Elena

“And this?”

The sight of the ruby heart ring she’d worn this evening made her recoil. Roth’s eyes narrowed.

“You replaced your wedding ring with this one, which meant it had great sentimental value, but by the end of the night, you hate the sight of it. You want to explain that?”

This was the first token Elena ever picked out. I still remember what she did to earn it. Warren’s smug tone replayed in her mind, making her stomach roll. How ironic that she wore that ring as a source of comfort, only to discover it was a token her mother earned through sexual favors from the man who, years later, would rape her sister. And he expected to have his turn with her, too.

“Did Warren say something about your mother?”

Her heart skipped a beat. Roth was too clever for his own good. Too discerning and quick to put the pieces together.

Roth’s voice hardened as he demanded, “Did he?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat before she asked, “Do you have a file on her?”

His silence was her answer. She pressed a hand against her churning stomach. How thorough had his investigation been? Did he know of the connection between her mother and Warren? Did he know how many men her mother had serviced? Who the father of her unborn baby had been? And Warren said, You’re a carbon copy of her.

She clapped a hand over her mouth and raced past him to the bathroom at the very back of the jet. She tipped up the cushion that disguised the toilet and retched. Her nails dug into the plush leather so hard that one of her nails snapped off. She didn’t notice.

She didn’t realize Roth had followed her until she felt him touch her hair. As Colette had earlier this evening, Roth gathered her hair and held it back. If she had the ability, she would have ordered him out of the bathroom and locked the door, but she could do nothing more than hold on for dear life as her body reacted violently to the images in her mind.

When it was over, she rested her clammy forehead on her arm, and closed her eyes as she tried to control her gag reflex. Roth clasped her nape, thumb stroking over her erratic pulse.

“Talk to me, Jasmine.”

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Sins. Please do not share or distribute.

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