half, the poor woman would’ve certainly torn up her knees. She held her breath as she watched this scene play out with a pit in her stomach.
Something was seriously wrong here.
Lance grabbed her upper arm and yanked her to her feet. The girl teetered on her spiky heels, then leaned into him for support. He spoke back and forth with the man—she’d kill for some freaking sound—then handed over what appeared to be a thick wad of cash.
Jesus, had her fiancé purchased a drugged woman?
The guy got back in his car then disappeared from the camera’s range. Olivia shifted her gaze back to her fiancé. They were supposed to be married in less than a year in a small wedding at an exclusive Tahitian resort. Every woman’s dream turned into a nightmare.
Still holding the drugged woman by her upper arm, Lance steered her to his car. She staggered along beside him until they reached the Lamborghini. Then Lance crowded her against the driver’s side window.
Olivia had a full view of the side of his face, and the girl’s as well. He leaned in and kissed her neck as he mashed his body against her.
“No,” Olivia whispered. The pit in her stomach bloomed into a lead brick.
The girl shook her head and made a weak attempt at shoving him away. He ignored her, knocking her arms out of the way before he grabbed the hem of her skirt. As he began to work it up, the woman tried again to swat him away. The attempt was beyond ineffective.
Lance laughed, then grabbed her leg and hiked it up over his hip.
“No!” Olivia shouted this time. Her stomach turned. God, he was about to rape this woman right before her eyes. She grabbed her phone off the desk and scrambled to open the call app. “Pick up, pick up,” she murmured as his phone rang in her ear.
Her eyes remained fixed on the screen, watching as Lance’s face changed from lust to annoyance. He fished his phone out of his sports coat pocket and then glanced at the screen.
“Answer it!”
With a shake of his head, he shoved it back in his pocket.
“Dammit!”
The police. She needed to call the police.
“Nine-one-one, state your emergency,” a calm woman’s voice stated.
“I need to report a rape. Please. You have to hurry. He’s about to rape her.”
“Ma’am, are you safe?”
“Yes!” She smacked her hand on the desk. “I’m fine. I’m not there. I’m watching it on a security camera. Seventeen-twenty-two Sixth Street. Downtown Chicago. The Delmont building. Fourth floor of the parking garage. Hurry!”
“Okay, ma’am. I’m going to need to ask you some questions, but I’m dispatching officers right now. Okay?”
She nodded, gripping the phone as she watched the drugged girl swat at her fiancé in vain.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m here. Ask anything.” She answered all the questions while helplessly watching the woman struggle against Lance. When she’d given all the information she had, the dispatcher asked her to stay on the line. “Please hurry,” she whispered.
Lance reached between him and the woman, who’d stopped struggling and slumped against the car. He pulled his belt open.
Olivia’s stomach lurched, and her eyes filled with tears. There wasn’t a single thing she could do to stop these events from playing out five miles across town. “I’m so sorry,” she mouthed as she squeezed her eyes shut, unable to bear watching.
Large tears leaked from beneath her eyelids. The cops would never get there in time to stop it. Would the woman remember anything tomorrow? Would she wake up confused and sore, unsure what the hell happened, or would she recall the way Lance violated her in a dirty parking lot after she’d been drugged? Which scenario would be worse? God, she hoped this woman had support and would be able to find peace and healing after Olivia’s fiancé hurt her.
What was she going to do now? She couldn’t stay with Lance, that was for sure. She pressed a hand to her head, still holding the silent phone to her ear with her eyes squeezed shut. My God, her fiancé was a rapist.
The man she’d loved for years. Had she ever truly known him? Had everything he felt for her been a lie. All their plans? All their dreams? They’d mostly been his dreams, his plans, but she’d loved him enough to make them her own.
She’d been a fool to love this man.
Scratch that. He wasn’t a man but a monster.
If only her half-brother, Deke, was still alive. He’d not only know what to do, but he’d make sure Lance was punished. With fourteen years between them, she’d never been close to her older brother. When Olivia was a toddler, their father wrote him out of their lives. Deke hadn’t wanted any part of their father’s business but instead dreamed of joining the military. That wasn’t acceptable to their father, and he’d cut Deke off in the harshest of ways. Back then, he’d told her Deke had left of his own accord and hated their family. It was only when she was in her late teens she’d learned the truth. She’d wasted so many years thinking the worst of her half-brother.