took off.
“Stop fucking crying,” he snapped. “Paulie doesn’t deserve your tears. He deserves to be dead, so wipe your goddamn face, and get it together.”
Get it together?
I still hadn’t processed that I hadn’t been shot, too, and I definitely hadn’t processed Paulie’s murder. But every second of it, every bit of detail, was flashing in my head.
Paulie was practically family. I’d seen him almost every day since I was a kid. He’d walked me to the bus stop whenever Garin and Billy skipped school. He’d given me rides, gotten me food. He’d even kicked a kid’s ass when the kid had tried to rob me on my front steps.
Paulie was nicer to me than my own brother.
And I was supposed to stop crying and get it together and act like it had never happened?
Impossible.
This was so deep, deeper than I could even wrap my head around.
Billy. Oh God, what was this going to do to Billy? And to Garin?
And to all of us?
It hurt. It hurt and it stung and it made my stomach churn, and whatever was inside of it was now rising to the back of my throat.
“I have to get out of this car,” I moaned, wrapping my arms around my belly.
“Not a fucking chance.”
“Pull over, or I’m going to puke on your floor.”
“You’re kidding.”
I rocked back and forth, my mouth watering more as each second passed. “No, I’m definitely not.”
He weaved between lanes, already several blocks outside The Heart. “You can puke out the window. I’m not pulling over.”
I hit the button, waiting for the glass to roll down.
There was grinding. This side made the same noise.
Grinding…window…gun…BANG.
It all came back so quickly.
I leaned my face out the window and opened my mouth. Vodka poured out. I’d taken a few sips before I had gone to Garin’s. It was supposed to help take the edge off, so I’d finally have the courage to tell him how I felt.
But nothing could take the edge off of this.
“Don’t get any puke on the fucking car!” he yelled.
I hardly heard him.
All I could think about was that Paulie was dead.
Twenty-Two
Kyle
“Ahh!” I screamed as something freezing and sour-smelling splashed onto my face.
My eyes snapped open and immediately closed again. The mysterious liquid stung my eyes something fierce and burned the hell out of my tongue. It was inside my nose, running down the back of my throat, so potent that I gagged.
“Air,” I gasped. “I…can’t…breathe…”
Something was squeezing my chest, constricting my airflow. I opened my eyes to see what it was, and tears poured from my lids. I tried to blink out whatever was burning them; it only got worse. My vision was blurry, and the light in here was dim, but I was able to see the ropes. They weren’t just on my wrists and ankles. They were circled around each breast, meeting in the middle and weaving into a braid that traveled down my stomach, under my pussy, through the slit of my ass, up my shoulders, and met again at my breasts.
It was a jumpsuit of rope. Tight, scratchy, unforgiving rope. And, every time I moved, the rope tugged against my clit, squeezed my breasts…and prevented me from taking in any air.
“I’ve missed you,” Breath whispered from behind me, his lips pressing against the back of my ear. He tugged my hair, so my neck flew back, my face now pointed toward the ceiling. “I heard you while you two were fucking. You sounded so good; you made my dick hard.”
He rubbed his erection across the back of my head. It was a pathetic hard-on. Disgusting. And it smelled revolting.
“I hoped you were using your fingers. Sticking them into that sweet cunt of yours. Balling them together, so you were giving yourself your whole fist. That’s what it sounded like, so I had to see it for myself. I had to see if I could fit my entire fist in you.” He wrapped his hand around my hair and pulled down even harder. “You know what I found, puta? I found Garin’s cum in your ass…and I didn’t fucking like it.”
His nails dug into the backs of my ears, and it felt like he was piercing my lobes.
“Did you hear me? I didn’t fucking like it. I’m going to make sure my cock is the only one that will ever be inside your ass again.”
He was going to make sure?
“Did you do something to Garin? Where’s Garin? Don’t—”
He yanked the rope until it tightened against my pussy and