Page 27 of Caging Liberty
“Sawyer doesn’t believe me,” she says, turning so she’s fully facing me. “He thinks I just said Julio did that so he wouldn’t throw me back in the basement. Even if he did believe me, he acted like it wouldn't be a big deal if it were true. And he didn’t say he’d ban Julio from coming in here.”
Her eyes are wide and hopeful, and as much as I don’t want to believe her, she isn’t a good enough actress to pull off this façade.
What the fuck, Sawyer?
“I’ll take care of it,” I say, keeping my voice level. I swallow my anger, doing my best to set it aside for later. “Is there anything else you need?”
She stares at me for a moment, her brow slightly pinched like she’s unsure of something. “How are you going to take care of it?”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“What?” Her eyes go wide with surprise.
Now it’s my brow’s turn to pinch. “You said he held you down with the intention of raping you.”
“Right, but. I just…” Her mouth hangs open, and her eyes flicker around while she tries to form words.
“Do you not want him dead?” I ask, even more confused.
“No, I… I don’t know.” She blinks and looks off like she’s considering something. “Are you serious right now?”
Why would I be joking?
I keep my mouth shut while she stares at me in disbelief.
“You would… You’d…”
“I’d what?” I look at her expectantly, but I’m now beginning to pick up what’s going on in her head. This is yet another first for me. Most of the manor whores hear the rumors about me long before I meet them. Lib hasn’t, which means she has no idea I’m capable of killing someone … yet. She’ll find out soon enough.
She swallows forcefully enough that I hear it, and she closes her eyes. “You’re a murderer?”
I nearly laugh at the astonished way she says it.
“I’m not a fan of labels, so I’m going to ignore that question.”
She looks down at the comforter and picks at a loose strand in the seam. “What if I’d been lying?”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Then we don’t need to ‘what if.’”
Her eyes raise to look at me. “Why would you believe me over one of your own people?”
I shake my head. “He isn’t one of ‘my people.’ I don’t work here, I just live on the island, and I’m friends with Sawyer. Julio means nothing to me.”
“Okay,” she drags out the word, eyeing me skeptically. “You keep saying I’m a manor whore. Why wouldImean something to you?”
I open my mouth, then close it once I realize she has a point. I’m not supposed to know Lib. I don’t know Julio either, but I know that the kind of men Sawyer hires aren’t the kind the world needs.
But tokillhim for this? For a woman I’ve supposedly just met? A disobedient one at that. And with no proof.
It does sound drastic.
But I don’t really care. I’m not going to be able to sleep knowing what the piece of shit could possibly do to Lib. Sawyer has already proven I can’t trust him to stop it. So, to me, that only leaves one option. Like I said, no one leaves the island.
I blink. “You just do.”