I was too selfish to kill myself, although the thought had crossed my mind more times than I’d ever admit to anyone, let alone Nixon.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness and focused on the door. I knew it was only a matter of time before Nixon came bursting through, guns blazing. At least I was dealing with Nixon instead of Chase. There was a melodrama I didn’t want to deal with—two guys both in love with the same girl—and lucky me, I was the object of both of their hatred.

I would hate me, too. I did hate me. I hated what I was, I hated what I did, I hated what I represented; but most of all, I hated that the legacy I would leave behind as a De Lange was that of an attempted rapist and a rat.

I would hang. And I would deserve every damn second the noose tightened around my neck. Some things can’t be undone—or unseen—and my eyes, they’d seen and experienced it all. My dad had made sure of that. He’d wanted to expose me to the darkness of our family—I prayed for the first time in years, the day they sent Mil away. She was only my stepsister but I would have done anything to save her—anything to protect her from the ugliness that my father was a part of. Because I knew it was only a matter of time before she was brought into his circle. I’d only been sixteen when it happened to me, and I could still see the blood on my hands.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You want me to…”—I swallowed back the tears—“hurt her.”

“It won’t hurt.” My dad chuckled. “I imagine she’ll like it.”

I licked my lips and glanced back at the door. It was hard to see because the lights kept flickering on and off—as if they couldn’t decide whether or not to shine light on the hell I was experiencing, or darken—allowing me to forget what was right in front of me.

My dad slapped the girl across the face. She had two faint bruises on her right cheek and a bloody lip. Her blond hair was matted to her head, and I could see cuts and scrapes all over her body, as if someone had used her as his personal sharpening tool.

“Do what needs to be done, son.” My dad slapped my back. “It’s easier this way. This way, you won’t feel, do you understand?”

I shook my head as the girl’s eyes pleaded with mine. I wanted to shout, to cry, to do anything. Instead I just stood there as my dad explained again.

“Money, son. We need it, our family needs it. Sometimes we have to do bad things in order to get to the good.”

I nodded my agreement and stuffed my hands in my pockets to keep from choking the life from his body.

“So, we sell the girls.” Dad shrugged. “Truly, it is not as bad as it looks. They are sold to very wealthy men who are willing to pay immensely for someone so—young.”

“Young?” I nearly whispered.

“Underage,” he clarified. “Lucky for you, this particular girl doesn’t need to be… pure, if you get my meaning. The sooner you remedy the situation the better you’ll feel about everything. After all, it’s just sex.”

Just sex? I’d never had sex. I was the only one of my friends who hadn’t. They thought it was because I was waiting—never would they guess it was because I envisioned it as rape. I could never see it as any different, because my entire life I’d watched my dad rape my mom over and over again, and now, he was asking me to do the same thing.

I wiped a stray tear and looked away. “Can’t we just get someone else to do it?”

The slap came so fast I didn’t have time to duck. It stung like hell as I fell against the concrete next to the very girl I was trying to save.

“You want in the business? You want to be boss someday?” Dad threw a knife onto the floor. The clatter may as well have been a bomb going off for as loud as it was. “You either do this”—he nodded down toward the knife—“or I’ll kill her. The blood will be on your hands and you’ll get to tell our client exactly why we were not able to deliver as promised. Think of your mother, your sister, and make your choice.” He looked down at his watch and scowled. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

The minute the door shut, I let a few more tears escape before looking at the girl shivering next to me.

“I’m—” I croaked and closed my eyes.

“Do it.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Just make it fast, please just make it fast.”

“I can’t…”

She grabbed my hand. The nameless girl that was getting sold into slavery grabbed my hand to comfort me. “If you don’t we’ll all die anyway.”

I nodded and numbly worked the buttons on my shirt, pulling it off, and following with my jeans.

The minute I touched her, the light that had once been in her eyes, the very last shred of dignity that had remained in her possession—disappeared. All I saw was black, all I felt was evil, and Dad was right. Because when everything was over—I felt nothing.

Headlights shone through the tiny window above the door. My hands gripped the chair and I waited, but nobody came to the door.

Exhaling in relief, I tried to focus on something, anything, to make the memories of my childhood go away. But in the end, I knew nothing would work. I had no soul. And people who had no souls? They didn’t—couldn’t—feel anything but darkness, and that’s what I was—Lucifer himself.

“It’s staring at me.” I sipped my coffee and handed Trace back her phone. “I don’t like it when things stare.”

Trace rolled her eyes. “It’s a cow, Chase. What do you expect it to do? Talk to you through the phone?”

“Moo. Aren’t cows supposed to moo? It looks weird just standing there eating.”

“You were the one who said you wanted to see what my home was like.”

I laughed. “ ‘Home’ as in ‘house.’ I didn’t think you’d give me a half hour speech on farm life and how to breed cattle. Thanks for the pictures and video, by the way. I’d always wanted to know why farmers stuck their hands up the cows’ asses—”

Trace took my coffee out of my hands and took a sip. “Don’t be a prude.”

Laughing, I jerked my coffee away from her. “Honey, that’s the first time I’ve ever been accused of such.”

“My mistake.” Tracey snatched the coffee back. “Chase, don’t be such a whore.”

“Better.” I stole my coffee back. “Now stop taking my coffee. It’s eight a.m. and I’m still not fully ready to face the day, especially that professor in your Women’s Studies class. Seriously, the chick needs to get laid. I think she hates men.”

“To be fair”—Trace tried to grab my coffee but I held it over my head so she’d have to get a ladder to grab it—“she”—Trace jumped—“only hates you”—she jumped again—“because you called her fat.”

“Not true.” I yawned and kept the coffee in the air. “I asked when her baby was due.”

With a huff Trace gave up and put her hands on her hips. “Right, and she wasn’t pregnant, so basically it’s the same thing.”

I shrugged. “My mistake.” Trace was still eying my coffee. “Fine, we’ll go get you some coffee, but remember you can’t be late to any more classes.”

I checked my watch. “Okay, we have exactly fifteen minutes to go across campus, buy you coffee, and head up to the Social Sciences building.”

“We’ll be fine!” Trace grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”

We ran across campus and stood in line at the coffee shop. Luckily, there was only one person in front of us.

But as my own personal luck would have it, the person standing in front of us just happened to be Luca.

What the hell was he doing on campus? And how would he have any idea we were even heading to get coffee? Was he truly watching us that carefully?

I gripped Trace’s hand hard within mine.

She looked up at me. “Chase, seriously. Get over the cow thing.”

I laughed and went into action. “I’ll get over it, if you get under me.”