His Pawn (The Manhattan Tales Book 1) Read Free Page B

daughter, I also had to pick up dry cleaning, babysit at events, host birthday parties, cook, clean and the list goes on. I barely had time to finish my assignments and their demands have even cut into my attendance in class more than once.  Needless to say, my grades and GPA were disappointing.  I already knew that the financial aid office was going to strip me of my funds because my GPA had dropped below their requirement.  I still needed to complete one more internship and I had one semester of classes left before I could graduate, but I knew I was going to have to repeat statistics. 
    I just didn’t have enough time or energy to study this last semester.  Grumble. Grumble.  There was no time for a worthless sex toy.  For now, I needed to think about a roof over my head.  It was snowing outside, and the shelters were already filled.  I’d checked.
    I sucked on my lower lip in thought as I scrolled through my contacts list again.  This time I paid better attention.  I didn’t really have any friends that I could call since most of them had left town for winter break including my best friend, Elyse.  The phone scrolled down to his name and my heart fluttered rampantly. 
      Mason Woodward had been my brother’s closest friend for years.  He had been like family to us and he was always at our apartment during my adolescent years.  I’m not one-hundred percent sure, but I’m almost positive he even spotted our rent more than once when times got rough.  He bought me Chanel frames for my seventeenth birthday when he learned that the girls at my high school were bullying me over my cheap, chunky black frames.  He was such a nice guy, so kind and had a killer smile.  My finger hovered over the send button of my phone as I debated whether I should bother him.  Maybe he wasn’t even in town. 
      It had been five years.  Five whole years since I’d seen him. Back then, I was such a geek.  I was part of the science club, the 4-H club, and the drama club.  To match my awesome nerdiness, I also sported the quintessential geek look.
    My hair was a wild mop of dark auburn waves, I was a little overweight and I wore those thick black frames… which I eventually taped together because one of the girls at school broke them in half. They weren’t the same after being broken in half, and being so shy, I didn’t have the guts to report her to the principal.  I walked around blind, bumping into things until Mason bought me the new frames and called it a very early birthday gift.
    Just before I graduated high school, something happened between Travis and Mason.  I came home one night after volunteering at the animal shelter, and found them fighting.  Mason stormed out of the apartment, and stopped for a brief second when he saw me in the hallway.  I stared at him wide-eyed as I caught him shouting profanity while he slammed the door.  I’d only ever heard him talk like that once, when he’d lost his temper with a college guy who tried to take advantage of me a few months earlier.
    “Mason?”  It was all I could squeak.  The man looked positively scary with a wild look in his eyes.
    He looked down at me for a moment, and I could see his hands twitch as his knuckles clenched.  “Get into the apartment, Jill.”  He growled and moved past me in the hall. 
    I wanted to ask him if he was okay but that would have been a stupid question.  He was obviously not okay.  So I shouted something else just as foolish.
    “Are you coming to my graduation?” I asked after him.
    He paused on the top step, but did not turn to look at me.  He didn’t respond, and stormed down the steps.  I’d never felt so helpless.  I didn’t know what to do.  I turned and entered the apartment to find my brother covering his nose with paper towels.  They were soaked in blood and his right eye was already swollen shut.  I was pretty sure my brother’s nose was broken.
    “What happened?”  It was more of a demand than