And the lights go out.

My eyes, that must have closed for a split second, fly open, my muscles locking. The room may now be a blur, but the situation couldn’t have become clearer.

I’m the toy.

Ransom doesn’t want me, he just wants to play with me, the same way Anthony will, like a doll he can pull out and dust off as he wishes.

I willingly accepted the role, I know that, so it should be a relief to realize this, to know I’m simply the girl they chose as their latest game piece and will likely replace tomorrow. As they should.

I’m unkeepable anyway.

Greedy, heated lips, I don’t know whose and I don’t care, fall on mine and I meet their every sweep with my one. Hands glide along my thighs, and when my shorts are pushed down, I step out with ease, prepared to enjoy every second of what comes next.

Because I am the plaything.

It’s not like I can offer them anything else anyway, so yeah. It should be a huge relief, an easy ending.

It really really should.

So why do I feel like a bitter ex ready to run on a rampage of twisted proportions?

Chapter 21

“Man, Mom shot to kill.” Monti grins, sliding the last bobby pin into my hair, smoothing the deep part down so it’s slick to my head, my curls falling over it and giving Jessica Rabbit a run for her money. “You look like a goddess.”

I frown at the light enhanced mirror. “I look like Belle.”

“If Belle was a Roman plaything and not a Disney princess.”

I glare. Two words I’m sick of hearing.

A car door closing reaches us and my sister walks over to the open window, peeping outside with a grin. “And they’re walking up to the door,” she singsongs.

I move over to my nightstand, tugging the drawer open. “Tell them I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Jameson wants to make a grand entrance?” Monti teases, her palm flattening on her chest as she bats her lashes, but then her eyes fall to the heart-shaped crystal in my hand, and her playfulness washes away.

She nods and steps out.

Opening the small trinket, a frown attempts to slide over me as I realize I haven’t refilled my prescription this month.

It makes no fucking sense.

I’ve never felt so much in my life, yet for the first time in my life the need to drown it out has evaded me.

It must have, because I still have a handful left... something that has never happened.

I take a deep breath and place a pill under my tongue, my lips pinching together as I move back to the mirror.