Page 55 of Heartless Game

It was truly insane, how one second completely humiliating her turned me on, but the next, seeing that I’d caused her pain made me want to shovemyselfinto the boards. Being around Tovah was like being on an emotional rollercoaster. Even though I knew the right choice was to exit while I still could, all I wanted to do was to hang on tight and enjoy the ride.

Tovah jerked away from me, rising to her feet and tossing her cum-covered hair. Unsteady, but still somehow defiant.

“I’m showering,” she said. “And then I’m sleeping in the guest room.”

I laughed. “You’re not very good at your job, are you? Did you fact-check with your source? If you had, you’d know your sleeping arrangements hadn’t changed." Turning serious, I stared down at her, noting the way her nose stud winked in the light. “You’ll sleep with me, chained to me, every night, until I’m done with you. There’s no negotiating or getting around it, Tovah Lewis. You belong to me, and you better start acting like it.”

She shook her head. “I’ll fact-check you in the balls,” she tossed over her shoulder as she turned down the hallway and headed up the stairs.

Laughing, I followed her. “Oh, and we’re going to dye your hair back to its original color,” I added. “I brought all your hair dye boxes from your apartment. I’m sick of this pink.”

At the foot of the stairs, she stilled, turning to me, fear muting some of the defiance in her eyes.

“I’ll dye my hair any damn color I choose, Isaac Silver. Get this: You may control me sexually. You may even be able to humiliate me publicly. ButIdecide what I do with my hair.”

I whistled. “We’ll see about that.” Slapping her ass, hard, I added, “I’ve never seen a girl dye her hair before. Sounds fun.”

“Fuck you.”

I laughed again.

“Patience, little snoop. Patience.”

22

Tovah

“Shit,” I muttered, wiping sweat off my forehead. “Why is there nothing incriminating in this fucking house?!”

I had been snooping top to bottom through Isaac’s home for hours while he’d been at hockey practice. Pulled papers out of filing cabinets, searched the trash for old receipts, tried every password I could think of on his laptop. I’d tried the code on that drawer in his office again, but after multiple tries, I’d given up.

All I had to show for my hours of work was exhaustion from painstakingly removing possible evidence, only to replace it when I realized it wasn’t evidence after all. Oh, and sweat. And tears, because I felt like I was going to cry. I’d been living with Isaac for a week, and I was no closer to finding answers that would put the Silvers in prison and set my mom and me free.

A good journalist never gave up on a story. I knew that. And this was more than a story—it was life or death. But I was getting absolutely nowhere but discouraged.

Glancing up at the mirror across from the desk in Isaac’s office-slash-workout-room, I frowned at my expression. The purple-haired girl in the mirror—which I’d dyed this morning because fuck Isaac and the Zamboni he rode in on—looked a little pissed off and a lot defeated.

“Don’t you give up,” I told her, tossing my head. “You’re Tovah fucking Lewis, future Pulitzer Prize winner. You don’t give up; you just get creative.”

I sat at the desk, running my fingers through my violet-colored hair. I’d dyed it with the only box of old, fun color dye I had among a range of new boxes of browns. Isaac must have accidentally brought the purple from my apartment when he’d brought the rest of my stuff over. He’d think I’d dyed it as a fuck you to him, and that had been part of it, but mostly it was because I was starting to feel twitchy, which was the sign it was time to change my hair color again so no one recognized me.

There had to be some other way to get either evidence or some sort of confession, I just had to keep thinking.

At that moment, the alarm announced that the door was unlocked and Isaac was home.

Crap,he was early.

Quickly, I scanned the office to make sure nothing was out of place, but before I could exit, the door began to open.

Shit, shit, shit.

I dove out from behind the desk, landing in a heap on the workout mat.

Isaac stood before me, framed in the doorway, his face thunderous.

“Find what you were looking for?”

“No,” I said, a little out of breath. “Why don’t you have a yoga mat? Or foam blocks?”

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