Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
My father’s brows furrowed at the sound before he stood up and went to answer the door. But when he opened the door…
His whole body went completely still.
For a fraction of a second, his face did something I’d never seen it do before—a harsh flicker in his expression, quick and cold, and then slowly his face went pale beneath his tan. The color drained so completely that the small scar near his jaw stood out white against the skin.
I set down my fork.
Caleb didn’t look up from his game. The electronic chirping of Mario jumping over something filled the kitchen, cheerful and oblivious.
My father swallowed hard, his throat bobbing roughly, and he positioned himself so that his body blocked the entire entryway to the living room. Behind him, I could see nothing.
“Why don’t you take your brother inside the bedroom?” he said, speaking to me without turning. His voice was steady, all too steady. “I need to speak with these gentlemen privately.”
I stood. My legs felt strange under me, disconnected. A part of me didn’t want to leave, but I knew that I had to listen to my father. “Come on, Caleb,” I said.
He groaned. “But I’m at the castle level—”
“Now.” The urgency in my voice must have reached him, because he looked up then, his small face scrunched in annoyance.
Caleb was never a stubborn kid, so he stood and shuffled past me, his Nintendo clutched against his chest. I followed him down the short hallway to the bedroom we shared, closing the door behind us.
The bedroom was small. Two single beds separated by a nightstand, a window that overlooked the alley, a dresser with a mirror that had a crack in the corner, and my desk in the corner of the room. It was perfect for us. Cozy.
Caleb dropped onto his bed and immediately resumed his game, the slight joyous music filling the room as though nothing at all was wrong.
It wasn’t…
Everything was fine.
But why did my father’s face pale like that?
I had never seen that expression on his face before… such… fear.
I paced. Three steps from the door to the window, three steps back.
My heart felt strange in my chest, hammering fast and heavy, like the wings of a caged hummingbird trying to escape.
Something was wrong.
I didn’t know what, but I felt it. My body knew. My body had always known things before my mind caught up.
I stopped pacing and looked at Caleb, who was mashing buttons with complete absorption, and then I went to the door.
I turned the handle slowly.
The door opened without a sound. My father had oiled the hinges himself, one of his countless small acts of maintenance that kept our world running smoothly. I pulled it back just enough. A sliver of light until a wedge of the living room was visible through the gap.
Three men stood in our living room.
The two of them were large in their frames, dressed in dark jackets that strained across their chests. They held themselves with a particular stillness, like they were stone statues of men who were waiting for instruction.
But it was the one in the center who held my attention.
He was several inches taller, his shoulders broader, though his overall build was leaner than the other two. He wore a dark suit that fit him like a second skin—seamlessly, perfectly, without effort, as though it had been tailored just for him.
His hair was dark, falling across his forehead in a way that should have looked careless, but it didn’t. His features were sharp, his angular jaw carved with definitions that should have only existed in books, and there was a small scar on his upper lip, pale and thin, that caught the light when he moved.
He was… handsome. That was the first thing my fifteen-year-old brain registered and that embarrassed me even in the moment.
But he was… handsome, in a dangerous way that dangerous men were.
Because I knew he was dangerous, everything about him screamed it.
His eyes were dark blue and stormy. Cold like the Arctic. He looked around the room with calculated patience, taking in everything—the furniture, the photographs, the birthday cake still sitting on the kitchen table behind my father, uneaten.
Those eyes missed nothing.
“Witness protection, eh?” he drawled casually.
His voice was a low rumble, carrying what I caught was a faint trace of amusement. And then he chuckled—a dry, quiet sound that held no warmth.
“That seems... inconvenient.” He tilted his head slightly, studying my father with cold indifference. “Very unlike you, Angelo.”
He paused, lifting a brow questioningly.
“Or should I call you Anthony?”
My father said nothing. I could see the back of his neck, the way the muscles had gone taut. His hands hung at his sides, open and trembling. The slightest tremor that anyone could have missed, but I saw it.
I had never seen my father afraid before. Not truly.