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)
“They’ll look for her.”
“No.” His tone was so sure. “They really won’t. It’ll be assumed she vanished with reason. No one will look for her, not unless it’s you.”
A knot was in my throat, swelling up. “It’s so easy for you to make entire lives disappear? Just like that?”
“It’s not. It takes money, intelligence, and planning. A lot of planning. A lot of money. Your aunt is another sad story, but this time, she’s going to disappear of her own volition, not at the hands of him. Not this time. That’s all.”
His phone beeped, and he read the text. “She’s already decided. They’ll be gone by tonight.”
I sucked in my breath, rocking back by how much power was in that last statement.
An entire family, wiped out by his hands.
I started shaking my head, a sick panic beginning to fill me up. “What are we doing here?”
His eyes lowered, fierce. “You know what we’re doing here.”
Sex.
My body heated, instantly, but no. I shoved that down.
“No,” I clipped out, shoving everything down. I was moving, going around him. “I’m leaving. This conversation is over.”
“Jess.”
He was going for my arm. I knew it and anticipated it, and a part of me wanted to let him touch me. Wanted to let him pull me in, because he could. The power he had over me was spiking all my blood in fear.
But I couldn’t. So because of that, I moved out of his way. “After this, we are done. Do you hear me?”
I went to the elevator and pushed the button. When it opened, I stepped in. Staring straight ahead, not seeing him, not anymore, I hit the button for the main lobby.
I’d find my own way home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TRACE
It was a week later, and I was watching her.
I was always watching her, but I stayed away.
Still, I watched. I could do that much.
And as she was working, and I was standing in my private box, a conversation came back to haunt me.
“Was there collateral damage?”
Stephano had wanted to know more. He hadn’t been satisfied with the initial report of what had happened with Jess’s aunt and her abuser.
I had braced myself, steeling myself, and raised my chin up. “What do you need to know, Uncle?”
His eyes flickered just once before his own face hardened. “You killed the uncle?”
I didn’t answer that. “My men buried his body. He’s dead.”
His jaw clenched. He knew I was playing word games, something I’d been doing more and more lately. Anger flared in his gaze before he smothered it. “The aunt?”
“They’re gone. Ashton made his calls. She’d checked in with their local women’s shelter earlier that day. We think she left him.”
“Where’s she now?”
“Disappeared. Probably hiding from him.” I studied him. He wasn’t happy still. I needed to give him a little more. “She’ll never know that she doesn’t need to hide. He’s dead. He wouldn’t help anyways. He was an abuser, and that would’ve made him a liability. He could’ve offered evidence on us if he’d ever been arrested for domestic assault. You know the kind. We have someone in his place who we can control. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
It was enough. I saw some of the suspicion ease from him, and he nodded.
I started to relax.
Until he spoke again. “We have a problem. The family wanting to push in is getting worse, and my health is still deteriorating. I need you to take over the family business.”
I gritted my teeth. “When?”
There was silence. He was back to studying me. “I want you to be running everything within three months.”
Three months. Three months before everything would change.
It wasn’t enough time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
JESS
I was watching my brother walk toward me on the other side of this plexiglass window. He’d trimmed down but bulked up in muscle, and his hair was gone. He’d shaved it all off. I looked for tattoos but didn’t see any, and that ball in my belly unwound a little bit. Still, though. I saw our cousin, the one he’d never meet, and I doubted he’d ever know that she looked like him with the same round face, plush cheeks, and eyes maybe a little too close together.
They even had the same freckles.
Isaac had always been a little rough looking. He walked with a wide swagger, his head low and his shoulders out. If someone hadn’t known him, they might’ve stereotyped him as a bully at first sight, or a thug, but then the next event always happened.
He’d smile. And when he did, everyone else smiled too. He had that effect, and he was so far the opposite of a thug that it made me tear up when I considered how he’d ended up here.
I loved him so much that my throat was swelling up, just like it did on the drive here and would on the drive home.