Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
What we were best at, though—what brought in the real money—was making people disappear.
Not the way outsiders would think. We didn’t take contracts to end lives. We erased them. Built new ones from the ground up. New names, histories, and paper trails so clean they could stand up to any scrutiny. We gave people a way out when staying where they were would’ve gotten them killed or worse.
Between Wizard’s tech, my security builds, Ace’s financial wizardry, and the rest of the club backing us, we didn’t miss details. We couldn’t afford to. Once someone stepped into that new life, it had to hold. And it did.
Most of the time, we charged. Sometimes we didn’t. Depended on the situation and the person. Those calls stayed inside the club, locked down tight. The last thing we needed was a flood of bullshit sob stories from people looking to game the system.
I worked through a few files, tightening protocols and double-checking a couple of active cases, forcing my mind to stay on the screen instead of drifting back to a pair of amber-brown eyes that had no business getting under my skin this fast.
It didn’t fucking work. Her laughter echoed in my head anyway. The way she’d looked at me. Curious, not scared. Like she wasn’t sure what to make of me but wasn’t backing down either.
Mine.
The word hit just as hard now as it did every time it flared in my mind, settling deep and solid in my chest.
I finally snapped the laptop shut and leaned back, scrubbing a hand over my face. My body was tired, my muscles heavy from the day, but my mind was still wired tight. But I needed some damn sleep. I forced myself back into the bedroom and dropped onto the mattress again, this time closing my eyes and not letting them open.
It took a while, longer than it should’ve, but eventually the exhaustion dragged me under.
The last thought in my head before sleep finally took me was the certainty that tomorrow, I was going to find her. The last thing I saw was her face.
2
CLARA
The cheese-stuffed sweet potato viral videos had done a lot of good for our family’s orchard. We’d already been growing sweet potatoes as a companion crop for some of our trees because they were a great groundcover for suppressing weeds and keeping the soil cool. Now we could barely keep them on the shelves of our farm store.
Every soccer mom, health aficionado, and teenage girl with a social media account within thirty miles showed up to buy them by the bagful. I’d already hauled three crates from the back before the doors opened at nine, and I was going to need to do a restock before we closed.
The bell jingled over the door, and a woman in yoga pants pushed through with two children. The older one pointed at the sweet potatoes immediately.
“Gross,” he declared, his nose wrinkling.
His mom laughed, bouncing the baby girl on her hip. “They’re not gross, sweetie. They’re yummy.”
“Nuh-uh,” he disagreed, shaking his head.
Sighing, his mom stuffed half a dozen sweet potatoes into one of the paper bags we had at the end of the aisle. “Remember that dish Grandma makes with the marshmallows on top?”
His little face lit up. “Yeah!”
“The orange stuff is these.”
His eyes widened at her explanation. “Oh.”
Snagging a slice of pie, I lifted it high enough for the mom to see. When she nodded, I rounded the counter and walked over and crouched to his level. “You know what else you can make with sweet potatoes? Pie.”
Licking his lips, he eyed the container I popped open, then his mom.
“Go ahead. You’re going to love it.”
He took a nibble before grinning at me. “More!”
“Delicious, right?” I handed him the spoon.
When they made it to the register, he pointed at the whole pies in the display case. “Please, Mommy?”
“Sure, sweetie.” She turned her attention toward me. “I guess I can’t complain too much about the sugar content when there are v-e-g-e-t-a-b-l-e-s in his dessert.”
“You should see what my mom does with zucchini in the summer.” I started to ring up her order. “That’s when it’s the most plentiful, and we usually have bread with chocolate chips or lemon. And she came up with a recipe this year for chocolate zucchini brownies that were amazing.”
“Thanks. I will definitely keep an eye out for those.”
She swiped her card to pay, and I tucked the slice of pie I’d let her son try into the bag. “On the house for the brave taste tester.”
Juggling her daughter in one arm and the bag in the other, she prodded, “What do you say, sweetie?”
“Thank you,” he chirped.
They left, the bell over the door jingling behind them.
I turned to wipe down the scale and found Harper leaning on the end of the counter, smirking at me. “You’re off your game today.”