Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Matthew walks in, adjusting his belt as he holds a bouquet of red roses for me. “Before you run off, I want you to know that no matter what, you’ll always have a job here.”
I offer him a sweet smile. I don’t know how exactly he’ll give me my spot back since I’ve already been replaced, but I appreciate the sentiment.
“I’ll just quickly get changed,” I tell Anya. When she found out about my acceptance of the new role, I received a short text.
Upgrade your wardrobe.
Compliments are hard for Anya. She might’ve meant “congratulations,” so I invited her out for dinner to celebrate.
Before I step into my dressing room, I ask, “Will, ah… Will Alek be joining us?”
She looks up from her manicured nails. “Am I not enough?”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I say as we walk into my dressing room. “I just noticed he was sitting with you, is all.”
I change into a new dress that I bought just for this occasion. It hugs my body but also flows just below the hips. It’s a dark blue silk. I pull my hair out of its bun and let the soft waves flow over my shoulders.
“He has business to attend to this evening. But he wanted to see your last performance first,” she informs me. It fills me with butterflies, and I feel foolish that he can make me feel that way. But I can’t control it.
“Oh,” I mutter, realizing I sound far too disappointed. “That’s okay. Girls’ cocktail night.”
“I don’t drink alcohol,” she reminds me, and I feel silly because I’d completely forgotten. Anya had explained to me she doesn’t like her judgment being impaired.
“More for me.” I offer a big smile. “I thought we could go to the Mexican restaurant where you met my parents. I was actually surprised to see you there that night. I didn’t think that would be somewhere you would go.”
“Trust me, it’s not my usual choice. Unless River makes me. He owns restaurants. He is for sure the more social one of the two of us, and will drag me out to try new places. That Mexican restaurant was where I first met his mother. So we go from time to time.”
My jaw drops. “You met River’s mother?” If her meeting with my mother was any indicator, it must’ve gone disastrous. It’s not so shocking that she’s met his mother but I could never imagine Anya as the ‘daughter-in-law’ type.
“Yes of course. She likes me. Why, I’ll never know.”
I smile at her through the mirror as I touch up my makeup. “Does she know… you know, that you…” I don’t even know how to ask.
“Kill people? Sell people and illegal things? Fuck her son like a dirty whore?”
I choke and grab the celebratory glass of champagne from beside me. “All of those things, I suppose.”
“Of course not. And she still thinks her son is an angel and that he doesn’t sell guns and drugs.”
“Guns and drugs?” I repeat quietly. “Why do you tell me these things, Anya?” Because I have the distinct impression neither she nor Alek share this kind of thing with others.
“If required, you’d be an easy target to remove before you could expose us,” she says matter-of-factly, and a chill runs down my spine. She’s offering a hint of a smile, but I still don’t know if she’s joking. “But I like you. My brother does too. If I were to have any kind of… little sister, I imagine it would be someone like you. With no fashion sense or defenses.”
I choke on a laugh, assuming she meant it as a compliment, which it is. It’s nice to hear that she thinks of me as a little sister, because I consider her a friend and somewhat of a older sister.
I muster up the courage to ask something I’ve always been curious about.
“Why do you kill people?”
“It’s one of the things I’m good at, just like you are at singing. Natural talent.”
I swallow at the ease with which she compares my singing to her murdering.
“Okay, but, like, how many people are we talking?” I want to ask about Alek, too, but feel like that’s something I should ask him.
Her eyebrows furrow. “Have you counted every one of your performances?”
“Well, no, but it would be well in the hundreds.” She raises a brow at me pointedly. “You’ve killed hundreds of people?”
“In our world, consequences are harsh. If you don’t kill, you will be killed. What’s the expression? Dog eat dog world?”
Hundreds of people. I let that sink in. I’m actually sitting in the room as a murderer discusses it like an intrigued woman sitting on her couch watching a crime documentary. Don’t get me wrong, they’re fascinating, but this… this is real and right beside me.
“And it doesn’t bother you to kill someone?”