Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Scarlet’s easy smile and also the easy way she drops F-bombs actually put me at ease. I find myself liking this badass granny, even if she’s firmly on the side of the baddies. She’s not on my side, at least, so that makes her a baddy. I guess.
I bite down on the pizza, chewing slowly. The cheesy, meaty goodness explodes in my mouth, and I nearly let out a groan. I have no idea how long I was out, but I’m absolutely starving.
“Alden is a good kid. Really.”
“Alden?” I garble around the pizza.
Scarlet nods. “That’s his name. Goodness mercy, what an ass. He didn’t even introduce himself to you. Yes, Alden. Anyway, you’ll have to forgive him. As I said, he had a rough start in life, and sometimes it shows. He was raised by a father who was more ruthless than you can imagine. He was grooming his son to be his successor, which meant showing no mercy and allowing no weakness. The fact that Alden had any goodness left in him at all is astounding, really. He watched his father and mother be gunned down by a rival drug lord. He only escaped because he jumped out of a three-story window, straight to the ground, and ran for his life. He broke his arm in the fall, but he splinted it himself.
“He lived on the streets for a year and a half before he was caught trying to jack a car. Steal it, I mean. It was a rather expensive one, I’m afraid. He was caught and was going to be sentenced, but the judge was a good friend of mine. It’s amazing what a hundred thousand dollars can do. Anyway, I’d done my research, and I knew who Alexander Alegrando was. Yes, yes…” She waves her hand in the air and winks at me. Yes. Winks. “Of course, he changed his name after. He had to go into hiding for a number of years, and then his death was faked and reported. That way, the men looking for him, loose ends and all, were satisfied that there would be no threat to them, and he could really start again.”
I slowly lower the pizza slice back to the plate. Dang it, I’ve lost my appetite again. “I…I know why you’re doing this.” My mouth is suddenly so dry again, and I wish I had a drink. Maybe it’s this family’s form of torture not to give me one. “You’re telling me this so that I feel sorry for him. Compassion, even. You’re trying to appeal to my better nature, my soft heart. You want me to feel sorry for the boy who never knew love, the kid who watched his family get murdered and who had to scrape by with broken bones, starvation, and no home for over a year.”
Scarlet’s white brow arches up over her perfectly clear green eyes. “And do you?”
I lean forward and set the plate on the ground. “Yeah,” I huff. “Maybe I do.” It’s true. My stomach is all pinched, and my chest aches. How could anyone hear things like that and not be affected? “Not just sorry. My whole body aches.”
Scarlet nods. “You’re lucky you were spared that life. Your adoptive parents didn’t want you to know any of the details about who you were. They protected you that way as well.”
When I think about my mom and dad, fear makes my throat close up, and I nearly gag on the acrid taste coating the back of my tongue. I’m not so sure that’s the lingering effects of the drugs. I think it’s the taste of anguish.
“You’re a librarian, so I know you’re smart. You know what this means. You can’t go back to your regular life now.”
“Can’t or won’t be allowed to?”
“Well, the latter,” Scarlet admits. “But why would you want to? You could be a part of something so much bigger than yourself. You know what we really do here? Well, it’s the equivalent of dick punching a bunch of assholes right in the junk.”
“I think dick punching means in the junk.”
Scarlet’s brow furrows. “Yes. I suppose you’re right.” She cackles, and honestly, it’s an adorably evil laugh. “If you don’t want to sock it to ‘em, and I understand you might not, given how you were raised, and if you don’t want to help the world be a better place and eliminate the bad aspects that we can—the drugs, the entrapment of young, desperate women, the enslavement of good people who’ve fallen on hard times, the rivers of blood, the schemes and the scams that force people to lose everything, and the stealing of wealth to feed the great greed of powerful men…Well, I’m not going to force you. You have to want to be involved in his life. It’s dangerous, and it comes with little thanks.