Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 124323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Please...please be okay.
“What’s the plan?” the remaining mercenary asked.
I curled around my pain, turning my attention away from the mirror on my present and stared into the one showing that ever-repeating image of Sully being thrown out of the helicopter.
Falling.
Falling.
Splash.
“There’s four of us,” Drake muttered, rubbing his eyes as the exhaustion still consumed him from Euphoria. “They’re just nerds. We’ll knock, ask politely, and leave. They don’t obey; they die. I want out of this stinking country the second we’ve got elixir on board.”
“Fine.” The mercenary nodded.
The pilots jumped from the cockpit, moving toward the door where Sully had tumbled.
Nausea lapped up my throat.
You better be alive, Sully.
The pilots—one young with brown hair, and the other old with grey—glanced at each other before the older one snipped, “You hired us to fly you around, Mr. Sinclair, not to shoot anybody.”
Drake latched his fingers around my wrist, jerking me from the helicopter.
I tripped at the sudden inertia and fell to my knees as he yanked me from the machine. My skin scraped on the roughness of the helipad as he dragged me to the grass a few metres away and left me puddled at his feet.
I hissed at him.
He smirked.
Keeping his hand on my shoulder to prevent me from standing, he nodded at the mercenary to pass a spare handgun to each pilot. “Stand with me, gentlemen, and you won’t have to shoot anyone. You’re there for show, that’s all.”
The men accepted out of ingrained decorum, cringing against the arsenal. “What do you expect us to do?”
“Just have my back.” Drake grinned, his fingers digging deeper into my shoulder. “They won’t put up a fight. My brother hires pussies. Geeks who jerkoff into their test tubes. I promise.”
“It’ll be easy.” The mercenary chuckled. “In and out. We’ll be done in five minutes flat.”
“Get off me.” I struggled, shoving Drake’s hand away and swooping to my feet. “Don’t touch me.”
Blood trickled from my grazed knees.
Sickness splashed up my throat.
Drake just laughed as if I was a silly gerbil caught in his paws.
Ignoring him, I locked eyes with the pilots, and snapped, “Sullivan Sinclair will pay you an exorbitant fee if you use that gun you’re holding and kill the man holding me prisoner. Take me back to Sully, and you’ll be rewarded—”
“Stupid, stupid Eleanor.” Drake slapped me around the head, sending me tumbling forward, my skull throbbing. “Don’t listen to her, gentlemen.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll give you a bonus when we disembark in Jakarta. How about that? Help us gather this last item, and I’ll pad your payday with another twenty grand each.”
“Sully will give you a hundred,” I hissed. “Kill Drake and—”
“Shut the fuck up, bitch.” The mercenary tried to strike me, but he missed.
I ducked and ran.
A gunshot cracked in the night, kicking up grass and soil by my feet.
I froze.
Drake’s footsteps padded lazily behind me.
My skin crawled as he moved in front of me and reached out like a considerate confidant, taking my hand in his. “First and final warning, Eleanor Grace. Move without my permission again, and the next bullet goes into your back. You’ll either die or be disabled. Either way, I’m past caring.”
He jerked me into him, his palm gluing itself to mine. “I’m getting old, you see. After fucking that goddess last night, my urge for sex has been well sated. I get hard at the thought of a billion dollars, not your pussy...even if my brother has become obsessed with it. When I’ve had some sleep, I’m sure your little outbursts will turn me the fuck on, and I will enjoy finding out why my baby brother couldn’t keep his hands off you, but I will warn you, in my current mood, I honestly don’t fucking care what state you’re in when I do fuck you. Alive, bleeding, or quadriplegic, so I suggest...” Leaning putridly close, he ran his nose along my cheekbone before whispering in my ear. “...you listen to me and be a good girl if you want to stay alive.”
Tearing myself away, I tried to unlock our hands, but he dug his fingernails into my knuckles.
I despised him.
I cursed him with a thousand hexes.
“That goddess you slept with was called Jess. You shot her. She’s probably dead. Just like Sully is—”
“Dead. Yes, I truly hope so. A tad inconvenient seeing as I didn’t get everything I needed, but...ah, well.” Flicking his gaze to the pilots behind me, he asked, “Can a man survive a fall from that height?”
I looked over my shoulder, hope flaring, despair cloying.
The pilots threw each other a look before the older, greyer one shrugged. “We were over a hundred feet high.”
“So...is that a yes or a no?”
“Depends.” The younger pilot scowled. “Our velocity was still increasing, the tropics mean the ocean is warm not cold...the other man fell before him and broke the surface tension of the water.”