Hard as You Can by Laura Kaye Read Free Book Online Page B

and escorted her home afterward. Normally, she drove herself crazy worrying about Jenna when she slept over at one of her college friend’s apartments, but last night she’d been grateful into her very marrow that her sister hadn’t been home to see what Bruno had done. Again.
    When the abuse first started, Crystal had fallen for his apologies and made excuses for him. After all, he’d saved her from far worse. Now, she recognized the apologies as the reprieve they were, smiled and made nice, and bided her time.
    Thanks to a merit scholarship that covered her tuition and a bunch of summer classes the past couple years, Jenna was on track to graduate from college in December. So they only had about eight months until Crystal could put her escape plan into action.
    Where to escape to Crystal still hadn’t decided, but the anonymity of New York City’s teeming crowds looked really good. Maybe Crystal could find a job in the Garment District working for a big-name designer, and one day she’d have the resources and contacts to design her own collection . . .
    “Hey, there,” Brandy said, pulling Crystal from her fantasies and slipping into the space next to her. A cleavage-revealing white robe around her shoulders, the raven-haired woman had a beautiful, lithe body and a serious meth addiction, and had worked at Confessions longer than Crystal although as a dancer, not a waitress. “You doing okay?”
    “Yeah, thanks,” Crystal said, chancing a smile at her.
    Brandy’s gaze landed on her left cheekbone, and her expression faltered for just a moment. “Yeah? That’s good,” she said, her voice less successful at hiding what she’d seen.
    “Is it that obvious?” Crystal grabbed her compact as she turned back to the mirror.
    “No, not really. The fluorescent lights in here show every damn thing.” Brandy fished through her cosmetics bag. “I know just what to do. Look here.”
    Embarrassment heating her cheeks, Crystal turned in her chair and faced the woman, who couldn’t be more than a few years older than her. They were friendly but not exactly friends. To Crystal, friends were people you could trust implicitly. Around here, it just wasn’t safe to give anyone that kind of power.
    “Your skin is so pretty and so fair,” she said, holding back the loose curls on the side of Crystal’s face. “I always wanted red hair.” She stroked a brush over Crystal’s cheek.
    “Why? Your hair is gorgeous and mysterious.”
    She shifted the brush to Crystal’s other cheek. “And yours is rare and unique.” Her hand sagged into her lap. “What happened?”
    Crystal pursed her lips and shrugged. Brandy knew what’d happened. Everyone around here knew what had happened when she showed up with a mark on her skin. And they all looked the other way.
    “You’re too good for this place, Crystal. You know that, right?”
    She gave a half laugh. “We’re all too good for this place.”
    Brandy shook her head. “I’m being serious.” When Crystal didn’t say anything, the woman continued. “You’re talented and smart. What were you studying to be in college?”
    “How did you—”
    “God, girl, your father was so proud of you, he wouldn’t shut up about it. ‘First in the family,’ he’d say.”
    “Oh,” Crystal said. Once, she would’ve glowed to hear such a thing about her father, but after she’d learned what he was into, it had gotten a lot harder to keep idolizing the man who had failed her and Jenna so spectacularly. It shouldn’t surprise her that Brandy had known her father. Lots of people around here had. His position as one of the Apostles meant that he’d been well-known and well respected.
    But then his imprisonment and death and the revelation about his indebtedness to Church put an end to college for her before the end of her sophomore year.
    Now, school felt so long ago it was as if Brandy spoke of another person. What life would be like if getting along with her college roommate was