Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
I nodded, noting the your emphasis.
The door on the left was labeled STAIRS, so that was self-explanatory.
The middle door opened to a large apartment-like floor. He motioned to the bar area, and I went right behind, starting to find where all the bottles were kept. There was a phone. I saw the instructions and knew I would use that to order more inventory. “I call down for bottle service?”
He nodded before moving through the place and going into the rooms. He came back, settling by the bar. “These guys are big, but they’re respectable. If you want to fuck ’em, you can, but you don’t have to. They aren’t like that.”
Jesus. Yeah. This place definitely had some shade. “I’m not like that, in any situation.”
He barely nodded my way, watching for the door. “It’s usually the case where the girls want them, not the other way, not with these guys, but you do you. I’m security for the floor, just in case.”
In case of what?
We waited thirty minutes. Nothing.
Another thirty. Nothing.
Two hours later, an hour before the club was supposed to close, Monty’s radio crackled to life.
I’d taken to sitting on the counter with my phone out, dwelling on the loss of tips. Monty was doing the same, and not a word was spoken between us. I didn’t think Monty cared. I knew I didn’t. He popped in his earpiece and nodded to me. “They’re coming.”
He went to the door and propped it open.
The elevator pinged its arrival. The doors slid open, and instead of laughter or shouting, which was the norm for this place, there was nothing.
A male came inside, looking at his phone before he gave me an absentminded look, but he did a double take, seeing me, and he ground to a halt.
I frowned, not knowing this guy, but he was gorgeous. Dark features. Black hair. Nearly black eyes. He was sleek and toned, and the air rippled around him, exuding he was dangerous and powerful. This guy was not one to mess around with, and I braced myself before all of his gaze was fixed on me. Those eyes sharpened, and a smirk showed before he half turned for the second guy coming in behind him.
“Someone fucked up,” he said, addressing the other man before I saw who he was.
“What?”
I sucked in air, my whole body freezing, because . . .
I knew that voice. And as he came forward, stepping around his friend, I was pierced by those same eyes that had haunted me over the last week.
It was him.
And he was staring back at me in shock, but also some anger.
He was not happy to see me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TRACE
I was staring at her, at who I’d been fucking obsessed with over the entire week, and I’d just resolved to shut everything down. But here she was, staring back at me, every bit as surprised as I was, and then her eyes cooled and she flinched, turning away.
Fuck.
That was me. All me.
I gave her that look, and I couldn’t blame her. I was livid. Cody ran this club for us. He was supposed to be discreet in getting word to whoever was supposed to know that I did not want to cross paths with her, not yet.
And today of all days.
I needed one minute, one fucking minute, because I couldn’t unhear what my uncle had said to me three hours earlier.
“How you handled your father’s indiscretions was your test, and you aced it, my nephew. My son. Now, I need you to do more for this family.”
“What do you need?”
“I need you to run the family business.”
Ashton’s question came back to me. “You ever actually consider not going into the family business?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when it comes, if it comes.”
“And if it comes sooner than you think?”
“Then we decide then.”
Hearing those words from Stephano, I couldn’t ignore the gut check I was enduring right now. I had not wanted to hear those words, at least not yet. I wanted time.
Helping out was one thing. Running the entire empire was a whole different thing.
I’d stared long and hard at my uncle. He placed a hand over his chest. “I’m sick, Tristian. There’s another family trying to push in, from up in Maine. They want to come down into the city, and my health . . . it’s bad. I don’t trust anyone else to step into my shoes.” He then said the last three words that were my kryptonite with him. I could never not do what he needed.
He’d said, “I need you.”
Staring at her now, knowing who she was related to, knowing the first problem my uncle needed me to handle . . . I was torn, right here, right now.
My family or—no. That was crazy, but for a moment, one moment, I considered it. I had to, and I had to admit that I wanted her. It was still there, still buried deep inside, and the longer I stared at her, the more I knew what my uncle needed me to do, the more that need for her was burrowing deep inside of me.