 by Ruby Vincent.jpg)
Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
…and we can’t see them.
The Brotherhood has us in their sights. In their scope.
The attacks are coming from everywhere and nowhere from a seemingly invisible enemy. But they won’t be invisible for long.
When we discover how the Brotherhood manages to stay five steps ahead, it’s up to me to find and stop the traitor.
The only problem is it requires me to revisit a place I swore I’d never go: my past.
The battle for the city we love is heating up. The Brotherhood challenges the Merchants’ right to rule, and Genny and the Savage Princes don’t give a f*ck.
Cinco is theirs and they’ll fight to the death to protect it.
And me… well, I just might be their secret weapon.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
Mackenzie
The trunk opened up, allowing air in the fetid, moldy space. I coughed and agony racked my jaw. Don didn’t care an ounce about Luca’s order not to hit my face.
They pulled me out of the trunk. I squinted at my surroundings.
Luca told them to get me ready to leave, but we weren’t at an airstrip or dock. It looked like an old bed-and-breakfast. By the skyline and driving time, I knew we hadn’t left Cinco far behind. We were thirty minutes out.
Thirty minutes. That’s how long my daughter’s been in the hands of a sociopath’s drug-addled mistress. I have to get out of here. I have to get to Laurel!
They practically carried me up the steps. Inside, the lights flicked on and I got a proper look at them. Both dark-haired, tattooed, and sporting guns shoved through their waistbands, but Don boasted a scar above his right eye, and when Louie sneered at me, two rows of cracked, brown rotting teeth turned my stomach.
“You deal with her,” Louie said. “I’ll start on the rest.”
My feet skimmed the floral carpet. I was certain then that the place used to be a charming inn—complete with cream wallpaper, pastoral paintings, and doilies over the lanterns. I knew this because it was still there, albeit cracked, peeling, and covered in dust.
Don tossed me inside a small sitting room. “Take off your clothes,” he ordered, closing us in. “Or I’ll do it for you and...” He buried his nose in my hair, inhaling me. “Take my time.”
His hands pawed my wrists, then the cuffs sprang open. I spun, elbow slicing up and smashing across his jaw. Grunting, he rocked to the side and that was the distraction I needed. I snatched the gun from his belt loop.
Ripping out my gag, I croaked, “Tell me where my daughter is.”
Don straightened slowly, gazing down the barrel. He said nothing.
“Tell me where she is!”
He moved and I shot back—his swipe going wide. We circled till my back faced the door. Don sized me up and down and laughed.
“You’re going to give me the keys and tell me where Laurel is, or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” His guttural, wheezy laugh grated on my ears. “Shoot me? You can’t even aim that thing. You’re shaking like a leaf.”
“Could you torture him to find the bomber that almost killed Tricky?”
Roaring pressed on my eardrums. Sweat collected on the small of my back. I was shaking. Shaking, throbbing, twitching, and panting so hard, I couldn’t suck in a full breath before it was out. All I could hear—louder than his laughter—was my baby crying.
“Can you break bones to maintain fear?”
“This is your last chance—”
“Save it, bitch.” Don cracked his knuckles. “A delicate, round-eyed little princess like you isn’t going to shoot me.”
“Can you do what it takes to be the monster that monsters are afraid of?”
“Put that down before you make me—”
A gunshot tore through the room.
“Ahh!” Howling, Don crashed against an armchair, clutching his ruined knee. I fired again, ripping through the other one.
Don flushed pale as paper, eyes rolling up in his skull. He bellowed—tears, snot, and blood gushing free.
I cried along with him. Panting, twitching, and sore body throbbing, but... not shaking. My hands were steady leveling the gun between his eyes.
“Tell me where Laurel is,” I rasped, “or so help me, I will kill you.”
“Wait! Wait, you d-don’t have to do this!”
“You have three seconds.”
“It’s not me you want!”
“Three.”
He tossed his head, sobbing. “I don’t— I don’t know! Luca didn’t tell any of us where he really lives.”
“Two.”
“I swear I don’t know!”
“One.”
A hard hit struck my temple. I tipped, gun sliding out of my hand. Louie shoved me the rest of the way down.
“What is with this bitch?” He wrestled the cuffs back on. “Hey, man, you okay?”
“What the fuck does it look like?! Get me a doctor!”
Black crept into my vision.
“We’ll lock this one up—chains, cuffs, restraints, cage. She won’t see sunlight till Europe.”
Darkness swallowed me whole.
I woke sometime later, though I couldn’t tell the difference. Walls pressed in on me—pushing on my knees, touching my toes, pressing on my head’s sore spot.
A box.
I was bound, gagged, and trapped in a box... and it was moving.
SUNNY
“Vito.”
The crooked-teeth scum grinned at me. “Good to see you, Sunny. You’re looking good, man. Amazing what a little trip off a bridge does for your complexion.”
I slid off him to Adams. He relaxed on the wall, foot propped on it, and arms folded. “Where are Mackenzie and Laurel?”
“Don’t worry about them,” he said, waving the question away. “I’ll take good care of them. You should worry about yourself right now. You’re not going to walk out of here.”
“Twelve armed men against one guy? Everyone standing in a neat little row—just in case one of you cowers on the floor to suck your thumb, the other guy will step in.” I laughed. “You two really are piss-your-pants afraid of me.”