Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Did you give her the full dose?” he asks, clipping a heart rate monitor to her finger.
“Just like you said.”
“We have approximately one hour before she wakes. If something goes wrong—”
“That’s what you’re here for.”
Roger’s bushy eyebrows pull together. He’s in his mid-fifties and he’s been loyally serving my family for decades. I can tell he hates this. “I can’t do much if she starts to choke on her own vomit or if she goes into cardiac arrest.”
“She won’t. You’ll make sure of it.” I stare at the doctor before I decide to climb into the back too. Ren sits up front with the driver, a young guy named Wolfram that everyone calls Wolfie.
We head out. The doc keeps a close eye on Hellie while I do my best not to stare at the unconscious girl. I’ve known her tangentially for a while now—her father’s infamous in this town—but I haven’t seen her in person since she was a kid.
Hellie’s beautiful. Gorgeous, actually, with this thick, curly raven-black hair that falls in waves around an angular face. Full lips, fierce eyes—when she’s conscious, anyway—and a body that’s clearly used to exercise, but still full and soft in all the right places.
I had no clue my new toy would be so shiny and pretty.
The doc keeps her comfortable, constantly checking to make sure she’s doing okay, and Wolfie gets us out to the desert compound as quickly as he can. He knows this drive better than almost anyone else in the world, and he’s one of the few people I’d trust to make it at night. The desert house is hidden out among the mesas and the cliffs at the end of a long, dangerous stretch of gravel road and a barely marked pathway.
Once there, I carry Hellie into her room and place her softly onto the bed. “I’ll stay and monitor her,” Roger says. “But this is going to cost you.”
“It always does, Doc.” I pat him on the shoulder and leave him to tend to the girl. But I pause in the door, glancing back at her sleeping body.
What’s that I feel in my chest? An elevated heart rate, but something else, like my nerves are jangling and on fire. The moment I saw her, I felt it, a raw blast of pure emotion, something like desire, something like hunger. But I don’t even know her, and I can’t imagine why I’d feel much of anything at all.
I head back to my office. Ren’s off making his own calls, updating everyone on a successful mission, while I sit behind my desk, pour a whiskey, and phone my older brother.
“How’d it go?” Adler asks.
“Better than expected. She tried to run.”
He grunts. “You have her though?”
“Nobody saw. I was thorough.”
“Good. I’ll let Frost and Gallo hear the good news.”
“Don’t bother, Ren’s already spreading the word.” My jaw works as I take a long sip of the whiskey. “Not that you give a shit, but I don’t like this.”
“I know. You told me already.”
“She’s not involved.”
“True, but she’s her old man’s only link back to Vegas these days, especially ever since the old lady passed a little while back.”
I grunt. The old lady is Hellie’s grandmother, the only guardian she’s ever known. “He won’t come to help her. You know that.”
“I can’t say for sure. I’m a father now, and I’ve got to admit, parenthood fucks you up in very specific ways.”
“Not him.” No, the great and wonderful Danny Accardi, one of the most successful Vegas con men to ever work the Strip, does not care enough about anyone to get himself killed trying to help them.
“There’s no other option. Would you rather give the girl over to those animals?”
“That’s the only reason I agreed to your plan.”
“Then be thankful it happened at all. My people told me Frost was about to make his own move, and you know what that psychopath would do to her if he got the chance.”
“Hm,” I say, leaning back with a sigh.
“Make the girl understand. Be reasonable about it. Yes, her father knew what he was doing when he knocked over that fucking truck, but she’s got to know something. She’s not dumb enough to protect the old bastard.”
“We’ll see.”
“I hope we will. Get this shit cleared up, Erick. It’s embarrassing for the family.”
“Wouldn’t want to embarrass the family.”
Adler sighs, frustration obvious in his voice. “Just figure it out.”
He hangs up. I stare at the phone for a moment before sipping my whiskey, thinking about Hellie back in that room, her thick, black hair spread out around her like a demon’s halo. Why did she have to run like that? She had to have known I was going to catch her. She knew me the second she saw me, which means the girl isn’t stupid.
But then again, she ran.