Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 131651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 658(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 658(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
After Charli, there was no room for outsiders.
No goddamned room.
No space in my smaller, darker cave of a world for anyone who wasn’t blood. Kit came first and last.
Kit became my religion.
Nile, she takes me back to an earlier time when I was new to being bitter and broken. Isn’t that the problem?
She’s the same brat I remember, effortlessly skilled at crawling under my skin. But she also isn’t.
In the years since I last saw her, she’s grown up and so much has happened. So much life, and life hurts you.
It leaves bruises, no matter what you do. There are so many sore spots on her I try not to press.
Her grandfather’s secrets.
Her father’s shitty flaws.
What Leonidas’ death means for the family, when he was the fabric that held it together.
Frankly, I don’t envy her.
I always respected the old man, but this is a giga-ton of responsibility to drop on anyone so young. Especially when she hasn’t had a chance to live that much yet.
Twenty-three years old.
So fucking young.
And she’s stuck wrangling destiny, deciding Leonidas Blackthorn’s legacy.
I glance back at the open laptop on my knee before I have to stow it for our arrival.
Cleo might’ve thought she dug deep enough with Jasper Fairfax, but I threw together a profile of him on my own.
I can see her logic. I get why she’s convinced he’s our best starting point.
The man’s practically a Boy Scout in art and antiquities. A sterling reputation.
Even his record with sketchy items thought to be stolen or moving on the black market. He’s helped recover several valuable Egyptian artifacts over the years.
On paper, he’s a class-act professional, the right pick to handle something as delicate as the Hera Egg.
Plus, he has ties to celebrity art collectors and government officials in at least a dozen countries. I have no doubt he meant it when he told her he could find a buyer, if he wasn’t interested himself.
He also has the ideal experience in Eastern Europe. According to his website, he played a key role in securing several rare treasures that could’ve easily vanished in the chaotic years after the Soviet Union collapsed. That’s backed up by articles.
Lots of articles.
So many, I wonder if a few were drafted by Fairfax’s own press team as marketing.
Despite all the evidence suggesting he’s purer than driven snow, there’s a rock in my gut.
He has awards and credentials for days. Achievements, trophies, photo ops with movers and shakers across art, politics, and academia.
There’s no denying his connections. Every big-time antiquities dealer worth his salt has probably heard of Jasper Fairfax.
And yet…
The man behind the façade, the man himself, barely seems to exist. Jasper’s a phantom on social media, though what I found on his education and personal properties checks out.
Still, little else.
No details about his upbringing, his home life, his hobbies. For a man who’s been in the public eye plenty, there’s little to say where he came from.
Unusual.
Then there’s the fact that Fairfax had dealings with oligarchs from Russia and Central Asia in the past.
Not a crime by itself. Only, the average oligarch was one degree removed from organized crime.
Business as usual for that part of the world in that era, yes. It’s also a tiny, waving red flag.
Still, I can’t get bent out of shape over old friends.
It’s probably fine.
If Cleo knew what I was thinking, she’d call me paranoid and laugh in my face.
I keep my guard up by nature when the stakes are this high. Better to err on the side of caution than risk disaster.
And I don’t just mean with the egg, either.
I glance at the suitcase, safely strapped into the empty seat next to me. Then I look at Cleo, hunkered down in her blankets, her mouth open and snoring softly.
I smile.
I’ve always sheltered this girl against her own misplaced instincts. Kids like to think they know better when they damn well don’t.
A memory creeps in, one I’d almost forgotten.
Last time I blinked, she was seventeen and still the biggest pain in my ass. Trying to drink wine from the cellar, aiming to sneak out with boys.
Keeping an eye on her was a full-time job I hated being stuck with.
Definitely not the kind of job I wanted with a young daughter and a dead girlfriend. Life faded greyer, a little darker, a little more hopeless and nihilistic than I ever imagined.
If it wasn’t for Kit, it would’ve broke me.
Leonidas was firm about the fact that he wanted me to stay on and help make sure little Nile didn’t blow up her life.
Ethan’s meltdowns left him scared for Cleo, and he was determined to keep her out of trouble.
What the fuck could I do but my best?
I screwed my fucking head on straight so I could chase down that girl and give her one more mostly innocent summer. The kind every grown kid deserves.