Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“Is it hard?” he asked with a shrug. “Yes, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Just when you finally get a routine nailed down, they decide to fuck with you and change it. My daughter is latched on to my wife’s tits, so I don’t get to play with them whenever I want. The last time I had a good night of sleep was before I was a father. I’m grouchy sometimes, and when Scarlett gets drained, she lashes out at me. But I can honestly tell you it’s also the best thing. The best fucking thing ever.” He said it with complete sincerity as he looked me in the eye. “The parents who say it’s magical every second of every day are full of shit. It’s not magical. They pull the shit out of their diapers and smear it on the wall. You get vomit on your five-hundred-euro shirts. The lows are low, but let me tell you…the highs are high.” He raised his hand in the air as far as he could. “The best way to describe it is like going on a trip. You’ve got to pack, you’ve got to sit on a plane, you’re sleep-deprived by the time you land, then you gotta get to the hotel, and that’s when you realize you forgot to pack something important. But then you look at the ocean or the mountains or whatever the fuck you came to see, and the view makes it all worth it.”
I let the smoke fill my mouth as I listened, letting the smoky flavors of chocolate and licorice coat my tongue in a cloudy haze. “You think you’re going to have more?”
“No,” he said with a quiet chuckle. “Two is enough. Don’t want to be outnumbered.” He took a drink of his scotch and looked relaxed, not annoyed by the blaring music he had to scream over. “What about you?”
“What about me, what?”
“You think you’ll ever change your mind about kids?”
“No.”
“Maybe if you meet the right woman, you’ll feel differently.”
“I already met the right woman—in case you forgot.”
He stilled as his eyes quickly darted away in shame. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
I blew the smoke out of my mouth and let it float in front of my face before it drifted away.
“You’re in a bad mood.”
“I’m always in a bad mood.”
“Not when you see me.”
A sarcastic smirk moved on to my lips. “That’s what you think.”
“That’s what I know. So, what’s up?” He reached for a cigar from the tray and lit up, continuing to ignore the entertainment directly in front of us. This part of the club was exclusive to members like me, so the hottest women were put in here, while the rest were for the public.
“I figured out who killed Killian.”
When Axel heard that, he stiffened in seriousness. He didn’t bombard me with questions.
“I warned him I don’t know how many fucking times, and he didn’t listen.”
“Who was it?”
“The Brotherhood.”
“Who paid for the contract?”
“That I don’t know.” I spoke with the cigar tucked in the corner of my mouth. “I tried to make a deal with Bolton, but he wouldn’t negotiate. Says his integrity can’t be bought, but how much integrity can a killer really have?”
Axel let the cigar rest between his fingertips as he stared at my face.
“He said he would give me the name for a chunk of my business. In his fucking dreams…”
“Where does that leave you?” Axel asked.
“I told him I would come for him, and if he doesn’t want to end up like my brother did, he better see reason.” Killian had been gone five years now. His death had been shrouded in mystery. He’d gotten involved in the banking sector, not the banking system most people knew, but the corrupt one that no one knew about. Full of fraud, corruption, and scandal. The kind of shit that made major banks fail. I wasn’t sure what he’d done to get a hit put on him, but he’d obviously pissed off the wrong person. I didn’t have any leads and didn’t uncover any once I had the power of the Skull Kings in my grasp, so I’d gone to the Brotherhood directly. Most people wouldn’t challenge a group of merciless killers, but I wasn’t most people.
“You think he’ll come around?”
“No,” I said. “But that’s fine because I want to kill him anyway.”
“You want to kill the leader of the Brotherhood?” he asked with slight skepticism.
I let the smoke coat my tongue once more, felt my mouth grow dry as the smoke absorbed all the moisture. “I want to kill the man who ended my brother’s life—and I will.”
5
ASTRID
My husband was gone for a couple days on assignment. He didn’t give me the details of his whereabouts because I’d rather not know. Whenever he left, it meant he was about to kill someone and hide the body so well that no one would ever find it.