Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Yet sleeping with a snuggling woman in my arms provided a peace I haven’t experienced in way too long. Or perhaps, it’s just my woman. I don’t remember ever feeling peace like this.
For now, I choose not to examine why I didn’t push things with her the night before. I could have. Shit, it’s been years since I fucked a woman. But touching her this morning was all about her pleasure.
So much so that she tempts me to be somebody else. Not a killer. It can’t happen, and I need to get myself under control before I draw her further into my world. We both need that control.
Last night I proved to both of us that I have it.
I dress in the cheap jeans and leave Rosalie’s as quietly as I arrived, climbing down the exterior stairs and avoiding a prickly rosebush at the bottom. Once I retake my organization, I’ll need to buy a couple of high-end suits like I used to wear. I even tried one on when buying the jeans. It felt wrong and not just because I lacked the funds to buy it. As if I was a panther trying on a deer skin. Now, in the jeans I bought, I still don’t feel like myself. I do know that I’ll never wear orange again.
Fuck. I don’t know what or who I am or how I should feel. At the moment, the only connection I have with this world, on the outside, is Rosalie. Her scent fills my head, and the sounds of her moans are carried in my chest. Deep. She’ll never make that sound for another man. While she remains unaware of that fact, it’s absolute. She’s my mirror image and doesn’t know it. I was wild and had to learn control in prison, and she’s way too controlled and needs to embrace her wild side.
I’m going to insist on it.
On the outside, taking back my birthright, I plan to create the very life I should’ve claimed when I was young and stupid. Carelessly unaware of the dangers around me. But this time, I know what woman I will have beneath me every night. My time with bar girls or bored older women is over.
I know what I want. Who I want.
And I will have her.
Garik is waiting down the street in a dented and rusting Ford truck, its engine running surprisingly smoothly. I slip inside and give him directions. He drives away silently with just one curious look at the pink Victorian home. Years ago, he picked me up often at random women’s homes, but this time is different.
“I’m keeping her.”
A light rain begins to fall, and he flicks on the windshield wipers. “Your lawyer?”
“Yeah.” It’s crucial he know that.
“Okay.” It’s equally important that he makes the vow I need. Both his expression and his tone remain level. “I’ll protect her with my life.”
Good.
She’s just the beginning. The soft and spirited foundation I plan to hone to retake the empire my father wanted me to run. It’s not just birthright. Or revenge. The need, the desperate craving, to put my hands on the amethyst crystals that power Hologrid Hub at a regular interval and not just once, is a physical pain. I’m meant to charge those.
Every time somebody uses the platform or likes or shares, my crystals gain strength. As do I now that I’m connected to the large crystal again. In prison, I paid plenty for amethyst rocks to hide around my cell and made sure the purple ink of my tattoo held crushed-up particles of the purest one I could find. Having that extra protection helped me to stay alive. Even so, I felt the loss of that connection to a larger stone every second.
“Tell me about the meeting tonight.” I watch the rain fall. It has been seven years since I felt the tears of the gods. By the look of the bulbous clouds, I’ll feel plenty when we arrive at my storage unit.
“I have the eight planning to be at the bar. Three are solid, three are close, and two are unsure but unhappy with your brother.”
There isn’t a need to remind him that Hendrix is my half brother. “Who’s the mole?”
“My guess? Uri Sorokin.”
I nod. “He’s one of the unsure ones?”
“No. He’s solid. But I think he’ll turn to you if he sees a good future.”
That makes sense. Hendrix isn’t going to give up the helm easily, even though I have a stronger connection to the stones than he does. Not once did he visit me in prison, not that I expected it. If he’d gone to prison, I certainly wouldn’t have visited him.
His mother arranged for us to be enemies from his birth. “Tell me about Hendrix.”
“Don’t know much about him,” Garik drawls, driving the decrepit truck fast and with ease. “We don’t run in the same circles.”