Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Junior was quiet.
It was unsettling.
“I think…” He shared a look with me that I knew meant he didn’t like this, not one bit. “I think we’re being targeted. While the De Lange kids can’t enroll in Eagle Elite without getting their parts chopped off and sold—they sure as hell can enroll in the community college next door, and all we have is a fucking fence separating us.”
My stomach dropped. “We’ll have to vet every single student.”
“Shit, who has time for that?” Ash groaned into his hands.
“We have no choice.” I tapped my fingers against my cold leather skirt and nodded at Junior. “We’re going to host our usual back to school party.”
“And kill everyone?” Claire asked.
I burst out laughing. “No, we aren’t killing everyone. We’re moving the first party of the year, and we’re inviting our new neighbors.”
“Uh, is that really the best idea?” Izzy asked, her blue eyes wide. “I mean if people are intoxicated—”
“No drinking more than one drink.” I crossed my arms. “And everyone needs to be armed, even you, Claire.”
Ash wrapped an arm around her.
“I guess all that needs to be decided is…” Breaker looked around the group. “Who gets to tell the dads?”
“Not it!” we all yelled in unison.
I groaned. “Fine, we’ll just all go together. Family dinner time!”
Breaker cursed. “I nearly lost a pinkie last week.”
“Then stop stealing the bread basket!” I all but yelled. “We have one rule! It’s communal, and I won’t be held responsible for my fork if you try to take more than one roll before it’s been shared with the table!”
“Best Friday night ever.” Ash burst out laughing.
Breaker narrowed his eyes. “Yes. So fun. Losing limbs.”
“Let’s go, no more classes, we gotta decide how to angle this, so nobody gets shot over chicken parmesan.”
“A year ago, I would have thought you were kidding,” Claire said under her breath.
“And now?” I grinned.
“Now I’m alarmed when nobody has a weapon.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Junior muttered as we all started walking toward the parking lot.
I was lost in my own thoughts until I felt a hand on my ass.
I froze.
Junior squeezed and then whispered. “Forgetting something?”
I turned around and frowned, and then he pulled me against him and very strategically shoved my underwear back into my hand and winked.
“You’re a monster.” I hissed.
He leaned over and kissed my right cheek, then my left, his teal eyes narrowed in on my mouth. “I’m taking that as a compliment since we both know you prefer monster over man.”
Chapter Four
Junior
People warned me from a young age that there was something tainted in my blood. I laughed it off. After all, my dad was one of the most bad-ass bosses on the planet.
Not just powerful, but he was my hero.
He knew everyone’s secrets and used them against them like a chess game that only he knew the rules to.
Masterful would be one way to describe Phoenix Nicolasi.
I had no idea that while I was making plans, the rest of the bosses were moving behind our backs, making a list of our strengths, weaknesses, of ways to break us over and over again until all we felt was this craving to win.
This intense need to prove ourselves.
To kill in order to do it.
To crave the blood as much as our next breath.
“Why!” I yelled at my dad, blood dripping from my mouth as he took another swing at me. I ducked; he narrowly missed my front teeth. “Why!”
I was screaming.
And for the first time in my life, at the age of fifteen, my dad shed a tear; it mixed with blood as it slid down his chiseled hard face.
“Because,” he finally rasped. “It’s the only way.”
“Fighting me is the only way? Making me bleed?” He went from hero to monster that summer.
“No, son.” He peeled off his shirt showing too many scars to count; scars that were covered by tattoos and thick bands of muscle that I knew packed a punch that could easily knock me unconscious or hospitalize me. “It’s the only way to keep you safe.”
The next blow knocked me off my feet, and the hero-worship I’d had for my father was lost to the darkness of that final gut-wrenching hit. That day he reminded us we were pawns.
That day I decided… I would be a king.
I didn’t tell anyone, but I cried myself to sleep that night.
And there she was, my angel, Serena.
She slipped into my bedroom when nobody was looking, she took my face between her hands and kissed each bandaged cut and promised that one day everything would be okay.
“One day, Junior, the fighting will be over.”
“Promise?” I could barely get the words out. My body hurt in places I didn’t even know existed.
She gripped my hand in hers. “I promise.”
I tried not to think about her promises just like I tried not to think about her kisses; it pissed me off knowing she lied. Knowing that when it came down to it, she didn’t trust me the way I’d trusted her, didn’t understand that we were still on the fucking chessboard playing a game we had to win.