Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
His arm brushes mine and I’ve never sucked on a cigarette faster.
“Mmm. That’d be too perfect for you.”
Fuck it.
“What am I doing here?” I flick the cigarette and stomp on it, keeping my eyes on him. “If you want revenge, I’ll give it to you. Fucking take it!”
A hollow laugh slips from his chest, catching me off guard because it sounds so close to the man he used to be. Almost. It dies in his throat before I can obsess over it.
“Look at me,” he says, voice rough.
I lock onto the distant crash of the waves. “I kind of don’t want to.”
“Why?” He lowers his voice but doesn’t soften it. I’ll never make the mistake of confusing the two again.
He probably hates me even more because I killed his damn friend. A friendship I never asked about.
“Because it hurts.” Every time I’m around him, I fail. I fail to keep myself behind the concrete wall I spent so long building.
One thing is for certain, love wasn’t built for me. The second I felt it, I put a bullet in it. Now he’s here, standing in front of me as the shadow of the man he once was, and it’s my own fault.
With a finger beneath my chin, he guides my eyes up to his.
“It hurts, huh?” His grip tightens. “Probably not as painful as a bullet. So here’s what you can know. You will do as I say and live in my house. I don’t care who you fuck while you do it, but you will do it.”
His hand drops, as if touching me disgusts him.
“You won’t have to worry about feeling hurt for long,” he says, a smirk pulling at his mouth. “Because pretty soon, I’m gonna put a matching bullet right between those perfect tits.”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
IVY
It’s too quiet. Way too quiet for this time of the morning.
I snatch my laptop from the side of the bed, carrying it to the table and flipping the screen open to punch in my password.
Text after text floods the screen as I sip on my latte. The perfect morning is caffeine and cigarettes, but I’ll settle for caffeine and murder today.
No plays for you. Update me on the situation you’re in
“What!”
Hell no was he going to lay me off during a time I need it most. If anything, it could be the only way I can get time away from this damn house. Not that I think Asher would make my case easy to plead, but it’d be worth a shot. And anyway, I’ve already decided if he wanted to stick a spy on me while I was doing it, I’d accept Atlas.
I dig through my laptop bag for my phone and hit his number when I find it. He should probably ditch this number soon, since he’s had it for almost five years. Too bad he’s pissed me off, now I’m not going to remind him that he’s about three years outside of what we were told was the safe zone to keep a number.
It clicks over and I waste zero seconds.
“I need the distraction now more than ever!” Ew, that sounded too whinny. Deep breaths. “Let me try that again.”
My heart slows, muscles releasing. “Please explain why I can’t be of use.”
Three years. I put up with Parker for three years until Emeric finally gave me the killshot order. For whatever reason, Emeric wanted to be thorough. No point tearing the weed if you don’t get it out from the root, so I waited.
And waited.
I’m not waiting anymore for anything else.
“You will not partake in two jobs at the same time.” Emeric’s deep voice scrapes closer to the receiver. “You are simply bored and want a plaything.”
Silence weighs between us.
Something shuffles in the background before he finally sighs. “May I ask what’s wrong with your current one? You break it already?”
“I’m doing my best to not be offended by what you just said, but since we’re on this subject, how the fuck did this happen?”
Nothing. Zero words are spoken.
My eyes narrow. “Do you know?”
“Ivanya, that conversation is for Nonna. However, I would like to discuss said toy.”
Yeah, I bet he does. Only he’s not doing a hell of a lot of discussing, since I can hear the faint sound of Gulls squawking in his background.
“In what context?” I push my latte away, leaning back in my chair.
“In the context of I can’t find out a single thing about him online that you can’t already read about on TMZ.”
Valid, since I know this for a fact.
His voice deepens. “Which means he’s hiding bigger secrets.”
My brow arches. “Bigger than what Punk could dig up?”
Silence again. His silence is bugging me. Not that he’s a man of a lot of words, because he’s not.
Unless…
Of course. He’s careful with everything he doesn’t understand, and right now, he doesn’t understand Asher, so he’s being extra paranoid. More than usual, and that’s saying a lot since the man has literally never shared where he lives. He could be in Asgard for all we know. It’s never brought up because one, the people who could are afraid to, and two, his trips to see us weren’t exactly frequent.