Empire (Empire #1) Read Online Sheridan Anne

Categories Genre: College, Dark, New Adult, Romance Tags Authors: Series: Empire Series by Sheridan Anne
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Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 94834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
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Using the fire escape, I take myself down a few levels before cutting across to the main elevators and taking it all the way down. Reaching the lobby, I keep my eyes wide, searching around me for whoever might have left me this note.

Stepping out into the street, I move past the valet parking when the attendant turns to me, a welcoming smile on his face. “Ahh, Miss Quinn,” Joe says, another person I’ve become familiar with over the past few weeks. “Going somewhere? Can I fetch you a car?”

I look around, staring out at the busy streets as I shake my head. “I, umm—”

A sharp pinch stings the side of my neck and I whip around to Joe, watching as that welcoming smile morphs into a sinister grin. “Sleep tight,” he says as a car pulls up to the curb. He opens the back door, and just as my body becomes too heavy to hold myself up, he pushes me inside, closing the door behind me as I succumb to the darkness.

The loud clang of banging metal echoes through my pounding head, and I open my heavy eyes. The ground is cold beneath my body, and I try to sit up, peering through the fog and realizing I’m in some kind of prison cell.

My heart races and I shift to my knees, trying to crawl across the darkened cell, but my body is too heavy to hold up. I cry out as I fall, desperately trying to pull myself back up.

My hand closes around the metal bar, and I drag my body across the rough stone, my jeans catching and ripping on the stray rocks. Gripping the bars with both hands, I pull myself to my knees and try to catch my bearings.

Where the hell am I?

“HELLO?” I call out, the sound pounding against my skull as I try fruitlessly to shake the bars. “Please, someone, help me.”

I try again and again, defeat gripping my chest and squeezing tight. Tears stain my dirty face, and as I cry out once more, my desperation knowing no bounds, I hear a haggard voice coming from across the room. “Give up, girl,” the man says, his voice thick and dry as though he rarely uses it. “No one’s coming for ya.”

My gaze cuts around the cells as I grip the bars tighter, hauling myself to my feet and staring into the shadows of the neighboring cells. I see a faint outline of a man hidden in darkness, and nervousness starts to pound in my chest. “Wh . . . where am I?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he responds in that gruff tone. “Once you’re in here, there’s no getting out.”

Falling back to my knees, I drop my face into my hands, tears streaming down my face as hopelessness claims me. I had a plan. I had a life I needed to save. And now I’m nothing but a sitting duck, just waiting for someone to come and end it all. Whether it be the person who’s been organizing these vicious attacks or someone much closer, someone I thought I wanted so desperately to trust.

“What’s your name, kid?” the man says in a bid to distract me from my tears, his tone disinterested and bored.

Wiping my cheeks with the back of my hands, I mutter my name over the lump in my throat. “Oakley Quinn.”

“No,” comes a whoosh of breath, accompanied by the sounds of heavy chains dragging along the stone. I look up at the cell directly across from me and watch as a pair of dirty hands lock around the metal bars before a face appears through the darkness. “No, it can’t be,” the man says, a hint of desperation in his raspy tone. “Tell me it’s not.”

My brows furrow as I peer into the darkness, trying to make out the man’s face. I pull myself back to my feet when I finally see him. I suck in a sharp gasp, my breath getting caught in my throat as I see the ghost of the man who’s haunted my dreams for nearly twelve years.

“Dad?”

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