Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“If she helped with the sale of drugs, she didn’t know about the laced crack. She’d never be okay with that,” I said, although I wasn’t positive, I wanted to believe she was everything she appeared to be. The girl I’d spent time with was real. But I hadn’t known her long enough to be one hundred percent sure.
“Let the fucker live, and we can use him. This was your idea—to take her father and bring him here and keep him until we get all we need out of him. It’ll help lead us to the proof we need on Dancastle,” King reminded me.
I wanted Royal free of all this. I didn’t want to lie to her. It was eating me alive inside that she didn’t even know my name.
I wanted to tell her the truth. I wanted her to know me. Not some made-up version of me. I wanted to pursue her, not use her. To do that, I had to find another way. Vinson was the other way.
“I can’t be here when he talks,” I said, knowing I’d kill him next time.
“No shit,” Storm replied.
“Sebastian.”
King’s tone made me tense. I didn’t like it. There was a warning edge to it.
“It might be best if you step back. Keep your distance from Royal Shelton. This has gotten personal for you, and that’s an issue.”
I stared at him. The urge to shut him up didn’t overtake me. Although the tightening of Storm’s hand on my arm meant the others weren’t so sure I wasn’t about to snap again.
King had sounded like my father. Something he would say to me. Something I was going to be told once he got word of this. He would keep me from her.
But hadn’t I already known that was going to happen?
I nodded and pulled my arm free of Storm’s hold, then left the room without looking back.
“Let him go and cool off,” my brother told them.
Yeah, let me just go do that.
• Twenty •
“I’d be able to stay away longer if you weren’t so damn addictive.”
Royal
I chewed on my thumbnail as I stared at my father’s empty bed. He wasn’t on the sofa in the living room, the car wasn’t here, no one was answering at the bar, and the police station had said they didn’t have him.
So, where was he?
I had woken up, tucked in my bed, just like Amory had promised. My thoughts had instantly gone to last night, and I lay there, smiling, thinking about all we’d done. How he’d made me feel. Then, I realized no one had called me from Miller’s last night. I had expected them to. It had been a while since I’d slept all night without interruption.
This wasn’t like Dad. Sure, he’d not come home before, but that was because he had been behind bars. Otherwise, he was here. He knew he had to stay at the house with Grams today.
Maybe he’d gone home with a woman, or he was asleep in his car at the bar. I needed to go look for him, but I didn’t want to leave Grams here alone. Putting her on the back of my Vespa wasn’t an option.
The sound of a glass shattering came from the kitchen, and I left my dad’s doorway at a run before Grams cut herself. She was standing in the middle of the room with wide eyes and pieces of broken glass scattered in front of her. I’d moved all breakable items to the cabinets under the counter and hidden them behind the pots and pans.
“Don’t move, Grams,” I warned her as I went to get the broom and dustpan.
“I found my good dishes and the drinking glasses I had misplaced,” she told me. “Silly me had stuck them in the cabinets. Don’t know what I was thinking.”
The cabinets were open, and all of the cookware was pulled out onto the floor. Why had she been digging around in there?
“Why don’t you go on back to the living room and watch the morning news?” I suggested. “I will get this cleaned up and move all those things back where they belong.” Which was a lie.
I’d move them to a better hiding place. She would forget about this one, but clearly, this spot wasn’t good enough. I had to put them higher, somewhere she’d be less likely to go snooping.
“I was gonna make a pot of gumbo,” she told me. “Just like Granny used to make. You know her people were from Louisiana. It’s why she cooked so good. Yum, the stuff she could whip up. And I can make that gumbo. You will love it.”
I nodded, agreeing with her. I’d had her gumbo before, and she was right. She’d made some of the best I’d ever tasted. But even if we had the ingredients she needed, which we did not, she wouldn’t be able to make it. She’d forget what she was doing before she got it all set out on the counter.