Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
“There may come a night when Macon Jaeger isn’t home,” I taunt.
If my plans go right.
Milo coos as Jerome’s eyes light up; he’s itching to know more. He shouldn’t want to marry her anymore. She’s probably been run through pretty good in that house by now, but he can still have some fun.
Macon Jaeger will kill anyone who touches his wife. I don’t need to know them now to know that, but I don’t care about that, either. Jerome and Vincent are useful, but Milo is a hassle and if the Jaegers haven’t hatched a plan to go after him for slapping around Krisjen when she was a teenager, they will for the time we kidnapped Liv back in high school. If they take care of him, they’ll be doing me a favor.
“Come on,” Milo whines. “Tell us.”
“Tell you what?”
“We’re home,” he points out the obvious. “They’re all home.”
Including Iron Jaeger, the convict.
More car doors slam outside as people get on with their day, and a motorcycle rumbles past us.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Milo.” I brush off invisible lint on my suit. “But it’s a dangerous time of year, you know? The rain and floodwaters bring a lot of wild animals and a lot of empty houses.” I meet each of their gazes. “I don’t think these Swamp Rats will be able to resist temptation, do you?”
A couple of silent chuckles go off as realization starts to dawn.
“You mean, would Iron Jaeger be able to resist?” Jerome clarifies. “Not a chance.”
“And his favorite brother?” Vincent grumbles. “Nope.”
No, Dallas won’t let Iron go anywhere alone.
Clay Collins steps out of the house, once Krisjen has departed, and I watch the woman who used to be one of us run through the rain, hand in hand with her girlfriend, as they jump in their car.
Aracely Diaz drifts into the garage next, clipboard in hand as she nods at whatever instructions Macon gives her. Her red lipstick still makes her mouth the first thing you notice about her, her long brown hair blanketing her naked back in her red halter top. She manages their businesses now.
“Mmm,” Milo coos, looking through the window. “I think it’s time we start taking some of their women.”
We’ve had their women, but it’s certainly time to get back to normal. Their wives and girlfriends have gotten far too comfortable not dreaming about what our money smells like.
“Go have some fun,” I tell him.
Milo and Vincent jump out of the car and head down to the bar, which is always open and attached to their shitty swamp motel. I’ll send the car back for them.
Macon Jaeger looks over Aracely’s head to us parked on the street. He might know it’s my car and my driver. He seems to always know everything, but he can’t be sure, and he’s not going to kick us out if he thinks it’s a tourist.
His eyes focus intently, unblinking and steady, and I smile to myself knowing he knows.
Punching the roof twice, I send our driver off, keeping my eyes on the Jaeger house as the car takes us back out of the Bay.
Jerome will have to get to the office, and I still haven’t decided if I need one. There are no investment firms in St. Carmen, if I wanted to join one. I would need to go to Miami, and I didn’t turn down offers in the international market to stay in the South but not be in St. Carmen.
I could just keep tending to and growing my own money and using it to fuck up things here.
That sounds more fun.
I need to pick up my sister, though.
“Drop off Mr. Watson at his office, then take me to the academy,” I call out.
Barnes nods. “Yes, sir.”
Sophia might prove useful after all. I thought about her role here when I was preparing my return. Maybe she’d help me get rid of my father, who also needs to be taken care of—after the Jaegers are neatly nailed back down into their places, of course.
Or perhaps I could’ve put her in Olivia Jaeger’s path, a means to put me there, too.
But when I heard she was spending most of her time at the school, the only place she felt safe in St. Carmen anymore, and assisting our new teacher, it was even better than expected. The kid wasn’t good for much else—and it was unlikely she would ever marry, run her own house, or be able to hold down a real job—but her mother helped her find a place where she could dream away her days.
To think, when we were growing up, she possessed so much potential to gain her own power. She was smart and coy and knew exactly how to get what she wanted.
Now she only wants to escape. The doctors said it was age regression brought on by PTSD. She knows who she is but easily slips into another reality. One where she’s a child who doesn’t have to be in adult spaces. Unless she wants to, of course.