Series: Penny Dee
Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Carved in his chest is the word soon. I imagine the other two bodies have a similar cryptic message. Silas will turn over every rock to find out who killed his friend, and it’s only now that I consider I probably made the right choice by agreeing to his terms. Because, despite his elegant gentlemanliness, Silas has something dark and dangerous inside him. A side that I best not find myself on. I can handle myself, but I prefer not to draw unnecessary attention.
I sense cold, methodical movements watching me. This is my world, and the one place I am never supposed to be watched. I told him to leave, I know I did. Yet somehow … the air shifts. He doesn’t give a sound away, just pressure that embodies the devil he is.
I straighten slowly, the scalpel pausing above the body mid-movement. When I glance toward the observation window, he’s there, leaning in the doorway as if he owns it. Like he owns everything.
My pulse quickens as he meets my eyes and smirks. Utterly unbothered by the corpse between us or by the rules I set.
“I said leave,” I tell him, keeping my voice steady.
His gaze flicks to my hands, then back to my face. He moves closer, and my hand tightens on the scalpel with each and every step he takes, until his body is next to mine. He leans down, his breath tickling my ear as I try not to move, but I can’t help it. Without a second thought my hand is moving, and it lifts to the side of his throat, the scalpel so close to cutting in.
A smirk pulls on his lips as he says, “You’re very hard to ignore when you’re like this.” His words echo through the room, then he pulls back, and I close my eyes for what feels like a second. His footsteps echo before suddenly, he is gone, the door clicking shut behind him, right before Tori slips into the room, obviously having no idea of the threat that was so close by.
“You want your music on?” Tori asks casually. My fingers twitch as I hold the scalpel in my hand.
“Yes.” I glance back at the doorway he left through and say, “Lock the front door before you start counting the cash.”
“Okay.”
10
SILAS
Mikhail Sokolov stares at me blankly with his dark eyes. He throws his headful of shiny black hair back and fucking laughs. Laughs.
“When I heard you’d recently employed the Grim, I thought I was mistaken, but I didn’t think she’d give you this much grief. Maybe I should start making personal visits to assess this mortician.”
“Her time is preoccupied with me,” I growl as I bring the whiskey to my lips. We’re at one of the strip clubs in town with a private room, though we can look out over the club floor. Clubs like these are good breeding grounds for leads and gossip. It’s also a good way to check on the other crews since they frequent them. Especially the Hayes crew, who love nothing short of a good time, and the Neros, who run it.
All four crews excel in a particular specialty. I take pride in being the biggest weapon dealer on the East Coast. It keeps my empire financially stable, the police too fearful to question—with a good payout, of course—and my men able to defend themselves.
The Hayes crew, run by Cian, excels in drugs. Anything involved in a good time, they’re involved.
The Neros, however, run the sex industry through strip clubs, prostitution, and off-market auctions. Out of all the crews, they’re the ones I’ve disliked the most, more so because of their leader, Apollo, who although my uncle used to loosely be friends with, I’ve always had a bad feeling about. And I trust my instinct. Of his three sons, I only like the middle one, Elias.
Mikhail Sokolov is the only one I actually respect, and might be the closest to a friend I would consider outside my crew, though I still don’t entirely trust him. And he shares the same sentiment. It’s what keeps us alive. The police give us space because of our strength in weapons and the pretty penny to look the other way. Whereas, for the Sokolov crew, they practically own them through extortion and the ability to put all their higher-ups behind bars for life. I respect Mikhail because, although he can rely on brute force—much like his father, who’s still alive and active in their group—he uses his sharp intellect and ability to ruin anyone within the matter of twenty-four hours; extortion and money laundering at its finest. I’m certain they run other projects, but none that I’ve been able to uncover myself, which is why I appreciate Mikhail. He’s one of the few who could rival even my crew, so when possible, I prefer to sit with him with a glass of whiskey, feigning friendship.