Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 114551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Chapter 7
SAWYER
First my father, then Cara, and now Oakley. Something has got to give.
Sure, life as a member of Empire was never going to be straightforward, it was destined to come with a lineup of bullshit, but this is too fucking much. I can’t take it anymore. The idea that Oakley is out there somewhere and I can’t find her . . . fuck. It’s doing my head in.
I need to know that she’s alright.
Empire is hunting her, and I’ll be damned if we don’t get to her first.
She’s been gone nearly thirty-six hours, leaving only eight days until the sacrifice, and it makes me feel sick. A part of me wants her to get away, but the other part wants her here with me. But bringing her home means certain death, and I couldn’t live with myself if I stood by and watched as Zade tore her heart right out of her chest.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I know better than to fall in love with someone like that, but Zade insisted on bringing her into our lives, and fuck, Oakley Quinn is not a woman who can be resisted.
Wait. Love? Am I really in love with her? Truth be told, I have no fucking idea. I know Dalton is, and Cross, he’s well on his way there, but me? I’m not sure. I’ve never loved anyone apart from my family before. I’ve never cared enough to want them in my life, but Oakley dug her claws into me and demanded I be hers.
Whatever this is, whatever I feel for her, it’s more than real, and it’s fucking with my head.
Why can’t this be easy? It was supposed to be easy. We were going to watch her from afar, keep her safe from Empire, and then on the sixtieth night, we would have taken her, and Zade would have performed his ritual without a single one of us bothered. And now? Fuck. I want to slit Zade’s throat for even considering going through with this, but he is our leader, and it’s been instilled in me my whole life that I will follow his rule. My loyalty belongs to him, no matter how fucked up that might be.
Zade DeVil has been one of my best friends since I was a kid, and I can’t fucking understand how he could stab me in the back this way. The night my father attacked Oakley, Zade could have turned his back and handled it quietly. Instead, he locked my father in the cells and brought his betrayal to The Circle, forcing my father into a trial that was a guaranteed execution.
I thought that was as bad as it was going to get, and when my family was scrambling to rebuild, Zade went and put another nail in his coffin by naming my twin sister as my father’s heir, forcing her to take his place within The Circle—a place not meant for a woman. She’ll be torn to shreds by The Circle, and now it’s not just Oakley’s back I need to watch, but Cara’s as well.
Don’t get me wrong, I sure as fuck didn’t want to inherit my father’s position in The Circle, but I’d take it a million times over if it meant saving Cara from it. Hell, no matter how much I despised the idea of it, I grew up understanding that was my fate. Come hell or high water, I was going to sit as a member of The Circle. There was never even a question of which twin the position belonged to.
On top of everything, now with Oakley gone, I feel as though I’m spiraling. My world is closing in on me, and I don’t know what to do. I have to find her, have to bring her home.
I sit in Zade’s penthouse, computers and equipment spread from one end of the dining table to the other as the boys and I scour every inch of the earth trying to find her. I feel as though we’re getting closer. We know she took off through the tunnels, and after searching through the next town, we found a run-down motel with a half-naked moron strapped to his own fucking chair and could only assume Oakley had been there.
From there, the corner store across the street has surveillance of Oakley getting into a car, and that’s as far as we’ve gotten. Where that car went? I’ve got no fucking idea.
A mug is placed down beside me, and I glance up to find my sister. She’s been working tirelessly since the explosion, trying to collate names and organize a mass ceremony. She says she’s trying to prove that she’s capable of doing this, but I know her better than anyone—she’s doing it to keep busy and avoid the other Circle members. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s even going so hard to try and win Zade’s approval.