Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
We went to their pool hall, of course. But that was about it.
That said, this was some big shit.
Shit that could blow back on all of us if a war broke out between the Novikoffs and whatever was left of the Albanian mob.
Especially if Erion took it personally that none of us had stood up to fight the Russians with his family.
“You got eyes out looking for signs of him?” I asked.
“Yeah. But I’m coming to you because—“
“Judge,” I cut him off.
He’d have been green in the organization when Erion went away, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know a lot about him.
“Yeah,” Cillian said. “Anything he can give us will help us prepare. Family that might still be around. A girl who maybe waited for him. That kinda shit.”
“I will talk to him tonight,” I assured him. “He will probably be up with that shrieking nephew of yours,” I said, watching as Cillian’s worry fell away at the mention of his sister’s kid.
The Murphy brothers, somewhat predictably, were all about family.
So when their little sister told them she was having a baby, her five big brothers had doubled down on their overprotectiveness.
Then, when the baby came, they’d been fucking obsessed with him.
I could see in Cillian’s almost translucent blue eyes that he had been having that fucking ‘baby fever’ shit that I heard people talking about, but hadn’t experienced myself.
I couldn’t say I was exactly eager to pass on my shitty genes to the next generation.
But, yeah, the kid was kind of interesting.
His lungs were impressive.
“How’s Delaney doing?” he asked.
“Since you saw her eight hours ago? Fine,” I said, smirking at the somewhat bashful look he gave me. “Judge takes the night shift so she can get a full night. And Morgaine likes to lend a hand too. She’s got that itch,” I added.
“How can you not when you’re around him?” Cillian asked. “But anyway,” he said, shaking away the uncle-love and slipping back into professional mode. “That is even more reason we need to get and stay ahead of this shit. We have ourselves and that baby to protect now.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding.
I mean, did I feel the same connection that Cillian did to the kid?
No.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t family.
I would kill for him.
I’d die for him too if I had to.
That was what family did.
“I will talk to Judge and get back to you when you open up tomorrow night,” I told him, nodding back to the bar.
“Appreciate it,” he said. “We’re better off working together as much as possible on this one.”
With that, Cillian turned and made his way back toward the bar while I stayed on the street, glancing around like I might see the elusive Erion Kadare sneaking around in the shadows.
I didn’t see him.
But I did see someone else.
Just the shadowy outline of Mikhail Novikoff near his pool hall.
How long had he been there?
What had he thought he’d been seeing?
Did he know about Erion?
Did he think Cillian and I were working together, and possibly against, him and his brother?
Shit was starting to get interesting in this town.
And yet all I could seem to think about was Nyx and her strange mood.
“Fuck,” I hissed, reaching to run a hand down my face.
I needed to get it the fuck together.
CHAPTER THREE
Nyx
Have you ever made a mistake so huge that it fucks up your entire life?
That was what Czar Petcova was to me.
The biggest mistake of my fucking life.
In my defense, the man had been hot.
Stupid hot.
The kind of guy who you might see strutting across a stage in leather pants with no shirt having hundreds of women toss their panties at him hot.
Tall, fit, dark-haired, golden-brown-eyed, with a jaw that could cut glass, thick lashes, ink, and that kinda sexy smirk that said he was always up to no good.
Yeah, that was what Czar was.
Always up to no good.
And to a younger, stupider, reckless version of myself, all that charm, and all that danger, it was pure catnip to me.
Czar had sauntered his sexy ass into town when I was the ripe old age of nineteen, just recently finished with high school, and not sure what the fuck I wanted to do with my life.
It wasn’t like there was any college money lying around. Mom traded every spare buck she had for booze.
And, well, I was just never that great of a student. Not stupid, just distracted. I did great on those asinine standardized tests. It was the whole paying attention in class and, you know, actually showing up to class part that I sucked at.
So there were no scholarships in my future either.
Shady Valley didn’t have a whole lot of options when it came to career opportunities. Especially back then. It had been growing slowly but surely since then, but in my late teens, the career opportunities were to work at the prison, the grocery store, the diner, the school, the police station, or the bar.