Trust in Me Read Online Free

listening.
    “Mr. Campbell,” Tyler was saying, “I don’t mean to tell you how to run your family, but I wonder if something is going on with Mia.”
    “You don’t mean to tell me, but you do, eh? No one asked your opinion.”
    “I know, sir, but she seemed mighty upset. Maybe if you—”
    “She was upset because you was harassing her. What’s a grown boy got to do with a young girl, anyhow? Looks suspect to me. Maybe I should go calling the Army, let them know what kind of recruit they’ll be getting.”
    “That’s ridiculous,” Tyler said, his voice tight. “Look, I wasn’t trying to upset you. I don’t really know her but it just seemed like she might be going through a rough patch. Like children do. That’s all.”
    My father yelled out a couple more threats, and Tyler left me to my fate. The words replayed through my mind. That’s ridiculous. I don’t really know her. Like children do.
    All of it was true, of course, which only made it worse. I clutched the pain of his words like a security blanket. Even when my father came back inside and locked the doors, chased me up to my room, and worked out his anger at Tyler on my little girl body, the pain protected me.
    For years it had protected me, blanketed me, shielded me from the full assault of my choices or lack of choices. Now Tyler was back in my life in the worst possible way, and he wanted to strip away my pain, layer by layer. With his words and his kisses and his sounds , he pierced the veil that had been my survival. What would I have left when he was done with me?
    Even when he’d recovered his breath, he held me tight in a slumped embrace, in a parody of a post-coitus cuddle. “Mia, why are you here? Do you need help? Do you need money or something?” His words came low and solemn, with eyes so concerned.
    I had to get rid of him.
    And anyway, what could I tell him—the truth? That after he left to go live his life, I was trapped in my father’s house for six long days of the hell I’d tried to tell him about? That when I’d run away from home, starving and scared, I’d survived for years on the street, only to be taken in by Carlos? And that, despite the fact that I owed him my life and my loyalty, I was planning to betray Carlos just to give those girls another chance at life, a chance I’d never had and never would? For all I knew, Tyler was part of the trafficking business. For all I knew, he was Carlos’s supplier. There was no way I could trust him.
    So I forced myself to laugh. “Shit, Tyler, don’t get all serious on me just because you had a good fuck. I like what I do. It’s easy and the pay’s great.”
    He considered me, doubted me. He was older, more filled out, weathered, but with his blue eyes frowning at me, he looked like the eighteen-year-old boy from all those years ago more than ever.
    He hadn’t believed me way back then, at least not enough to stay and help. So what did it matter if he made the offer now? Too little and way too late.
    Looking him right in the eyes, I said, “I’m a whore through-and-through, and that’s what I’ll be until the day that I die.”
    And I let him look for the lie in my face, because I knew he wouldn’t find it. That last bit, at least, was the truth.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
    The diamond earrings winked at me in the mirror, chains of silver and jewels. At least make-up covered up my sallow skin and sunken eyes. Too much thinking and not enough sleep over the past week had taken their toll on my appearance, my only commodity.
    Carlos hadn’t complained, though. Not earlier that day when I’d sucked him off from under his desk while he was on his conference call.
    “Next week? That’s a whole month early,” Carlos snapped into the phone while his dick jerked in my mouth.
    A tinny voice answered him, garbled words about screwing the pooch and timetables.
    “That’s ridiculous,” Carlos said. “Moving the delivery up makes us more susceptible, not less.”
    The