No Good Deed by Allison Brennan Read Free Book Online Page A

but that wasn’t completely true, was it?”
    “Yes, it was.” Whoops. She’d had to backtrack at the time and clam up, because she had some thinking to do. Now she had a better story to go along with the half-truths and outright lies she’d already woven into her past.
    “Elise? I need you to be honest with me. I can’t help you if you’re not honest.”
    “He wasn’t a foster kid, if that’s what you mean.”
    “He’s much older than you.”
    “So?”
    “You look up to him. Like a big brother. Like a father.”
    “Tobias has been more family to me than anyone in my whole entire life!” Sell it, baby!
    “I see that you believe that.”
    “Because it’s true!”
    “Family doesn’t hurt family.”
    “Yes they do.”
    “Real love doesn’t hurt.”
    Frown. “There’s no such thing.”
    “Tobias took care of you when you needed it. I see that.”
    She sniffed.
    “How did Tobias earn your trust, Elise? Why are you protecting him?”
    A long silence. Build it up. Make the bitch think she earned the “truth.”
    Finally, she said, “Tobias was the son of my foster parents. He never once tried to fuck me. All the other guys tried to fuck me, but not Tobias.”
    Make her believe that he saved you from a fate worse than death. Make her believe that without him, you’d be dead.
    “He came over every week for dinner, but I didn’t think he liked his parents much. But he treated all of us like family, you know? Played games—I’d never played board games before. Or card games, or anything. He played and we laughed and it felt like—a family, a real family.
    “Then his father…” Stop. Slow down. Not all at once.
    Elise stared at her hands.
    “And his father what?”
    “He—he told me he knew I’d been arrested for prostitution. And he gave me twenty dollars to suck him off.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Thirteen.”
    Elise made sure she didn’t look at the doc, but she heard the slight intake of breath, subtle, and she knew she had her.
    Hook.
    Line.
    Sinker, sucker.
    “And you told Tobias.”
    Elise shook her head. “I—I didn’t want to lose this family. I’d been in six foster homes in two years, I just wanted … I don’t know.”
    “Stability. Normalcy.”
    “I don’t know,” she repeated. “I guess. Just … a place to stay. My own room.”
    “How did Tobias find out?”
    She bit her lip. “His dad stopped paying me, but expected … more. And I gave it to him. I mean, it’s not a big deal, it’s fast, it doesn’t hurt, just get it over with and everyone’s happy. So I did it. But one day—his wife walked in and she called me a whore. Well, I guess she was right, because it wasn’t like I said no or anything. But then she kicked me out, not him, and I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave the family. I-I-I broke things. I just wanted to stay, why couldn’t she see that? I would have done anything she wanted. I didn’t want to be on the streets, I didn’t want to screw strangers again. And, and…”
    She started crying. She let the doc soothe her until she “pulled” herself together. A minute of blubbering was long enough.
    Elise blew her nose and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t apologize, Elise. You have nothing to apologize for.”
    Elise nodded.
    “What happened after you broke things? Did your foster mother call child services? The police?”
    Elise shrugged. “I-I don’t know. I ran out of the house and called Tobias. He saved me then and has always protected me.”
    “But he also had you do things for him, didn’t he?”
    “It was just sex. It didn’t mean anything.”
    “You had sex with him?”
    Confusion in the doc’s voice, and Elise realized she’d gone too far ahead. “No, never! He loves me, like a sister. He just … sometimes … well, with other men, to, you know, so he could get information or whatever. I don’t know, I just did what he told me, and he gave me a place to live, and clothes, and