Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
He dropped. “Wha—ooh! What the fuck, Jake?”
I rounded on him, delivering a swift kick underneath his chin. It threw him backward, and when he didn’t move right away, I knew I’d winded him. I taunted him, “You and Penn. You’re both nothing except overgrown bullies. You probably think you’re so tough and badass, right? At the top of the food chain, except you’ve never gone against someone who could actually fight you. Look at you now.”
He tried sitting up, only to fall over.
He coughed, shaking his head, but he started to crawl away.
I let him go, enjoying this sight.
If it wasn’t him, if it wasn’t his brother, or his father, it was someone else in the family who’d sold me out. So yeah. I was going to relish this big hulking cousin of mine crawling to get away from me. The only problem was that I couldn’t let him get too far away. Where he went, his almost twin-like brother was sure to follow.
Putting my toe to his shoulder, I tipped him over.
“With the war against Walden and West, how did you and your fuck-buddy survive? Hmmm. You’re both beyond stupid.” I grunted as I stood over him when he went down. Rearing back, I punched down. Then I used the back of my gun to knock him out. It worked. I wouldn’t have long until he regained consciousness so I moved fast, hurrying upstairs to lock the door. My hand was smarting, but that’d been worth it too. I wasn’t sure when Penn would come looking for his brother, but I knew that he would.
I needed to move fast.
Searching through the basement, I hauled his ass into a room in the back, then up into a chair.
I cursed, panting a little. He was heavy. By the time I’d finished securing him, the music from upstairs burst down into the basement.
I cursed under my breath.
Someone else was coming down.
Grabbing a towel from my bag, I quickly tied it around his mouth.
Penn called out, “Crispin? Dude. You locked the door when you’re down here? What the fuck, man? Where are you? You getting your dick sucked or something? If so, uh . . . why didn’t you invite me? I’ve got like eighty texts from that blonde you bagged last night. She’s begging for some attention.” He was coming down the stairs as he talked.
I scanned the room. A tarp was rolled up on the side.
“Yo!” he called out again. A door banged open down the hall. A second later, another door banged open. He was going from room to room.
I knelt by the tarp and began to unwrap it. More doors were hit open. He was getting closer.
I used the tarp to cover Crispin on the chair. It wasn’t a great trap, but my cousins were not geniuses. It would work for what I had in mind.
I moved behind the door.
“What the fuck, man? Where are you?” He was outside this room.
I waited, holding up my gun once more.
A ringing filled the room, and I cursed under my breath. Of course he was going to call him.
“You in there? Huh?”
The ringing came from under the tarp.
He opened the door, letting it swing open. He stepped in, the hallway’s light hitting over Crispin before Penn’s shadow blocked him. “Dude . . . ?” He came forward another step, then stopped. He breathed deep. “Crisp? That you?”
The phone stopped ringing.
Penn was frozen, just inside the door. He wasn’t in far enough for me, and as his gaze was riveted on the tarp, his thumb moved on his phone. He pressed a button.
Crispin’s phone started ringing again.
Fuck’s sake.
One more step, dickhead.
He sighed, taking that last step. He took more, going all the way to Crispin and reaching for the tarp. “Is that—” He pulled it off. His phone clattered to the ground. He gaped at the sight of his brother all tied up and pretty where I’d left him. “What the fuck?”
I moved behind him, putting my gun to the back of his head. “On your knees.”
He tensed a half second before his head whirled around.
Nope. Shit. That wasn’t the move I wanted.
He snarled, a vicious look twisting on his face.
He went to lunge at me, but I ducked out of the way, coming up swiftly behind him. I delivered one hard kick to the back of his knee. He grunted as his leg folded underneath him. He went to the ground, but he wasn’t going to stay. He was enraged and Penn was like a bull, only seeing red. Or my murder.
As he moved to grab me, I pivoted, raising my hand up. Just as he reached for me, I brought down the back of my gun, using all of my body weight behind my hit. It held enough of a punch to make him see double.