Page 61 of Rook

“Well, there were times when she was actively detoxing because she couldn’t earn, steal, or suck her way to the money to get her fix.”

Jesus.

She said it so casually, too.

“Was the club her supplier?”

“Which club?” Tessa asked, shaking her head. “Sometimes, yeah. Other times, no. It probably sounds like it should be the opposite, but it was better at the clubs where the drugs weren’t supplied.”

“Why? Was she better detoxing?”

“She was better when she wasn’t willing to do any favor asked of her, or me, for her next fix.”

I honestly didn’t know what to think of that, what conclusions to draw. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my mind went to the darkest place possible. Because there were a lot of places in the world where a pretty young girl was very valuable.

“Tessa…”

She glanced over at me, the hurt filling her eyes.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “But also… no.” I thought she was going to leave it at that. But after we crossed a road and got away from the small crowd we’d been waiting with, she went on. “The deal was made. I was led into the president’s room. Unlike my mom, though, I had my own way of getting drugs. And I crushed them up and slipped them into his can of beer.

“When he came in, I convinced him to finish it. He did. Within a few minutes, he was slurring. Within half an hour, he was out so cold that he didn’t even flinch as I undressed him, tossed a condom in the garbage, and left.”

“I’m sorry. Your mom deserved jail time for that. How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

Christ.

“How did you prevent it from happening again?”

“By stealing the drugs the same way I had to drug the president with. I kept her high enough to not get desperate then stayed as out of sight as possible. Though, eventually, someone did notice all the missing pills. They blamed my mom. We got kicked out.”

“Seems like that was maybe for the best.”

“Depends on how you look at it,” she said, but it was clear from her tone that she wasn’t about to elaborate on that. “Wait, did we walk away from the bike, or—oh,” she paused, looking in the window beside us.

I turned too, finding a plate glass window with a trio of different white dresses draped over the bodies of mannequins.

“Wanna check it out?” I asked. “You’re gonna need a dress eventually.”

“You don’t need to get back?”

“I got nothing on my schedule today.” I threw an arm around her shoulders, then reached for the door. “Let’s see if we can find you a dress.”

Honestly, I just wanted to do it because she seemed so interested.

It wasn’t long, though, before shit started to feel really real.

The women at the store asked to see the ring. Tessa flashed it with a lot of gusto—even though we didn’t need to put on a show for these strangers. Then the women oohed and ahhed over it while asking all sorts of questions about how we met, when the wedding was going to be, and how I’d proposed.

To my surprise, when the women asked if Tessa had any pictures of the proposal at the rocks, Tessa was quick to whip out her phone and show them.

I zoned out a bit when they all started talking about body shapes and dress cuts andmermaidthis andempirethat.

“What do you think?” one of the women asked, turning to me, expecting some sort of input that I didn’t have.

“Have you seen her? She’s gorgeous. She’d make a potato sack look classy.”

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