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)
Granny’s dentures nearly rocket out of her mouth as her hands fly to her lean hips. She’s a tiny lady, barely five feet tall. She works out, takes self-defense classes, and knows martial arts. She’s got a tight body for an older lady—god, I know how that sounds—and I might be biased, but I think she’s the most beautiful older woman on the planet. Right now, even with her five-inch heels on, she’s so much smaller than me that she looks like an angry gnat.
An angry gnat that is packing heat.
I know that Granny has a gun tucked into the back of her pants, underneath the jacket of her black power suit. A gun that she knows how to use. She’s a better shot than I am, that’s for damn sure.
“So what do you want me to do? Pinch the girl or get her to agree to marry your sorry ass?”
I hold up my hands. “Hey. Whoa. Sorry? Whose ass is sorry? That money would go to the organization as a whole. We’ve talked about this.”
“Don’t call us an organization,” Granny hisses. “That makes us sound exactly what I don’t want to sound like. We might be organized, but we’re not an organization.”
“God, you know what I mean. Fine. All of us not organized people you adopted and taught to be total badasses who have a common goal of righting the wrongs in the world and taking down the baddies—we’ll all benefit. The money isn’t mine. It’s not going to line my pockets, just like the money we take from those power-hungry, grasping, greedy, terrible assholes don’t line our pockets. It goes into a common fund and gets invested into putting more good in the world and funding our activities. So, I suppose if you have to pinch her, pinch her. Do what you have to do to make her agree to be my wife because it’s happening whether I have to drag her there or not.”
“Don’t be a beast,” Granny huffs. “It doesn’t suit you. You certainly will not drag her there against her will. What kind of animal have I raised?”
“Sorry. I…didn’t mean it like that. I’ve already told her I’m not a bad person. I’m not going to hurt her or throw her over my shoulder and cart her there.”
“Or chloroform her again,” Pink adds.
“Thanks, Pink,” I mutter. “Yeah, no. We’re not going that route again. I just didn’t see a way around it. I thought she’d put up a real fuss, and it was broad daylight. She doesn’t go out after six at night, so what was I supposed to do?”
“Did you ever think of approaching her and telling her who she really was and asking her to help?” Granny asks that with a smirk that says, of course, she knows I didn’t consider it.
I respond with a smirk of my own that says I didn’t consider it because it would have been stupid and impossible. “You haven’t met her. She doesn’t listen to sense. She doesn’t believe anything I’m saying. I couldn’t explain something to her and turn her loose, back into the world. She’d know too much.”
“You told her everything, and you’re going to turn her loose anyway, with a butt ton of money, just hoping that an NDA and a couple billion is going to keep her from talking?” Granny slaps her thighs and lets out a hoot. “Oh lord, the stench is real.”
“Real good?”
“Real bad! I’m talking about your stench. The stench of your attitude. You kidnapped the girl, drugged her, and stuffed her in your disgusting basement, which is unfinished and full of spiders, mice, and other horrific horrors. Use your brain, child. Didn’t I teach you a damn thing?”
“I—yes—you did.”
“Not when it comes to women, apparently. You think you’re going to charm a lady like that?”
I let out a disgusted snort while my men started doing an uncomfortable shuffle. “How should I do it then? How should I fix it and convince her? She really doesn’t believe anything I said.”
Just then, the doorbell rings and the guys let out excited cheers. Granny studies the plates on the counter, but she waits until Pink leaves and returns, carrying no less than twelve extra large boxes. Hey, we’re five grown men here. Twelve pizzas are more like a snack.
“Is that anchovies?” Granny nearly gags when Pink pops the lid on his box.
“Oh yeah,” Pink says and grins. “Most definitely.”
The scent of fish fills up the kitchen, and now we’re all trying not to gag. It’s even worse when Pink grabs the barbeque sauce, the hot sauce, and the mayo and slathers a good amount of each on top of the pizza. He adds a fistful of pickled jalapenos to top it all off, then walks across the vast kitchen and pulls up a seat at the huge antique table. It seats twelve, just in case my brothers from different mothers ever drop by.