Page 71 of Edge of Unbroken

“I guess I should be pissed at you for lying to me, you sneaky little slut, but do me a little favor and I might just forgive you,” he says with a low chuckle.

“What do you want from me, Adam?” I whisper into my phone, terrified of Vada overhearing. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Hot tears make my eyes sting. I can’t believe this is happening again. I thought it was over.

He chuckles, though I detect no humor. “I guess you just have a special place in my heart. No girl quite compares to you.”

“What did you do to your girlfriend?” I ask, as always feeling much braver when he isn’t standing in front of me, his wide stature instilling me with fear.

“Oh, you heard about that?” he asks with surprise, though he composes himself quickly. “I’m glad to hear you’re keeping tabs on me like I’m keeping tabs on you, baby.”

His use of Ronan’s pet name for me causes an ice-cold shiver to run down my spine. Then anger flares in my chest. “I’m not keeping tabs on you, Adam. I don’t want anything to do with you. Leave me alone,” I hiss into the phone. I’m agitated, scared—both of Adam and of being found out.

He laughs mockingly. “You just keeping telling yourself that, baby. You know you and I had something special, but you just had to go and fuck it all up. Fuckmeup,” he says, his tone taking on an angry note. “It didn’t have to be that way, Cat.”

“What do you want?” I ask again, looking over my shoulder when I hear a sound coming from Vada’s room. “More pictures?” My voice trembles with the prospect of exposing myself to him again.

“Definitely won’t say no to those, although I wouldn’t mind a little video either. Let me see your tight little body, baby? Let me watch you touch yourself.”

My face contorts with disgust as acidic bile rises in my throat.

But then his tone becomes rigid. “I need money. And you’re going to send it to me. A thousand bucks would do it. You send it to me and I’ll leave you be.”

I crease my brow, completely gobsmacked. He wants me to give him a thousand dollars?

“Adam, I don’t have a thousand dollars,” I say, overcome with a sudden urge to laugh, wondering if he’s joking. I don’t, but this whole situation is so outside of the norm of what he’s demanded of me in the past that it’s almost comical. But could this really provide me with a way to get rid of him? Would he really finally leave me alone if I came up with the money?

“No? Well, how about you find a way to get it.”

“I… Adam, I don’t know how. I don’t have a job or—”

“Fine. I’ll just sell the pictures I have of you then. Lots of dudes out there who’ll pay good money for sexy little slutty Kitty Cat pictures, especially those you sent me last August.”

“You know they’re looking for you, right? For what you did to that girl,” I say in a desperate attempt to make him reconsider, to finally make him leave me alone, to end his torture of me. I’m sure there are faster, easier ways for him to get the money?

“Are you trying to threaten me, Cat? Because let me tell you something, baby, that bitch got what she deserved. Now, here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna figure out a way to get me my fucking money. You have until Wednesday morning to send it to my payment app under my old email. And in the meantime, so I can make sure you’re falling in line—you’re gonna march yourself to a bathroom—away from your little friend who so politely answered your phone for you—and you’re gonna take a fucking picture and send it to me. And you’re gonna keep sending them to me unless you want me to do to you what I did to that little slut last night,” he roars into the phone.

I swallow the sob clawing its way out of my throat. “Adam, please…” I whimper. “I have a boyfriend. Please don’t—” I begin to beg. I’ll try anything at this point.

Adam laughs. “The guy from the bar?”

“Yeah. He’s kicked your ass before, Adam,” I say as boldly as I can manage.

“He had help. It was hardly fair.”

Reminding Adam of the beatdown he took from Ronan seems to have thrown him for a momentary loop. “You know that’s not true. Nobody else put a hand on you; if anything they kept him from killing you.” If only Ronan was here right now.

“Well, maybe your pretty little boy toy needs to have an accident. I don’t like sharing.”

Adam’s not-so-subtle threat to hurt Ronan makes my body stiffen. I could tell Adam Ronan’s gone, that he isn’t anywhere close to me, that there’s no way Adam could hurt him right now. But that would expose me. I have no idea where Adam is, and I’m not about to tell him that my protector is gone.

I wipe the stray tear from my cheek, determined to do whatever it is I need to do to keep Adam at bay and Ronan safe. “Fine,” I say decisively, my voice thick. “I’ll get you the money.”

“And?”

“And the damn pictures.”

“That’s a good girl,” Adam growls with a demeaning smile in his voice.

“You’ll need to let me get off the phone.”

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