Free What He Sacrifices (What He Wants, Book Fourteen) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) by Hannah Ford Page A

eyes landed on my bag.   My iPad was in it, and my laptop.   It was heavy.   I could pick it up and hit him in the head.   But then what?   If I hit Professor Worthington hard
enough to hurt him, but not incapacitate him, I’d still be stuck in the car
with him, with no way to get out.  
    I’d have to hit him hard, harder than I’d ever
hit anyone in my life.   I imagined
myself picking up my bag and smashing it into his face.   I thought about his bones cracking, about
his nose spurting blood, about the side of his head breaking open.   I was surprised to find that the thought
didn’t repulse me in the slightest. He’d killed those girls.   And he’d tried to blame Noah for it.
    Was he going to try to blame Noah for killing
me, too?
    “You’re naïve in that way, Charlotte,”
Professor Worthington was saying.   “You didn’t stop to look at the whole picture.   You became so focused on Josh.   Ha! Josh didn’t know Nora.   He didn’t know Dani.   He didn’t know Katie.”
    “And you did?” I asked.   My foot was inching carefully toward my
bag.   I would have to slide it
toward me before I could reach down to get it.   I hooked the strap around the toe of my
shoe and pulled slowly.
    “No, Charlotte.   You’re focusing on the wrong
things!   Again!”   He pulled his hand from my knee and
slapped it down on my thigh, hard.   His open palm stung my skin, and his fingers dug into my flesh.   I glanced down at his nails, which were
perfectly manicured and clean.  
    “What should I be focusing on?”   I asked, struggling to keep myself calm.
    “You should be focusing on the fact that those
women don’t mean anything.   They are just props, Charlotte.   They are just toys to be used to get to the real perpetrator.”
    He was talking like a madman.   What did he mean, the real
perpetrator?   He was the
real perpetrator.   The panic I’d
worked hard to tamp down pulsed and flowed through my body again, stronger this
time.   The toe I’d wrapped around
the strap of my bag began to shake, and the panic became alive, whispering at
me to succumb to it.
    It told me to hurry up, to pick up the computer
and slam it into the Professor’s face, to do it now now now , that I had no idea where we were going, that the
longer I waited the further away from the city he could take me, that there
would be no one around to help.   Then the panic morphed into something else, a doubting Thomas, telling
me it was a stupid plan, that there was no way I was going to be able to save
myself no matter what I did.
    The doubt burned an image into my mind of the
bag slipping out of my hands before it could do any damage, of the professor
laughing at how stupid I was for thinking I could hurt him.
    “Hello?” Professor Worthington demanded.   “Are you paying attention to my lessons,
Charlotte?”
    “Yes.”   My mouth had gone dry, and I licked my
lips.   The professor guided the car
around a corner and he did, my stomach turned on itself, something slippery and
sour rising in my throat.   I was
afraid I was going to throw up.
    “Then who,” he said,   “is the perpetrator?”
    His voice was bordering on shrill, and I
realized he wasn’t just making conversation.   He really expected me to answer the
question, and if I didn’t, he was going to be upset with me.
    “Noah?” I tried.
    “Good job!” he crowed.   “Good job, Charlotte!   Yes, Noah.   Do you know what an arrogant little shit
he is, Charlotte?   Do you know the
things he’s done to me?”
    “Yes,” I said.   “He is arrogant.” The words sounded
wooden on my tongue.
    Professor Worthington glanced over at me
sharply.   It was dark outside, and
the streetlights shone into the car as we passed through them, the light
illuminating the sharp planes of his face, the hollow sockets of his cheeks, the dark circles under his eyes.   For a moment, I was sure I could see
through his skin to the skeleton underneath, his skull