Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
I scoffed. “Like that matters to me.”
“I’m a Worthing. You know what my cousin will do if you kill me?”
I narrowed my eyes to slits. “You mean it’d be worse than him killing my uncles and my grandfather?”
He was really realizing his predicament now because we’d not had our payback. Yet.
He coughed, clearing his throat. “We’re in a ceasefire, remember?”
I was starting to get my hunger for torture.
It’d just been too long, that’s all. I’d forgotten the taste, and I went back to studying which weapon I wanted. I ran my finger down the length of the table, stopping at a lethal but compact knife. It had a selenite handle, which always made me smile about the irony of that type of crystal on a blade used for killing.
I picked it up and began turning it around in my hands. “What are the chances that the day I send a rat scurrying to kick up a hornet’s nest is the same day a man tried breaking into Molly Easter’s apartment hours later?” I’d been watching him through a mirror in the corner, one that he hadn’t spotted, and he’d been moving around, trying to get free, until I picked up the knife. He began watching me more uneasily, but once I said Molly’s name, he froze completely.
I turned now, holding the knife loosely in one hand. “Or the odds of the coincidence that that same man received a phone call earlier from your phone.”
His eyebrows dipped. “What? I never called—” He grimaced, his entire face twisting before a whole new level of wariness hung from him as he watched me. “I heard a rumor that Shorty was sniffing around, asking questions he shouldn’t be asking, and I got worried about Molly. I asked a guy I knew to watch her, that’s it. I swear.”
“Your man is dead.”
He went rigid all over again. “What?”
“I killed him.”
“What?”
I flicked the knife up, caught it in midair, and sent it through the air. It nicked the side of Worthing’s ear. He ducked, hissing, before looking to see where the knife landed. Three inches behind him. “I see those rumors are true. You do your own interrogations. You’re a sick fuck, Walden.”
I reached behind me and brought out a size bigger. Same selenite handle. Same just as lethal blade, but this one was more jagged. I held it up. “This one causes more of a mess.”
He swore under his breath, starting to pale a little bit. “Why did you kill my CI?”
“Because he was trying to break into Molly’s apartment.”
He frowned, shaking his head. “Jesus. You really are fucking her. I hoped you were lying.”
“Why would I lie about that?”
He snorted. “It’s you. You’re all about the mind games. I never know what the fuck you’re going to do.”
That made me smile.
But I still wanted to hurt him. That was coming back and growing. I liked it. The old me was still here. “You used to be one of my men. Now you’re the enemy, sending men after the woman I’m fucking.”
“I’m not your enemy.”
“Your last name says differently.”
“My last name—Nicolai, what he does—I don’t have a choice.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t! It’s different for me. He wants to use me to push his way in. Justin . . .” He swallowed, pain flaring in his eyes as his whole face tightened. “My brother was always out. I was the cop, but he was the conscience for all of us. Nicolai is just as torn up as the rest of us. He wants to know who killed my brother. I’m saying that because the ceasefire is real on our end. I didn’t send Walleye to do anything except put eyes on Molly. I was worried, am worried, about her. If her dad is out there asking questions, that shit’s going to get to her immediately. She’s his only weakness. She has to be protected.”
He was sounding like he actually cared. That made me want to impale my newest blade into his stomach. “I liked my uncles. I liked my grandfather.”
He cursed again, flinching before looking away.
“I say ‘like’ because in my family, what we do, if you ‘love,’ then you’re considered weak. My family wasn’t weak. I might admit that I ‘cared’ about them, but love . . . I’ll never say that word. Once you ‘love’ someone, you will lose them. You were destined to lose your brother how you did because you loved him.”
“That’s so fucked up, and you’re lying. You loved your family. You love Trace. You guys are like brothers. How you love him, that was Justin for me. Someone took him away, and when I think how he died—” His voice cracked. He choked off. “I want to be here that day, with his killer. I want them in this chair, and I want that tiny-ass knife you threw at me, because I’m going to cut them to pieces. Inch by fucking inch.”