Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
I can almost feel the daggers Vaden is shooting at War. “We’re laughing until we’re not and Priest shoots you between the eyes.”
“My aim is better!” I call out, sliding into my 34. I push the start button and breathe out a sigh as she purrs beneath me like a well-groomed beast.
There’s a knock on my window. I flutter my lashes up at my twin and crank it down. Our similarities end with our hair color. Where my eyes are green like Mom’s, his are honey hazel and rimmed black. How he stands at six-six and me five-four I will never know. The math is not mathing.
“Yes, brother?”
“Don’t look at me like that.” He flicks my forehead with his finger. “You ain’t racing at Devil’s Cockpit.” My smile falls. “I mean it, Halen. You’re not. I need you to hang back with the girls for tonight.”
“What!” I snap. “Do I look like a babysitter to you?” It doesn’t help that I’m the oldest girl, even if not by much. The others don’t need a damn babysitter. Except for maybe Stella.
“You look like you’ll be whatever I want you to be.” He leans down, tossing a mask onto the passenger seat. “It’s Friday the thirteenth.”
“I don’t want—” He stalks off once again. My window closes as I open my Spotify playlist. I need backup.
I tap my best friend’s number, checking my lipstick in the rearview mirror before directing my car out of the circular driveway. Riverside is a smaller town, with a population of 13,534. The population is important, because anytime it drops, we make sure it’s from natural causes. If anyone steps into our town and inflicts harm, they answer to our Fathers, and soon… to us.
“I’m ready, but hear me out…”
I slump against my chair, narrowing my eyes even though I know she can’t see me. No one relied on me to take care of others, but I liked to anyway. It’s like I was birthed with a natural flair to protect my family, so I’d never complain, but if they thought I was babysitting, then maybe they wouldn’t find out about what we really do.
Sometimes, and I mean mostly every day, we needed a fucking break. To be away from the glamour and gold, and just… exist. Do whatever the fuck we want without our brothers looking down on us like pesky house cats that hadn’t been fed in two hours.
“I don’t want to hear you out, Evie!” Evelyn Paige has been in my life since we were two years old. Mother said we reminded her of her and her best friend Tate. I wasn’t so sure if that was true. I love Aunty Tay, but the bitch is as crazy as Mom. I swear, we all watch as they enable each other through bad decisions. Now it’s shopping, holidays, and petty revenge. I can’t imagine what they would have been like as teenagers.
Evie is not that. Not even close.
“You better be ready!” I tap the indicator to turn down her street. It’s a little after ten, so it’s quiet when I pull my car up to the curb outside her house, the RB engine rumbling beneath my butt.
I open a new text to her, tucking my long chocolate brown hair behind my ear. When she doesn’t answer, I peer up at her house.
All homes in Riverside are somewhere on the scale of big money energy, and Evie’s dad’s pockets were one of the steepest in our town. Her parents owned a billion-dollar umbrella company and decided to raise their only daughter here. To be given the right to buy in Riverside, you have to get council approval, and that council is the Elite Kings. So, her family either has history tied to one of the ten Founding Families, or they came in by jumping into Dad’s. Considering his Forbes ranking, I’d say it could be a combination of both.
The light on their patio switches on and a glimmer of chestnut hair glows under the light. Evelyn Paige was anything but basic. She always went all out with her outfits, even when we’d be chilling.
She leisurely descends the wide porch wearing a beige matching set that includes a short skirt, a little crop top, knee-high beige boots that have a relaxed fit around her legs, and a long trench coat. She has her hair in a tight, low bun and is wearing white-rimmed sunglasses that cover her amber eyes.
The passenger door opens, and she slides in, moving the discarded mask onto the floor.
“You look hot, bitch, but are those my shoes?” She leans over the center to scan my outfit. Tassel-ripped, high-waisted, wide-bottom jeans with knee tears over the thighs, paired with Air 1s. I kept the top simple with a tied white crop top that tucks beneath my boobs.