Page 7 of Mine, Forever

“Do you know who I am?”

She nodded. I twisted her around so she could look me in the eye. Fuck, those black eyes were looking right through me.

“You know what I do?”

Again with the nodding.

“Good. Now get in my fucking car before I knock you the fuck out.”

She stopped trying to pull from my arms and relaxed. I moved outside with her toward the car. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my wrist as she spun around, twisting my wrist the wrong way forcing me to let her go. She ran, and I took off after her hitting her over the head with the butt of my gun. I saw her go down on the cement in front of a passerby who ran scared of what I might do to them if I looked up and saw who they were.

That was the power I lived off, and fuck didn’t I love how it made me feel. York came over to pick her up, carrying her bridal style to the car.

“No,” I called out when he had opened the passenger door. “In the fucking trunk. Let her sweat a little bit.”

York paused for a moment finally nodding, moving her to the trunk.This girl was going to be fun to play with,I thought as I slid into the back seat and waited for York to take me home.

EBONY

Ten Years Ago

“Ebony… I will not ask you again!” I heard my mother yell out from below on the balcony. “Get out here.”

I truly hated it when she held these parties for her friends at our house. Not only was she constantly drunk during them, but I had to contend with my perfect sisters, Bree and Taleah, being the apple of everyone’s eyes. As I turned to my profile in the mirror, I cringed at the tummy that stuck out even when I sucked in my stomach. Grabbing a towel from the cupboard, I ran downstairs not wanting to keep my mother waiting any longer. She was a terrible person when she’d been drinking, and I didn’t have the patience to keep covering the black eyes from her brutal attacks when I spoke back to her.

Bree and Taleah were in the pool splashing about with their friends while I wrapped the towel tighter around me. My mother stopped laughing with her friends when she noticed I had come outside. Getting up from the table, she came over to me with a cocktail in her hand. She wore her tiny pink scraps of material—otherwise known as a bikini, apparently—and her white mesh coverall.

“Lose the towel,” she said. “Come on, why do you have to be such a loner all the time?”

I dropped the towel bracing myself for what was coming next.

“Oh Jesus,” she laughed. “I almost forgot how fat you are! We really ought to do something about that.”

She stumbled back to her friends, laughing. I looked around to see everyone was laughing at me, even my sisters. Fighting back the tears, I tried to stand there without bolting, but the urge was too much. I ran inside, locked myself in the bathroom and emptied my stomach of all the fruit I’d eaten earlier. Bree did this all the time. Why was she so skinny, and I stayed fat even when I lost my meal just like she did?

Sitting back against the wall, I tucked my legs up into my chest and sobbed. Tears freely fell as I heard Bree and Taleah enjoy the pool day outside. I wished my father was here. He would never have let them treat me like that. I would be a happy kid in the pool if only he were here.

My mouth was dry, and I had a severe headache, probably from dreaming about my past. I hated that memory—it was one of the moments leading up to my juvenile delinquent career.

Moving my hand up to my temple, I felt a large lump just above it and something sticky. Bringing my hand away, I tried to look down at it, but everything was dark. I couldn’t see a damn thing.Where the hell was I?

I felt as if I was moving, jerking to and fro now and then. Only after a few more moments did I realize I was in the trunk of a car going over a rocky road. Screaming, I started to bash my fists against the roof. “Let me out!”

As if that would work, Ebony. Geez. I tried to calm down enough to think straight.How was I going to get out of this?I’d been in plenty of bad situations in my lifetime, but being kidnapped had to be a new low. Why would anyone kidnap me? There was no one left that would care enough to get me back.

I tried to remember the last thing that had happened before I found myself here. It hurt to think, but I finally remembered the shooting in the restaurant and…him.

Those green eyes.

Jett Black.

The most dangerous man in the city had me in his goddamn trunk, and he obviously had no qualms about harming women. I was fucking dead.

Okay, calm down, Ebony. Think, what can you do. You’ve seen movies where people can get out of the trunk, surely there’s some truth to that. I looked around for a jack or something I could use to jimmy the trunk open. This had to be the cleanest trunk ever! There was not one thing around me, and I could feel the carpet under me was perfectly clean too—almost luxurious. Obviously, this was how he got rid of his victims, of course it was cleaned. He probably bought a new car every time he got the old one dirty.

Suddenly the car jerked to a stop. I listened for anything familiar around me, but there was nothing. A car door opened and closed and then another. Muffled voices and then silence.

I punched the roof again a few times, but it only increased the pain I had in my body, so I stopped. The only thing I could do was prepare for the moment he opened this goddamn trunk.

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