Page 138 of Filthy Elites

“No.”I still can’t believe it. “No fucking way.” I gape at the man before me. My gaze goes from Kennedy to Josh and back again.

“I can explain everything, Haley.” Josh puts his hands out as if he’s placating a wild animal. I fucking feel like one. My heart is pounding. My skin feels like it’s been stretched tight over my bones and muscles.

Dark memories that are better left forgotten crop back up. The sour pill thrust into my mouth, dissolving on my tongue that I can’t spit out. The unwanted fingers digging into the skin of my stomach and down my thighs. Right behind the fear and the revulsion that makes my skin crawl, anger is a fast-approaching friend.

Fear, I hate. Anger, I can handle.

“I wanted to take care of you, Haley,” Josh says, his feet shuffling forward.

The only thing that doesn’t immediately make me turn and run is the feel of the now warmed metal of the pistol against my thigh. He’s right there—the man who almost raped me. Viks was going to take care of this, but I meant it when I said I didn’t need him. If anything, I have more of a right to kill the man. Neither one suspects that I have a weapon on me. I can use this to my advantage.

“Take care of me?” I repeat Josh’s words lightly. “What do you mean?” It’s better to keep him talking. The more he talks, the more time I have, and the less they’re really paying attention to me.

Josh’s lips tighten. “It’s not easy, you know,” he says. “When your parents are fucking idiots.”

That gives me pause. I wrinkle my nose in confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

His teeth clench together and his arms drop to his sides as he shakes his head in a way that can only be described as pure disgust. “Those stupid fuckers spent every fucking dime they made. Lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on bad investments. The debt piles up. My mom wants to keep up appearances despite the fact that their management skills are slowly leeching away my life.Mine!” Josh hits his chest. “My fucking inheritance is gone because of them. How the fuck am I supposed to take care of you without money? Girls like you…” He drops his arm again. “You need money to be attracted to a man.”

“So I developed it—a new drug more addictive than coke, than heroin. Patrick had the connections, I had what little cash influx was left in my trust fund. It was a perfect plan, and it was going well. Then you…” He trails off, turning away and then flipping back in the same second, glaring at me. “Your newboyfriend,” he spits the word out, “got on my case. Why the fuck did you have to choose him, Haley?” Josh’s eyes plead with me. “You should’ve been mine. I was doing all of this, and you just—ugh!” He scrubs a hand down his face and shakes his head.

He's not just insane. He’s certifiable. “You’re fucking crazy…” I shouldn’t have said it, but the truth comes out all on its own. Call it what you want—a brain malfunction or word vomit—whatever the case, it does the exact opposite of what I need at the moment. It pisses Josh the fuck off.

His expression morphs from one of irritation to purely enraged fury. “What the fuck did you say to me?” He storms towards me and I back up, scrambling until my now bare foot lands on something sharp.

I yelp and go down in a heap on the ground, whatever it was that hurt my foot cutting into my palms as I attempt to break my fall. Josh rears up over me, grabbing me by my hair. He yanks my head back, forcing me to look up at him.

“I did everything I could to get you to notice me!” he screams in my face. “I was fucking kind to you. I was a nice guy. But did you notice? Fuck no. You went and spread your legs for Nicholas Carter’sbitch.” He spits the last word. Something wet hits my cheek.

“I fucking sold my soul to this motherfucker,” Josh continues, gesturing back to where Kennedy is standing to the side, his sunglasses back in place and a cigarette in his hand as he watches on with apparent disinterest.That can’t be right,I think.Can it?Does he truly not care what’s happening? I thought I would be his target, but he isn’t acting like he gives a shit.

“I started an enterprise that would make any fucking woman want me.” Josh’s insanity is growing, his own sense of self-worth inflating as he brags. “Kennedy here is my partner,my employee,” he tells me.

“Yeah?” I bite down on my tongue as anger whips through me. “Well, did he tell you he drugged me and almost raped me?” I snap.

Josh’s eyes lower down to my chest automatically at the word ‘rape.’ “He did,” he confesses. “but he didn’t know that you belong to me then. He knows that you’re mine now. He won’t try that again.”

“I still think you need to kill her,” Kennedy pipes in, taking a long drag off of his cigarette as he inhales the smoke.

My limbs tremble with strain and the little bites of pain that shoot through my flesh every time I move my hands over the ground seem to hone my focus. Josh’s head turns towards Kennedy. His lips part and just as he’s about to say something, I rip my head free of his grasp—feeling several strands yanked out as I roll over and snatch the hem of my dress up as I reach for my pistol.

Josh’s eyes widen as I lift it and point it right at him. “Back off,” I growl as I hurriedly get to my feet.

“Shit.” Kennedy’s hiss grabs my attention for a split second but it’s just enough time for Josh to dive at me.

A scream echoes up the alleyway as he slams into me like a professional linebacker—slamming me back down against the concrete hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. I fight to keep the gun locked in my grip even as his fingers lock around it and rip it from my grasp.

Instead of tossing it as far from me as he can, though, he holds it above his head and curses. “You stupid fucking bitch!” he screams. “I could’ve given you everything. Why the fuck don’t you just listen to me?”

It’s an instinct to know not to anger the man waving a gun around in front of your face, but the rage I feel at having the gun given to me by Viks taken away overrides any such logical thought. “Because I don’t want you!” I scream back at him. “You think nice fucking guys try to kidnap the girls they like? You think they call them whores?” I demand, shaking my head even before he can answer. “No, they don’t. You werenevera nice guy, Josh. You were pretending to get what you wanted. You’re nothing but a snake.”

Shock crosses his face and he gets to his feet, standing above me with my gun still in his hand. “You really think that?” His question is breathy, as if he, too, has had the air knocked from him. How the hell has he not realized it after everything I said back in the club?

A door creaks behind me and I look back just in time to see Viks step out of the same emergency exit we’d come from earlier. His eyes are hard and his own weapon is drawn, at the ready in his hand. I hear the cocking of a gun, and realize a split second too late that it’s far too close to be his.

My head turns just as Josh lifts my gun and aims it like he actually knows what the fuck he’s doing. He’s a drug dealer, though—or at the very least Kennedy’s fucking enterprise partner—why wouldn’t he know how to shoot a gun?

“No!” I scream just as he pulls the trigger. I push up from the ground and take him down, punching, kicking, shouting as the gun goes skittering down the alleyway. I don’t even have time to look back and see if Viks has been hit as Josh slaps me across the face and rolls me off of him, slamming me into the ground with his hands around my throat.

---