Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
SHUTDOWN MODE
Debra clicked it and a warning box appeared on screen.
Warning: If you proceed, all camera feed, entrance codes, exit codes, door alarms, panic buttons, and all existing security protocols will be disabled.
Confirm you wish to proceed with shutdown?
I internally screamed as she typed it in. Don’t work, don’t work, don’t—
SHUTDOWN CONFIRMED
“Still works,” Debra finished, straightening up.
Still and heavy silence hung over the room. Even River fell silent in the closet, his banging coming to a halt.
Adeline stepped beside her daughter, drawing Genny close and stroking her hair. My friend did not look good at all. She needed to be in bed resting. But then... I didn’t think any of us were doing too well either.
“What do you want?” Adeline asked simply.
Debra scoffed. “It’s incredible to me that you even have to ask. You have ruined and destroyed so many innocent lives, you lost track of your body count decades ago. You can’t even remember our names, which we haven’t changed!
“Wilson,” she cried, pointing to him. “Jillian, Yumi, Natalya, Maryann, and Debra. The names our fathers gave us before you took away theirs!”
If understanding was dawning on Adeline, she wasn’t giving it away on her face. None of Sunny, Liam, and Bane’s parents gave a sign that they had a clue what she was talking about.
“No?” Debra stepped out, facing the Merchants head-on. “What about you, St. John? Don’t you remember Racer, Viper, Gunner, and Hawk?”
The man shrugged. “Not even a little bit. Why? Should I?”
I could hear her clenched jaw cracking from where I stood. “You should. You should remember shooting my father in the stomach, cutting out his tongue, and leaving him to bleed out in a back-alley dumpster. You should remember my father, Donald Seward!”
Another shrug. “Nah, doesn’t ring a bell. But if I did all of that to him, you can rest assured the cockless bastard son of a gas station toilet seat deserved everything he got and more.” The impossible man smiled—smiled!—right into her eyes. “I hope that puts your mind at ease.”
Debra snarled. Lips peeling back from her teeth, I wouldn’t have been able to pick her out of a lineup with ten other feral animals. She charged him, knife high—then jerked to a stop.
“No,” she shrieked, stumbling back. “You’re trying to provoke me. You want me to throw myself at you with a weapon you can easily get off me, and then it’ll be hostage against hostage. Threaten to cut my throat too, and Wilson will let your little boy go.”
Saint hummed. “You’re not completely stupid after all.”
“You think you understand that now, but trust me,” Debra said, moving well back from the family of assassins. “You’ll underestimate me again, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
“We don’t underestimate you,” Adeline broke in, “and we do remember you. I do. Your fathers were Merchants who attacked me and Saint, and tried to hand him over to the Kings to be tortured and murdered. During this attack, your father, Racer, put hands on me, and Saint found that...” She stroked her husband’s cheek. “Hard to forgive.
“But none of that excuses the pain and grief you all feel at losing your fathers. You have every right to be angry and hurt, and to even want some semblance of justice, but whatever you think you’re going to do here today won’t give you that. The only thing that will happen is that you’ll become even worse monsters than we could ever be,” she dropped, the motherly tenderness leaving her voice as quickly as the chill set in. “And your fathers will still be dead.”
“We could never be as vile as you,” Debra forced through gritted teeth. “Never.”
“No? Then why is that innocent girl who has nothing to do with this and never hurt you, or anyone, in her life bleeding and terrified in the grip of that brute?” she flung, pointing at me and Wilson. “Why is my daughter, who risked her life to save yours, being treated as your enemy? Why was my son, who was born after your father met his end, and has never even met you, attacked just for the crime of being my son? And why are you, Little Debbie, the girl who stands here today because we never visited your father’s sins upon you... so desperate to lay hands on a six-year-old girl?
“Tell me how in your sick little mind you justified bringing a child into your vendetta, and then tell me how you think that makes you better than me?”
“We wouldn’t have hurt her,” Wilson blurted. “We’re not monsters! We just want you to pay for—”
“Shut up, Wilson!” Debra barked.
“But, Deb, they—”
“I said be quiet! Don’t you dare justify yourself to that scum-trash viper. Adeline Redgrave can fancy herself all she wants on her imaginary high horse, but someone started this fight, and it sure as fuck wasn’t us.