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stomach lurched. She wanted to run to the bathroom and vomit, but that reaction would cost her several pokes from Bullet’s knife. She swallowed down the bile.
    The men exchanged uneasy glances. Their discomfort with the situation gave Gianna a ray of hope.
    The three men didn’t look like perverts. They appeared to be ordinary people…reasonable adults…parents, educators, businessmen.She could tell by their troubled expressions that they were appalled by Bullet’s suggestion. They were probably pillars of their communities with kids her age at home.
    She released a breath of hope. Any moment now, the three men would band together, overpower Bullet, and conduct a citizen’s arrest.
    “Yo, Lollipop, meet my friends.” Bullet faced the trio. “What’s y’all’s names again?”
    “Uh…call me Manny,” one of the men said with a tense chuckle.
    “Moe,” the second man piped in.
    “Jack.” By the time the third man rattled off his fake name, Gianna’s eyes began to well. She blinked back tears as she began to realize that these men had no intention of rescuing her.

  CHAPTER 6
    “You have any condoms?” Manny asked Bullet.
    Bullet scowled. “Nah, y’all shoulda brought your own.”
    Moe shifted his feet. “We weren’t expecting…you know…to get involved with a hooker.”
    “Man, fuck a rubber. That bitch is clean.” Bullet’s head swiveled toward Gianna; his eyes commanded her to back him up.
    “I’m clean,” she muttered, her head nodding robotically under Bullet’s irritated gaze.
    “How many johns she been with?” Jack wanted to know.
    “None! I’m the only nigga she fucked with. She fresh, man. Like new,” Bullet said, as if he was trying to hawk a used car.
    The men stared at each other.
    Bullet continued his sales pitch. “That’s why I ain’t got no more condoms. I used ’em all up while I was breaking her in.”
    Manny’s, Moe’s, and Jack’s faces perked up, obviously satisfied with Bullet’s lies.
    “I’m going first,” Jack said, sidling up to the bed.
    Manny pushed forward. “Based on what?”
    “Based on the fact that I called it,” Jack replied, checking out Gianna’s nude body. He let out a whistle.
    “Listen up! Whichever one of y’all is willing to pay a hunnit-fifty is the muthafucka who gets to go first.”
    Manny frowned. “I thought you were charging us sixty apiece.”
    “That’s when I thought y’all had some protection. Right now,her twat is fresh and clean, but one y’all might give her something.”
    Manny, Moe, and Jack all frowned, indignant.
    “Look, I need some extra medical coverage for that bitch. Just in case.”
    As the obscene transaction took place, Gianna tensed, ready to spring back out of the bed that she had just lay down in. She met Bullet’s menacing gaze and closed her eyes in defeat.
    Someone crawled into bed with her. He pulled the motel’s threadbare bedspread over their heads, using it as a makeshift privacy wall. Groping hands and heavy breathing came from Jack or Manny. Or was it Moe? She had no idea.
    Her anonymous bed partner climbed on top of her and spread her legs. She wanted to shriek in agony when he forcibly entered her. Instead, she clamped her mouth shut and lay motionless. Afraid of losing an eye…of losing her very life, Gianna endured the pain without emitting so much as a whimper.

    It had all started with a pair of curtains.
    Gianna and her mother had arrived at the family beach house the first weekend after school had let out for summer break. The drive to Ocean City was weird. Their first summer vacation without her father.
    Her parents were legally separated, and her father had spent the Memorial Day weekend at the beach house. With his mistress.
    Gianna and her mother noticed the flag-emblazoned curtains the moment they pulled into the driveway.
    “The audacity of that bitch!” her mother shouted, parking the Trailblazer haphazardly. “Who gave her permission to remove myRoman shades and put