Atone (Recovered Innocence #2)(52)

“Goodbye,” Cora says.

“Hold on a minute. Both of you.” God. I can’t think with the two of them going at it like this. I let out a frustrated breath. “I can’t leave things like this between us,” I tell Cora. “I know I don’t know the whole story, but neither do you.”

Cora crosses her arms. “I know enough.”

“I’m going with her. Don’t leave things like this between us.”

“I’m not the one doing this to us. She is. I love you, but you’re all kinds of stupid right now because of her. You need to hear the truth, Beau. Once you do, if you decide you still want to go with her, I won’t stand in your way.”

I look to Vera. Her eyes are wide and round on Cora, her chest heaving. Trembling in the corner, she looks like a cornered animal facing off with a predator. I glance back at Cora, silently begging me to stay. This is an impossible situation. If I choose one, I lose the other. I don’t know what to do.

“I escaped instead of testifying and an innocent man went to prison,” Vera blurts out.

I whip my head in her direction. “What?”

“Sam French. He’s still in prison,” Cora says. “The Freedom Project is looking for her. So is the FBI. They need her to corroborate his and another missing witness’s story. She’s also wanted in another crime. Have I gotten anything wrong?” she asks Vera.

“No.”

“How could…” I can’t wrap my head around it. She knows my story. She knows it. How could she be a part of putting an innocent man in prison? How could she look me in the eye, f*cking sympathize with me, when she did the same damn thing to another person?

“I don’t expect you to understand—”

“Understand? Of course I f*cking don’t understand. How could you?”

“Are you still going with her?” Cora asks with a sneer.

“I can’t…I can’t f*cking think. Just shut up. Both of you. Goddamn it!”

“I’m sorry.” Vera turns for the door.

I grab her by the arm. Hard. And pull her to me. “You’re not f*cking going anywhere.”

She tries to twist out of my grip. “Let me go. I’m not safe here. I’m not safe anywhere.”

“I really don’t f*cking care right now. You’re not leaving that man in prison.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re damn right I don’t. How can you f*cking live with yourself and what you’ve done?”

“That missing witness isn’t missing. She’s dead.”





Chapter 26


Vera


“Is this more of your lies?” Cora’s face is full of hate for me. “You’ll say and do anything, won’t you?”

“Wait a minute,” Beau tells Cora with a hand out. He turns to me. “Is this true?”

I nod.

“How do you know she’s dead? You said she, right?”

“Cherry,” I start. “Her name was Cherry. Or at least that’s what she was called. I don’t know her real name. Javier slit her throat right in front of me.”

The memory burns fresh and I’m catapulted back to that stark room with the blackout curtains so you couldn’t tell day from night.

“Cherry didn’t keep her mouth shut,” Javier had sneered, holding her black hair in his fist as she clamped her hands to her neck, the blood gushing between her fingers as she gasped her last breath. “Now she can’t talk at all.”

His laugh had echoed in the bare room. I can still hear it in my head. He made me sleep in the room with her body that night, her sightless eyes shining in the darkness, the combined stench of blood and shit gagging me. In the morning he came and got me and took me to his office. Obediently, I got undressed and went to my knees in front of him. He sat back as I unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. I sucked him off, as I was trained to do. As all the girls were trained to do when he brought us in there. All the while he caressed my face, telling me he loved me. When I was done and had rebuckled his belt, he made me bend over his desk naked. He unbuckled his belt again and beat me with it, holding me down with a hand on my back while I screamed in agony and he struck me over and over.

When he finished he yanked me up by the hair. “You’ve always been one of my favorites, but I’ll cut you like I did Cherry if you try the shit she did. Got it?”

“Y-y-yes, sir.”

“Vera?” Beau’s voice snaps me back to the here and now.

I close my eyes and fight for control. Everything around me is spinning, spinning, spinning and I can’t and I’m having trouble keeping it together. There. Better. But my hold is tenuous at best.

“Cherry and I,” I continue slowly. “We were supposed to testify that we saw Sam French kill a woman. A city councilman’s wife. It was supposed to look like a home invasion.

“Cherry and I were hired for the party. There was drinking, drugs, and sex of course. We only left Hell House—that’s what we called where we were kept—on special occasions for very special clients, under guard. Sam was one of the guards. Javier always went with us. He has very strict rules about parties. Anyone who isn’t on the guest list doesn’t get in. The councilman’s wife came in through the garage, slipping past Sam. She was supposed to be at a spa for the weekend and came home early. She freaked out when she walked in on Cherry and me with her husband.