Page 136 of Convict's Game

Each statement was marked with a jerk of his hips and his thick fullness thrilling my body. The orgasm he’d denied me in the game in the sex club rushed back, and I couldn’t stop the flood of need and desperation.

Yet it was his ragged breaths that drove me over the edge. Or his demanding words or the fact he’d claimed my silence hurt. He told me over and over that I was his until I cried out and shattered into a million pieces.

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be put back together the same again.

Chapter 45

Convict

Sleep wouldn’t come. Though Mila had curled up on the couch and passed out, dawn found me borderline frantic.

I was wrong. She wasn’t lying.

Or, I was right and she was.

My head was so fucked, I was going insane.

Alongside that was the weight of partial memories I still couldn’t reclaim. Every time I tried, they slipped around and moved.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I slid it out to dismiss it, but it was a message from my bank. At last, I’d gained access to my account, having supplied the driver’s licence I’d needed as evidence. Piece by piece, I was becoming real again.

The notification allowed me to log on to their app, and I scrolled through the transactions, hope stirring in my chest that the familiar spending pattern of my old life would trigger memories.

My pay. Endless pizza takeaways. Some bills. I scrolled back to the date when I was supposed to be working for the rival gang.

A ten grand payment stood bold on the page. I stared at it. There was no way the Four Milers would have paid that to a newrecruit. Nor did it come from the skeleton crew because Manny told me they’d switched to cash. Unless I’d had a surprise lottery win, logic gave me only one solution.

I’d been paid off for something.

Sickness swirled in my belly.

When I’d come out of the hospital, I’d been certain that I’d betrayed my crew. Even when I got to the bottom of entering the game and my breaking of Arran’s rules, my gut had told me there was something else.

Fucking hell. If the money was a bribe, I was the worst. Maybe it was better that Mila didn’t feel what I wanted her to. Her family’s meeting was in a matter of hours, and even with Salter brought in, I’d failed to deliver Jacobs which meant Mila couldn’t swing his influence.

We’d run out of time.

She wanted to leave me. If that was true and not the heat of the moment, after the deal we’d made, I’d be the worst man alive if I didn’t let her walk away, and I was already toeing that line. Besides, what was I supposed to do, handcuff her to the bed for the rest of her life?

I couldn’t even joke at how the thought was compelling.

A strange and entirely new sensation spread through my chest. A kind of spasm, but it broke my mood and edged me into desperation, my fingers gripping the edge of the sofa as the crush of it worsened. What the fuck was wrong with me? Was I having a heart attack?

I held my gaze on Mila.

The answer came slowly.

This was pain. I’d never felt it before, but the knowledge that she would walk out of my lifehurt. The more I considered living without her, the more I descended into agony. My body felt like it was dying, except it was all in my head.

For the first time in my life, real pain became known to me.

I got why others did anything to avoid it, because this fucking sucked.

Climbing to my feet, and careful not to disturb the exhausted woman, I stumbled to the kitchen in search of water.

An image hit me so hard it nearly knocked me out. A recent memory formed from fragments that had troubled me for days.

A woman’s face. Maybe even a girl because she was young. I’d picked her up from somewhere. I was the driver.