The Debt 4 Read Online Free PDF

Massachusetts?” she said.
    “Are you kidding me?” Kurt cackled.   “The media loves this shit.   Big star takes his everyday normal
average girlfriend back to her teeny tiny hometown and
graces them with his magnificent presence.   The press will eat it up.   We’ll make sure to get beautiful pics of you guys taking long romantic
strolls down the quaint little streets.   Jake will come out smelling like a rose.”
    Jake nodded.   “He’s right.   It’s good.   This is the way to go.”
    Raven felt her blood pressure rising
dramatically.   “I don’t think my
family should be subjected to the spotlight.   They never signed on to any of this.”
    “It shouldn’t be a problem,” Kurt said,
“unless, that is, one of them has something to hide.”
    Jake looked at Raven for the first
time.   “I can tell you’re uncomfortable
with this idea,” he said, his brown eyes searching hers for answers.   “You can tell us what it’s about,
Raven.   You can trust us.”
    She wanted to snort, throw up her hands,
laugh like a hyena.  
    Trust Kurt?   Trust that snake?   Didn’t Jake realize that his best friend
and most trusted confidant was a totally classless jerk?
    But no, he didn’t realize that and she
wasn’t about to tell him.   Instead,
she just smiled.   “I’m only worried
about inviting the spotlight into their lives without even asking them if
they’re okay with it.   It’s one
thing for me to make that decision for myself, and quite another to make it for
them.”
    It sounded like a good reason, but the
truth was far more complicated and darker than that.   If only she could have trusted Kurt, or
if she and Jake were alone—maybe she could have tried to explain it to
him.
    But she couldn’t trust Kurt and they
weren’t alone.   She had to make
things up, make her reservations about the idea sound legitimate.
    “Look,” Jake said as he came over,
grabbing Raven’s hand and staring into her eyes.   “I know this feels scary and
overwhelming for you.   But this is
exactly what you signed up for when you told me you wanted to help.   Well I accepted your help and now you
need to come through for me.”
    There it was again—Jake’s not too
subtle hint that this entire relationship was nothing but a forgery, a copy of
the real thing.   The anger
immediately welled up inside Raven’s chest, as if she was being stuck with a
red-hot knife.
    “So putting my family into the media
spotlight is the only way I can help you now?” she said, her voice taking on a
shrill quality.   From the corner of
her eye, she noticed that Kurt was smirking.
    He was loving every minute of this, putting her on the spot and making her look bad.
    “It’s not the only way,” Jake said, his
voice still calm.   “But it’s the
best way.”
      “You can’t ask me to drag my family into
this.”
    “I’m not going to force you to do anything,”
he said, taking his hand away, his mouth tightening into a straight line.   “If you don’t want to do it, we won’t do
it.”
    Kurt’s smirk widened.   “Hey,” he said, shrugging.   “Not everyone’s cut out for this sort of
thing.”
    Raven glared at the arrogant manager.   “Maybe not all of us are comfortable
pimping out friends and family just to make a publicity stunt look good.”
    “I didn’t make the rules,” Kurt
said.   “I just play by them.”
    “She doesn’t want to do it,” Jake
said.   “Next idea, please.”   But his face was a mask of
disappointment.  
    Raven was frustrated too.   She was scared of why her parents had
been calling in the first place.   It
had been years since they’d even tried to make contact.   Was it because they’d seen her on the
news or something else?   Anything
she tried to conjure up to explain their phone call only made her feel more
anxious.
    When she thought about going back home,
it made her almost physically ill.  
    Kurt and Jake were throwing out new ideas
now, ideas