Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 55792 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55792 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Shrugging, I look at each of them and say, “I don’t know. It’s so quiet. There’s a calmness to this evening. One I definitely didn’t expect. Especially since we still have three large ceremonies to attend. I mean, you’re all three about to take over organisations that have been around for thousands of years.”
The guys are silent for a long while before Judah speaks, “That’s true, but they’re also roles we’ve all been playing for a few years now. I’ve been running my father’s company since he died, and Valen has had to oversee a lot of agreements since his mother can’t do it. And Kai’s had to accompany Mario to quite a few different meetings with their contacts.”
He’s right. “I suppose so,” I whisper. “I still find that the quiet is too much for me. I almost expect a hundred men to burst through the doors and start shooting again.”
“Don’t jinx it, princess,” Kai throws out before he swallows back his drink and looks over to Valen for a refill.
“I don’t mean to, honestly. Perhaps I’m just so used to something going on, that the calm is strange.”
“I mean,” Valen adds as he waggles his eyebrows. “There are loads of games we can play,” he says.
“Is sex the only thing you think about?” This comes from an exasperated Judah who makes me laugh.
“I mean, not always,” Valen shrugs, then pouts as he gets the bottle of whisky from the cabinet, and settles back into his position on the sofa.
“I think we should settle in the home cinema and watch a movie,” Kai says, surprising me. “What?” He looks at me with a grin. “I do normal things too.”
“Ha,” my laugh bounces off the walls as the music dies as the sound falls from my lips. “What would you like to watch then?”
He ponders for a moment before he says, “We can watch one of the classics like Dracula, or something scary.”
I’m shaking my head before he has time to finish what he’s saying. “No scary movies. How about something lighter, or perhaps action?”
In unison, as if they are reading each other’s minds, all three men say, “Fast and the Furious franchise.”
I can’t help but groan, but then again, I can’t deny there is some delicious eye candy in those movies. I nod. “Fine.”
“You know there are now ten movies out?” Val challenges as we all move from the living room to the cinema. I didn’t even know this room existed. It’s darkened with blackout curtains and comfortable lounge seats which are soft velvet. The screen is pretty much the size it would be in a normal movie house.
“This is amazing.”
“And it’s all ours,” Judah says as he pulls me down to sit beside him, and Kai and Valen snuggle in beside me. When Jude picks up a phone on the arm rest, he orders, “Can you bring some popcorn and drinks down for us. Just a selection of whatever is chilled.”
It doesn’t take long for one of the staff who I usually see working in the kitchen to make her way down to where we’re seated. A small trolley is filled with three buckets of popcorn, bags of sweets, and I note there are doors at the bottom of the silver tray and when they’re opened, there is a selection of wine, beer, and some cider.
This is nothing like I’ve experienced before. My own personal cinema, along with three of the most beautiful men in the world.
I am a lucky girl.
A CEREMONY
JUDAH
I open my eyes to the darkness outside. The sun hasn’t risen yet, and when I push off the bed, careful not to wake anyone else still asleep, I pad silently over to the balcony. I should go downstairs and make coffee, but I realise that I’m nervous.
It’s been the same emotion within a few days, and now it’s back and I don’t know how to deal with it. This isn’t like the wedding. When I married Brielle, it was easier than the idea of what I’m going to go through today.
I recall the day I stepped up from Capo. My father ensured I went through the due process. I didn’t skip anything because I was his son.
All my life, I’ve waited for this moment. The day I wake up on my twenty-fifth birthday, and I gain some form of independence, but I also inherit a world that will answer to me. A family, a clan, an organisation.
I don’t expect it to be easy today. It will be exhausting because I’ll have to answer to the men who worked with my father all his life.
They’re not going to take it easy on me and I don’t want them to. I should be treated like every other upcoming Boss there is and I will make it through.
Granted, there are vows and promises to recite, there’s blood to be spilled, and there is a contract that I will have to sign in the crimson that drips from my hand. The ceremony may only last the day, but the clan is there forever. And in a few weeks, Jordan will have to return to Black Hollow to step up into the Underboss position. He will have to go through all this bullshit like I did.