Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
But I don’t need to say all that. Not now.
Just telling Alec, Because we love you, is enough.
Although I do add, “Also, dude, we came and rescued you from, like, halfway around the world. You think we weren’t gonna drive ten miles to make sure you were gonna be okay?” I nudge him and he chuffs out a laugh before grabbing at the wound I inadvertently just shoved. “Sorry,” I apologize.
Another beat. Another filled moment. Another quiet break in the action that is the story of Alec, Christine, and Danny. These are the ones I treasure. These are the ones I’ll remember. If I’m lucky enough to live to what people call “old age” and I’m sitting in a rocking chair somewhere reflecting back on all the shit we did in our lives, I don’t think what I’ll remember most will be the shootouts or the heists or the wild adventures.
I think it’ll be these times. These still, placid occasions when we were all together. And despite whatever might have been going on around us at the time, we just… were. That’s what I’ll remember most.
Maybe the fucking. I may also remember the fucking.
Speaking of remembering… I need to try to remember what I can about what’s waiting in store for us if and when we get another phone call with whatever instructions we receive. I need to do what I can to help us be prepared.
Because while it’s not clear and I can’t even be certain if my memories are real, mine, or just some fictional patchwork of things that made their way into my thoughts and are presenting themselves as my own history…
I do have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me, whatever is waiting to jump out at us from around the coming corners…
It’s going to be fucking bad.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Because we love you.
I love you too, my dears. You may never know how much.
I don’t say it aloud because… I don’t know why. I just don’t. I already said it once today and I want to be careful about becoming the type of oke who expresses his emotions too freely. Not because I’m ashamed to, but because such a sudden shift in my overall affect might result in one thinking I’ve gone mad and confining me to a sanitorium.
I do love them though. And that’s why… well, that’s why my plan for our future is such as it is. I can dwell on that later. For now, I need to put some puzzle pieces together and see if it forms a picture I can understand. Despite Danny’s disapproval of my postulations, he can’t dictate my thoughts. So, I allow my wheels to turn.
It wasn’t Brasil Lynch. Insofar as he has not been, contrary to our beliefs, the mastermind behind this last bit of fuckery we’ve endured. Yes, he was holding onto a personal vendetta against Lars and Christine for offing his man, Daniel. Or David. Or whatever the fok his name was. And, yes, he admitted to doing the awful things he did to my brother as a result.
But he is not behind the abduction of Andra and her uncle Theo. And, as logic would now suggest, he is also not behind rescuing me and Lars from our tumble to the base of the falls and our subsequent convalescence in the country estate. The one where, some two years prior, I found myself in a situation with Eliza which resulted in a life for which I am at least partially responsible and to which I am decidedly accountable.
The late Brasil Lynch was, at best, a lackey. A diversion. A distraction of some kind. An unwitting pawn in whatever game is being played out now.
I flash to earlier and the rifle I saw pointed out the window of the building. The one I thought was aiming at me. It wasn’t. It was intended for Brasil all along, I must now conclude.
But why?
And who?
I’m searching my brain thinking of all the Austrians I’ve ever known, stolen from, or sold to. There are a few. None are particularly noteworthy. Certainly none I can think of who would have been capable of orchestrating a set of complications as vast and as seemingly random as the ones in which we find ourselves embroiled.
What was it that the laaitie Liam once said to me? That whoever was holding me in that country estate had issued orders to make sure that I was “proper cared for?”
Why?
Who?
“Alec?” Danny says, pulling my attention back to him.
“Yes?”
“What about Eliza?”
“What about her?”
“She’s expecting us to come back with Andra. She’s gonna flip the fuck out.”
“We’re coming back with info about her.”
“Are we?”
“What are we going to do, Danny? We have what we have. I’ve been shot. That should give Eliza at least a small bit of comfort.”