Barbie Btch (Rejects Paradise #3) - Sheridan Anne Page 0,64

he grumbles. “Sticking it to her was kinda fun. I might do it again.”

“Okay,” I laugh. “Well, make sure that I’m around when you do. I wouldn't want to miss another show like that. Ten out of ten for the drama. You really hit the nail on the head.”

Colton rolls his eyes and I help myself to another bite of his roll. “Though, speaking of you being a bad, bad boy before I showed up … what’s the deal with Jude? I’ve kinda been avoiding that whole section of the house.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” he says. “He’s … surviving.”

“Only just?”

He nods.

“Good. But what do we do? It’s not like we can just keep him down there forever and if we let him go, we risk him telling someone.”

“I know,” he murmurs, keeping his voice low, not wanting to be overheard. “I’d hate to put this kind of pressure on you, but you're the one who was hurt. It’s your call. Whatever you want to do.”

My eyes bug out of my head. “I might be from Breakers Flats but I’m not some criminal mastermind. I don’t know what to do with this shit.”

“I’m not doing this to make my life easy. Trust me, if I could, I’d just do what needs to be done and take that pressure off your hands, but this justice is for you, and being the one who gets to decide his fate puts the power in your hands. He took something from you and now you have the opportunity to do the same to him.”

I nod, understanding where he’s coming from but really not sure how I feel about it. “Can I ask you something?”

He nods. “Of course.”

“Why put him down there in the first place?” Colton’s brows furrow and I clarify my question before he starts with the obvious answers. “Why put him in the wine cellar and not lock him away. I mean, the guys in prison have a shitload nicer living arrangements than he does.”

Colton takes a breath and steps into me before lifting me onto the counter so that we see eye to eye. “There are a few reasons,” he starts. “We have the obvious answers like for one, it was the first place that I could think of on short notice, and the fact that he was going to get his ass handed to him means that there was going to be a mess. There’s plumbing down there so I could easily clean up. Reason number two, he raped you. It’s as simple as that. He hurt you and that fucker deserves to suffer.”

“That easy, huh?”

He nods, his lips pressing into a tight line as he bares an ugly part of his soul, hoping that it’s not going to scare me away, but after everything we've been through, there’s not a lot that could pull me away from him. “That easy.”

I swallow, meeting his eyes. “Have you ever done something like this before?”

“No,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, Jade. I’m not a good guy. I’ve done a shitload of stuff that I’m not proud of but keeping a fucking rapist locked in a dungeon, yeah … this is the first. I ...” Colton lets out a heavy sigh and meets my eyes. “There’s something you need to know about Jude, something that I’m hoping might help you to understand why I went to such lengths with this.”

I watch him cautiously, feeling my anxiety beginning to spark. “What is it?” I ask, my voice a soft whisper.

“You know the other girl who he hurt? Mandy Johnstone.”

I nod. “Yeah, what about her?”

“After all that bullshit with her getting hurt and Jude’s parents fucking around to make it worse, she went away. Her parents claimed that they sent her to boarding school as some sort of twisted punishment for lying about what happened with Jude, even though we all knew it was fucking true. But here’s the thing, I looked into the boarding schools around here and she's not enrolled at any of them. I checked with her extended family and friends, no one has heard from her. It’s as though she just disappeared off the face of the earth, and my gut tells me that Jude had something to do with it. I don’t know if he scared her off or if he did something worse, but I wasn’t going to allow that to happen to you.”

I stare at him in horror. “I … I don’t even know what to say about that.