Page 1 of Blindside Sinner

1

SLOAN

The irritatingbzz, bzz, bzzof my cellphone vibrating wakes me up way too damn early. “You gotta be kidding me,” I mutter. I slap my hand across the nightstand until I find it.

Prying my eyes open, I swipe to see the notifications. There are some emails and a reminder for my calendar app that I have a shift at the diner this evening. That’s standard.

But the three that woke me are texts from my best friend, triple texter extraordinaire Cassandra Claymore.

CASSIE:Haven’t heard from you in ages.

CASSIE:Are you still alive? Has someone taken out my bestie Sloan?

CASSIE:If you’re in trouble, text me the code word.

I laugh, though there’s a little bit of guilt on the edge of it. To be fair—mostly to myself—I’ve been slammed. Between two full-time serving jobs, I’m barely getting enough sleep to function like a human being.

I text her back.No code word, just busy working. You know, that thing that lets us plebeians make money and pay our bills?

CASSIE:Gross.

I can’t help but laugh at the silver-spooned princess. She’s the heiress to Claymore International, a real estate firm with a portfolio larger than the GDP of Guam. So, needless to say, Cassie is often a little, shall we say,out of touchwith the real world.

Even when we met in college—for the measly six months I was able to afford it—she’s never had a problem that her AmEx Black can’t solve.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck paying off a loan that I didn’t take in the first place.

As if he had a direct line to my thoughts, a text comes in from the boogeyman himself.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:Your payment is late.

I don’t need to save the number to know who it is. The Bloodhound has come calling, as regular as Aunt Flo. I just have to hope that he isn’t interested in personally collecting this month’s payment.

SLOAN:I’ll have it tonight. Rusty’s.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:I’ll send someone to you.

I breathe a sigh of relief. The longer I can avoid a face-to-face with the Bloodhound, the better.

Then another text comes in.This is your one warning. Any more late payments and the amount goes up.

I gulp and put my phone facedown on my lap, as if that’ll stop him from ruining my life any more than he already has.

With that rude awakening, any thoughts of stealing some extra sleep vanish. The afternoon sun shines through the gaps in my blackout curtains like a needle to the eyeball.

I groan when I realize I’m only ten minutes away from my alarm going off.No rest for the wearyalways seemed a little melodramatic to me, but my God, what I wouldn’t do to live in a cave for a month and dream the days away.

Annoyed, I toss the blankets off and get out of bed. My knees and ankles pop like firecrackers.

Bartending most weeknights at a local bar and filling every other free second I have with Rusty’s Diner shifts is taking a toll on my body. But the eighty-plus hours a week I work are barely enough to scrape by, when the minimum payments on my debt are four figures a month.

With basic utilities like food and rent to pay for, too—seeing as how your girl likes to, ya know,eatandsleep indoors—I wouldn’t even be able to afford bus fare if it weren’t for tips.

I must be a glutton for punishment today, because I pull up my bank app and immediately wince.

I have just enough to make this month’s payment to the Bloodhound, but it’ll leave me high and dry until payday. That means one thing: more shifts.

Honestly, though, I don’t know how much more I can take.

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