Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
“I tied him to the chair, and I kept hitting, and hitting, until he told me where that bomb was. The bomb squad found it in the public library, ten feet from children’s story time.”
I slowly bobbed my head. “That’s when you accepted the ends justify the means.”
“No,” Liam said, tipping my chin to face him. “It was a year after that when one of Genny’s best friends was gang-raped by the soccer team seniors that I accepted it. They terrified that poor girl into silence but Genny knew it was them. A week before, Nicole published an article that revealed half of them were on steroids. The principal disbanded the team and they all lost their scholarships.
“You know my sister. Fifteen years old, but she was set to plow her way through seven eighteen- and nineteen-year-old guys twice her size. Either she would beat a confession out of them, get caught, and be expelled at fifteen. Or I could get that girl justice. I questioned each of them, but they all swore they were innocent even with scratches on their faces.
“The guys stomped on her hands to stop her from typing another word. I only had to stomp on two to loosen their lips.”
Wetness dampened my lids. “Then it was over. The end of your normal life.”
“Then I realized the cost of my normal life. For years, my parents made the hard choices—doing things they weren’t proud of to make a better city. As many people hated my mother for revealing the ledger’s secrets and bringing countless rapists, murderers, and traffickers to justice. She ended that bloody war for the book and broke its power over Cinco.”
Liam stroked my cheek—his touch impossibly gentle. “I did terrible things, but today Nicole is living happily with her boyfriend and those children were saved. I realized that even on my worst day, I can do good for this city and my family. I made my peace with that decision then, and I’m at peace with it now. You have to decide if you can be too.”
I pressed my lips to his thumb. “Will you think less of me if I can’t?”
“No, Mackenzie. Never.” He kissed me—soft, perfect, and over too quickly. “But I will tell you: this time you won’t be alone.”
I considered everything he said truly and honestly. The average person didn’t have to make the hard choices he did, but that’s what Liam was trying to tell me. He wasn’t an average person. Liam was the son of a Merchant. Just by spinning in their orbit, he was targeted by a violent, vengeful man. Isn’t that exactly what happened to me? Didn’t I react out of pain and fear because the monster before me could not be held above my innocent baby?
Liam said he would always be honest with me, and that’s what he was doing then. The time would come— The time had already come that a bad person knew information that would save the people I loved. What was I going to do about it?
“I can’t decide right now.” It was me that said it, but I didn’t recognize my voice. “Will you let me see him first? Talk to him?”
“Of course.” Liam came around and opened my door.
My heart thumped faster than the bass as he escorted me to a back door. My palm was sweaty in his palm, which both made me want to let go and hold him tighter.
There was no question Vito Bernardi was a bad man. If he’s been with the Brotherhood the whole time, he knew they were behind the bombing of Genny’s warehouse, killing three of her people. He not only knew, he told Genny he jacked off fantasizing about their deaths.
What if he knows about the Brotherhood’s next plot to attack the Merchants? What if he knows who the leader is? This war could end tonight, if I can summon the woman who put a gun to a man’s head.
We entered a dim, carpet-covered hallway. I don’t know what I was expecting of Astoria, but I should’ve known anything connected to Liam would be classed up in the extreme.
I inhaled freesia-scented air, marveling that the place smelled so good with so many sweaty bodies grinding on the other side of the hall’s double doors. I could tell the main club was through there from the pulsating strobe lights peeking under the doorjamb. Scrawled in fancy lettering on the carpet was Astoria in a repeating pattern. The door Liam led me to had the name etched on the knob.
Pushing it open, he gestured for me to go in first. I walked inside and saw... nothing.
There was nothing in here except two couches, a pool table, and a wet bar. Beside the wet bar was the door I assumed led to where we wanted to go.