Page 68 of Ruthless God

“Hi, I’m Rachel.”

She’s gorgeous with her pastel blue hair reaching her shoulders, with two rings in each side of her nose. I slip my palm into hers and shake her hand.

“I’m Lyrical.”

Nodding, she lets go of my palm and sits beside me. Her expensive perfume invades my nostrils. She smells sweet like a daisy.

“So… you knew Bailey?”

She nods, crosses her legs over the other, and stuffs her hands into her coat pockets. Her deep brown pupils radiate so much pain.

“She worked at the strip club with me. She was saving up money to leave her lifestyle, to leave her abusive boyfriend.”

The fact that Bailey felt like she needed to run away leaves a gigantic hole in my chest. Why didn’t she go to her parents or Snow and tell them about the situation she was in? I’m sure they would have murdered him. Maybe she was trying to protect him. I’ve researched abusive relationships and I read that the victims would go to great lengths to protect their abusers.

Rachel looks me up and down, and a weak smile spreads across her face. “You must have been her best friend and roommate?”

“Yes.”

I watch a teenager on rollerblades glide past us. The sky is turning an inky blue, and the sound of the wind fills the silence between us for a brief moment.

“She spoke about you a lot, told me you were getting engaged to her brother.”

I don’t respond, and she sighs.

“She never wanted to disappoint you or her brother.”

Tears well in my eyes. “She was never a disappointment to us. We just wanted what was best for her.”

She pats my back. “I was helping her with an escape plan. I was in an abusive relationship, too, with an underboss. He used to be in the mafia as well as her ex-boyfriend.”

“Did you get his name?”

“No, but I do know he went to North Haven University. She said he was popular on campus and they couldn’t be seen in public because of her arranged marriage to a rich guy. A few weeks before her death, he found her at a bus station leaving. She said she wanted to keep her baby, but he was forcing her to get an abortion. He promised her that if she went through with it, he would treat her good. The beating got worse after she aborted her child.”

Bailey suffered so much, and I wasn’t there to help her, to protect her. She suffered in silence, wanting an escape from her new life. I imagine her being scared and alone, and the ache in my chest builds.

She removes her backpack and hands me a bunch of Bailey’s stuff. Tears gather in her eyes, matching mine. “I feel bad. I feel like I could have done more. I… He used to force her to have sex with other men. She used to tell me how he would invite her to parties with rich men from the Billionaire Club and they would run a train on her.”

I feel like I’m suffocating from her words. I suspect he was pimping her out since she was involved with someone who has no morals.

We both hug each other as tears leak down our faces, and my head hurts so much from crying. I feel worn out. I pull awayfrom her and use the back of my thumbs to wipe under my eyes. I feel my mascara clumping around my eyelids, and I’m sure my face looks like a racoon.

“It was nice meeting you, Lyrical, but I have to go to work.” I walk her to her car, where we say our goodbyes.

Once I’m in my own car, I search through the bag that Rachel gave me and I find stripper clothing, pictures of me and Bailey and Snow at a house party—and an ultrasound of a baby, I think. My tears wet the picture. There’s also a key, and a sketch of a house with an address scribbled at the bottom. I toss the bag in my back seat.

I can’t keep the tears at bay, no matter what I do.

With the bag slung over my shoulders, I walk into the living room to find Snow standing by the window.

Anger colors his faces and his arms are folded across his bare chest. He stalks up to me, yanks me by the arm, and assesses me from head to toe.

“You met a woman at a park? Why?”

How the hell does he know where I was when I left my phone with Winter?

Peeling his fingers from my arm, I head to the kitchen, open the fridge, grab the jug of lemonade, and pour it into a crystal glass. “I left my phone with Winter, because I knew you were tracking me. Wait. How did you know I met some girl? I used Lilac’s phone to text her.”

---