Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 147801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
I wasn’t even looking at the camera. My hand was in his hair, stroking absentmindedly while I watched the game.
Little Monster
Looking hot.
Me
Me?
No, me. You’re not so bad yourself, though. We kind of look good together.
We do.
We did.
Now, I keep staring at his face, wishing he’d sent me more pictures of him. Especially since I know he always takes pictures of us when he thinks I’m not paying attention.
I slide the back of my fingers on the screen as if it’s his face.
You better be safe, little monster.
He can hate me all he wants. I know I deserve it and more considering what I planned to do to him and his family.
But he has to be safe.
The image of his blood and what that degenerate Declan could have been doing to him in the thirty-six hours it took me to find him has been causing pressure on the inside of my skull.
“We’re twenty minutes out from the target,” Simone’s voice echoes in the van as she speaks in the earpiece to my security team in the other vans.
She’s sitting opposite me in full combat gear, holding her rifle down.
Her braided hair is held in a bun, special night vision glasses resting on her head as her dark eyes silently shoot a laser in my direction.
“You’ll kill him with those eyes, Simone,” Jethro says from his position beside me while tapping on his computer. “Not that he doesn’t deserve it.”
Jethro is tall but lean and wears frameless glasses that sit low on his nose. As a typical nerd, he usually dresses in hoodies with anime characters or metal band logos, but Simone forced him into combat gear today. Something he hates more than getting his prim, soft hands dirty.
I met Jethro—then Eduard—in college. Soon after, he got arrested for breaching some Pentagon security. I knew I needed his services, so I arranged his murder during the transfer, made him a ghost, and gave him a new identity. Ever since then, he’s been my right hand.
He's the one who found Simone a year later. She quit the army and was wasting away in a mid-range security firm and he said she’d be perfect for our team.
Cassandra never liked them. Neither of them. I think the feeling was mutual. She didn’t appreciate how they expressed their opinions and didn’t mince their words. And they didn’t like how she treated them like servants—the only thing I clashed with her on.
Jethro and Simone are, in a sense, the siblings I never had—Grant doesn’t count—and I never liked how she disregarded them.
But while I appreciate their input, they really don’t know when to shut up.
Like right now.
“Be quiet, both of you.” I pocket my phone. “Go faster, Sal.”
“Yes, Boss!” the driver says.
“With all due respect,” Simone says, throwing a quick glance at her watch. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if you’d just stayed in the States.”
“And miss fucking around with a college kid?” Jethro whistles. “And being the cause of his death?”
“He’s not dying.” I pull at the collar of my combat gear.
Jethro lifts a shoulder. “He wouldn’t have if you hadn’t gotten into his life.”
“I’ll knock your teeth out,” I snap.
“No, thanks. That will probably hurt, and I don’t like that shit.”
“Jethro’s right.” Simone, who’s usually less argumentative than Jethro, is still glaring at me. “Gareth doesn’t deserve this. No matter what his grandfather did.”
“Save the I-told-you-so moment.” I pull harder on the collar, nearly ripping it.
Of course, they were both against it. Even Jethro has been saying there’s proof Alexander was there that night, not that he was present when Cassandra was violated and killed.
Lately, they’ve both been trying to get me to come back. Abandon the whole thing. Leave Gareth alone.
Simone even saved all the money Gareth paid her for the PI side gig in a different bank account, intent on giving it all back.
Unless I’m imagining it, I’d think they both like him. Which is ironic since they don’t even like me most of the time.
“Let’s get this over with first.” Simone jumps out of the van before it properly stops. “One and two, with me!”
A few other men jump from the vans and I follow suit, a gun in my hand.
We’re surrounded by trees on all sides, their dark branches stretching upward, cutting into the sky. The air is thick with the earthy scent of moss and damp soil, muffling the world beyond the wilderness. In the distance stands a large, brutalist-like structure, its sharp angles and imposing concrete facade looking lifeless against the natural chaos of the forest.
“All security disabled,” Jethro says. “Fifteen minutes.”
We rush into the formation Simone devised with the little knowledge we have on Declan’s house in the forest.
Which isn’t much since I didn’t even know he had this place. It’s more like a compound.
Declan and his men only carry untraceable phones, especially since they knew I’d try to find him through them.