Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
From what he’d picked up, Pax was warning her about a segment of their family that had apparently decided that she was a threat because of her “new” closeness to Pax. Yakov wanted to roll his eyes. He’d only known her a heartbeat of time and he could already tell that her bond with her twin was a thing old and weathered and set in stone. Just like his bond with Pavel.
“Your family is a bunch of psychopaths—I mean, seriously, a plot by your freaking mother?” he said after she hung up, tapping at his ear to let her know he’d overheard. “Er, did I just offend you?”
Looking up after sending a quick message, she gave him that sweet Theo smile that was still so rare. “No, I think they’re psychopaths, too—my mother being the chief one now that her father is dead. Maybe not clinically diagnosable, but they drank of my grandfather’s venom all their lives.”
“I’ll get you an earpiece,” he said. “So you don’t have a nosy-parker bear in your business all the time.” Slicing up a couple of strawberries, he put them on her plate. “Your brother worries about you.” Yeah, he was having to do a whole lot of rearranging of his thoughts when it came to Pax Marshall.
“He should be worrying about himself.” Taking her seat opposite him, Theo sipped from the glass of nutrients he’d made for her alongside their simple breakfast of toast and eggs. “He’s in the center of all that ugliness. I told him to get out, but Pax has a responsibility complex a mile long.
“Thousands of people rely on the Marshall Group’s various arms for their paychecks,” she explained, “and Pax knows it’ll all collapse without him. Our family members have big ideas, but Pax is the only one with the training and knowledge to run the operation.” Frustration and pride entwined. “I’d feel better if I knew he had someone else in the upper echelons in his corner, but it’s impossible to figure out loyalties.”
Yakov frowned, his fingers curled around the warmth of his coffee mug. “Huh.”
“What?”
“You should hire an empath. Specifically, Arwen. Without breaking confidence, he just helped another person figure out friend from foe.” Payal Rao had come from the same type of viperous family as Pax and Theo.
The PsyNet seemed to spawn them. Not surprising when Silence had rewarded a lack of emotion and punished empathy. How no one had ever seen that it would all end in tears was beyond him, but then again, as Valya often said, they were just simple bears.
Theo parted her lips, closed them, considered the suggestion. “I never thought about going to an E. Pax wouldn’t, either. Trust again.” The entire PsyNet might trust empaths, but the two of them had seen too much, experienced too much, to trust anyone blindly. “But Arwen . . .” She knew him, did trust him; he’d helped her for no reason but kindness. “Do you think he’d do it?”
“You can ask.” Yakov put more scrambled eggs onto her plate. “It’ll probably depend on how bad it is in there, and how much he can take. But our E’s a Mercant, too—he’s got steel in that sophisticated spine of his.”
Theo’s phone vibrated with a message. She glanced at it, swallowed. “There’s another factor that might impact Arwen’s decision.” Taking a deep breath, she told Yakov the last secret. “My brother is sick.” Having realized Yakov could probably hear her even if she spoke in a low voice, she’d messaged Pax right after hanging up.
A private question, because this was her brother’s secret.
Her bear immediately took her hand. “You don’t mean a cold, do you, pchelka?”
“No.” Throat thick, she told him about Scarab Syndrome and how it threatened to swallow Pax whole. “He’s stable due to considerable work by another E, but it’s a tightrope that’s getting slipperier day by day.” She swiped the base of her palm over her eye to get rid of the moisture there—it was as if now that she’d cried once, the tears wouldn’t stay put.
But she shook her head when Yakov would’ve risen to come to her. “No, I can’t break down today. And I will if you cuddle me.” His big heart, the way he held her, she felt so safe that it was impossible to maintain her composure. “But I want you to know all of it.”
“I’m here for whatever you need.” A deep rumble, his thumb brushing over the back of her hand.
Theo thought of her brother’s face the day he’d knocked on her door, such a handsome man with anguish in his bones that his twin alone could feel. She’d tried her hardest to keep him at a distance, but it was an impossibility. “Here,” she said to Yakov after she finished going over the entire story, “read this. It’s his reply to my request to share this information with you.”