Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 153544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
“I swear to fuck I’m done with twin fuckery after dealing with Mia and Maya’s swapping shit. Speaking of my sisters, let me make sure they’re in their dorms and not sneaking somewhere and causing someone to lose their lives.” Nikolai fishes out his phone and taps a message—probably to his bodyguards. Being part of the Bratva gives both Jeremy and Nikolai special security that even the campus can’t interfere with.
“Make sure to tighten security.” Jeremy’s brow furrows. “I caught Anoushka sneaking around in the fight club with her new friends.”
“Shouldn’t have let her go to the enemy’s territory,” Nikolai says absentmindedly. “Now, she’ll start developing habits of fraternizing with those posh kids.”
“Over my dead body.” Jeremy takes a long drink. “I don’t like her friends. Especially that loud silver-haired one.”
“Cecily Knight,” I supply for him. “Her father owns an investment corporation and her mother is some higher-up in social services.”
“And you know all of this because?” Jeremy asks.
“I do my research about our neighbors. Besides, I told you Aiden and Elsa King, Creighton and Eli’s parents, are friends with my folks. And so are Cole and Silver Nash, Ava’s parents.”
Nikolai pulls the ice pack away from his face, revealing a purple bruise near his temple. “How about fake lotus and Landon’s parents?”
“Never met them. Heard of them, though. Their father has half of the King fortune. The other half belongs to Aiden. Their mother is a renowned artist.” I type her name in the search bar of my phone and show them the sketch paintings of people, places, and memories.
Nikolai whistles. “Don’t understand shit about art, but these would look sick as tattoos.” He snatches the phone to stare at a family picture taken at some opening of a gallery.
Levi holds Astrid by the waist as she smiles at the camera, seeming happy, fulfilled, like Mom does whenever Gareth and I show up to her charities.
Landon stands beside his mother, holding her shoulder. Brandon is by his father’s side, grabbing Glyndon’s shoulder.
Among all of them, Landon’s smile is the fakest. No one would discern it, not even his parents, but he’s putting on the most epic show so that even he probably believes he’s happy to be there.
Been there, done that, have the pictures to prove it.
Glyn’s smile however is the saddest. She doesn’t want to smile, looking a bit uncomfortable in her formal little dark blue dress that matches her mother’s pantsuit.
She’s putting on a show but in a completely different way than her brother. They’re both pretending to be happy, but she’s the only one who’s feeling bad about it.
“Met them only once and I can tell this is the fake lotus.” Nikolai taps Brandon’s face. “On closer inspection, he’s hot. Not sure if I’d fuck him or his sister. Maybe both at the same time if they’re not weirded out about seeing each other naked.”
I pull my phone from his hand and stalk to the stairs without a word. Then fetch my Zippo and throw it in a flash. It hits Nikolai on the side of his head—the injured side.
Good. I see my quarterback skills aren’t completely gone.
Nikolai slams a hand on his temple and howls, “What the fuck was that for, you motherfucking fuck?”
Jeremy tips his head against the sofa and laughs, the sound following after me as I reach the top of the stairs.
My steps are nonchalant, normal, but my body’s temperature is not. Maybe I should beat Nikolai to the point that Aunt Rai won’t recognize him next time she sees him.
Gareth’s door opens and he steps out holding the phone to his face, a smile on his lips. “There he is.”
He comes to stand beside me, placing the phone in our direct view. Mom and Dad are on the other end, looking to be in the garden.
It’s around dusk there, and the sun makes its descent behind them, giving them a picturesque background.
Reina Ellis is a beautiful blonde—the type you find on the cover of magazines and wonder how the hell does she look to be in her thirties when she’s in her late forties. She has a natural shine in her blue eyes, one that neither Gareth nor I inherited.
My father, however, has a harder look, and it probably has to do with his line of work and the big-fish-eats-little-fish mentality. Let’s say time has treated Asher Carson well, too. He has sharp features that both my brother and I got in our genes, and he passed out his green eyes to Gareth. In a way, my brother is a copy of him, both in looks and personality.
I’m the bleaker version of both of them.
The black sheep of the family.
An automatic smile pulls on my lips. “Hi, Mom. Looking great, as usual.”
“Don’t give me that, you ungrateful son. You haven’t called me in two days.”