After allowing the water to beat against the front of her body, she turned around and allowed it to wash down her back. She took two steps backward until the water was pouring over her head and down her face. Within seconds, her shoulders began to heave up and down again, and just a few seconds after that, Bianca began crying. Her crying turned into a wail, until she found herself in a fetal position on the bathroom floor.
How long she stayed there, crying, she had no idea. The cold temperature of the water wasn’t a dead giveaway either, as whether or not the water was hot, warm, or cold hadn’t mattered to Bianca when she got into the shower. All she cared about was the water washing away any remnants of tonight off of her body. She felt sore all over her body, from where she’d been kicked and stomped by Rocco. She had bruises around her neck and under her ribs. It really hurt to cough. She wondered if her rib was broken.
Finally, she tried to wash some of the filth, the hurt, and the pain away from her body. Unfortunately, now that she’d rid her body of that horrific night, how would she do the same for her mind?
Bianca pulled herself up off the shower floor and turned off the water. She grabbed one of the thick, white cotton towels hanging on the towel bar. She wiped her face dry and then tied it around her hair. She then grabbed a second towel and began drying her body.
She laid across the bed and took a deep breath, and before she could exhale, she jumped up and ran over to the closet where she had her suitcase. As soon as she touched it, she knew something was wrong. The clasp was broken. When she opened it, her worst fears were realized.
“Noooooooooooo!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, racing around the room helplessly and hopelessly. “Fuuuuuuuck!” Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door, but she was paralyzed. She couldn’t budge from the space in the closet.
Another knock, if she even heard it, was ignored, but was followed by the opening of the door. “Miss, are you okay?” It was the same housekeeper who had let her in.
“Yes,” she managed to say in between sobs, but inside she wasn’t. The dirty bastards had beaten her to her hotel, used her room key, and taken her fucking money. Those motherfuckers! Now what the fuck was she going to do?
CHAPTER 19
When Bianca finally opened her eyes, she found herself on the floor. She glanced around the strange room and tried to acclimate herself. Where was she? For a moment, she thought she was back in Virginia with Caesar, but then, without warning, the previous night of beatings came hurling back at her in a rush. She cried out in anguish, just remembering what she had gone through.
As soon as she tried to budge, her body ached and throbbed like a toothache. She was sore from her head to her toes. She slowly eased into a sitting position.
“Ouch!” She stretched her arms outward, then inward, and tried to rub her ribs and stomach. As she raised herself up off the floor, she was still unsure if she had had a nervous breakdown or just had a flat-out nightmare. She climbed up on her feet and stumbled into the bathroom. She looked into the mirror and saw that her eyes were scarlet red. Evidently, she had cried herself to sleep last night. As she splashed cold water on her face, she remembered the worst thing that had happened to her last night. Her money had been stolen right from under her nose, and that alone hurt like hell.
“Fuck!” She knew this wasn’t a nightmare; this was the real deal, and she had been got. But did Yogi have something to do with it? How had this happened? And most importantly, why did it have to happen at this point in time, when she was just trying to get up on her feet?
She rationalized the situation. It happened because you didn’t have you. Something inside of her told her, You rushed too soon to make your moves. You are new. You know nothing or no one. You must study everything—people, places and things.
Although she didn’t want to believe it, one thing for sure was that this was real—her house of cards had come crashing down on her. What astounded her was that it had happened like this, and so soon after her arrival in Miami. What had she done to deserve this? How could she be taken away from her home and relationship that she had fought to establish and maintain? To have her life, as she once knew it, just pulled from under her, and now to be on the run for a crime she didn’t commit? And to have been robbed of all of her money and product in a city where she had no juice card or allies? The answer couldn’t be karma. Or was it? Maybe it was the Universe’s way of making her pay for taking all of those stores’ stuff. Maybe not. Those stores were insured, and they got well more than the worth of it from their policy.
And even so, why? She had never in her life stolen anything from anyone (since she didn’t count boosting from the overpriced stores)—well, besides the pills from Caesar, but that didn’t really count. That was the cost he paid for not having her back like she’d had his.
Well, she knew that the piper had to be paid, but she hoped the Universe wasn’t coming to collect any more from her any time soon. There had to be a way that she could pull herself up by the bootstraps and make some understanding out of this situation.
Suddenly, she felt afraid. What if
