The Six: Complete Series by E.C. Richard Read Free Book Online Page B

snorted. The thoughts popped back in. She had no idea what was going to happen. Her laughter broke his heart.
    “It’s a nice place.” This was going nowhere. Any second she was going to be whisked away by an aggressive alpha male, and he’d be left with no recourse.
    “So—” she began.
    He leaned in and gestured towards his jacket pocket. “I’ve got some stuff. You know... if you want to take anything.”
    Her bodyguard hadn’t looked over in a few minutes. He seemed content watching the baseball game playing on the big screen above the bar. “Wait, what?” she said.
    He snapped his eyes away from the bodyguard. If they’d mic’d her, there would be no reason to arouse suspicion unnecessarily. “I brought some E and some Vicodin. If you wanted to take one and we could, I don’t know, dance or something.”
    She looked all around where they were sitting.
    “What are you doing?”
    “I’ve been at this long enough,” she said, “to know when those assholes with cameras are looking. I don’t need this in online tomorrow, no offense.”
    “None taken.”
    “I don’t see any,” she said. “I think we’re in the clear.”
    The music seemed to swell around them and, for the first time all night, there were no leering eyes watching the celebrity and her substandard date. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
    She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.
    This was going to be the last time she liked him. After she took those pills, she would be shaking and scared just like he was in Edwin’s basement. She’d hate him and hate herself for trusting him. Right now she believed those words and this promise.
    Selfishly, he turned to her and kissed her back.
    After seducing the victim, allowing them to get themselves caught is not hard. Edwin spent weeks building trust. Each day he had a new movie poster to show off or a new issue of Playboy that Simon could look through after-school. Whatever it took to lure a fifteen year old in, he did. It didn’t take long before Simon was voluntarily going over to this man’s house to hang out. A lonely kid with no friends and no life was the perfect prey, and Edwin took advantage the moment his parents weren’t looking.
    She melted into him as they kissed. Already loosened up by the three Bloody Marys in her system, she ran her hands up and down his thigh. He knew he should make her stop, but everything about her was so soft and sweet. He let his fingers trail down her sweeping neck and get caught in her hair.
    Simon shut his eyes and tried to imagine that this was happening for real. This wasn’t a plan or a ploy, he wasn’t a pawn, and she wasn’t the victim. He was just a regular guy, and she was a regular girl. He could have been happy, in his regular life, with a girl like this. How he prayed he could just go back.
    She whispered in his ear, “You ready?”
    Every time he thought about running and telling her to get far away from the mad men behind the curtain, he felt the phantom flutters in his chest.
    “Yup.”
    She grabbed his hand, and they began to make their way through the peeping crowds. Everyone looked over to see what lucky sod had gotten the governor’s daughter for night. Brianna took them past the dancers and through the couple making out in the back. They ended up walking down the hallway next to the bathrooms. There was a long line of girls clutching their purses, patiently waiting for their turn. All eyes were on the couple as they slipped past them.
    The hallway was directly across from the makeshift kitchen where one lonely teenager washed the dozens of glasses that got sent back his way. His sad eyes only briefly glanced over at them before he went back to his work.
    In the back of the club, the layers of walls and people muffled the music. The hint of the bass and the hum of the vocals was all that got through. There was little talking back here, except for the odd girl on her phone as she waited for