Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
“Thank fuck!” My mom rushes through the door in a flurry of panic, before her shoulders sag. “Why are you so hard to fucking find lately?” She places a hand on her hip.
I love when she does this. Pretends she’s my mother and not my sister. She’s more than I could ever ask for in a mom, but damn. The woman’s spunk just won’t die.
“Probably because she’s beneath War.” River’s tone is drunk with sass.
Tillie pauses on River’s makeup, my mom’s eyes are lazy on mine, and Saint clears her throat.
“Thank God!” Tillie exhales, clutching her belly when she curls over. So dramatic for no reason. Also, love Tillie, but damn… “Oh thank fucking God! I was almost afraid that he’d bring home a stray, or worse…”
I know she’s implying Katsia.
She uses her hand to fan her face. “I want all the tea!”
I shoot River an icy glare before softening back on Tillie. “What your daughter meant to say, was that we are nothing. There’s still a very real possibility that he could bring home a stray. Or, like, ten…”
Tillie blinks at me as if I spoke a foreign language. Maybe I had, but it’s more Stella’s habit to randomly break out in Latin, not mine. “Nope. I know him. He’s exactly like his father.”
She turns back to River, swiping up a makeup brush. “So, on that note.” Her cheek crinkles when she tries to hold in her laugh. “How’s the trauma?”
Mom’s hand comes to mine. “I need to show you something.”
I don’t know why we decided my room to get ready for the event of the century would be best.
I squeeze her hand with mine and smile, placing my glass of gin down on the vanity while tightening my satin robe. “Okay, Mother.”
Her smile widens, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so beautiful. Actually, that’s a lie. She was forged by an angel on the day of the joint wedding in Italy. All to marry the Devil.
She directs us down the long hallway. Arce Hayes has twenty-three bedrooms, twelve bathrooms, two theatres, a shooting range, an indoor basketball court, an underground fifty-car garage, and a pool that would make Elon Musk cream his panties. The kind of wealth our families have is disgusting. Thankfully, every six months, our mothers hold prestigious charity events, and then match every dollar that they raise.
The next one will be in a month, and we’ll officially all be Kings. Without our parents’ involvement. They’ve phased out slowly over the years, but once that gavel is in Priest’s hands, they’re officially done.
Not that my brother hasn’t been holding the gavel since he was in his senior year of high school, because he has… metaphorically. He and Dad share an outlandish bond. One that kind of feels like a secret society in itself. My brother would burn the whole world down if anyone hurt Dad, probably killing him along with it just to prove a point.
After following Mom to the end of the hallway, we walk up a level and she stops outside a door that’s smaller than the others in our house. She squeezes the handle and cracks it open.
I peek inside to see a swivel staircase that grows to the ceiling. The walls are barely wide enough for the stairs, let alone me—a claustrophobic.
She leans against the wall, the worry lines around her eyes deepening. Well. The lines that are there, since she religiously gets them frozen. As much as she would love to say it’s genetics, we all know it’s not.
“Your father and I have been waiting for this day for a long time, Halen. I have to admit…” She rolls her eyes. “If anyone had asked me when I was at high school if this was the life I would like for my children, I would have shot them on sight.” Her lip twitches into a smirk. “But it occurred to me that that in itself is why I would never be satisfied with a prosaic life.”
She pauses, her hand settling on my arm. “I need you to know that from now on, all of you are going to find yourselves in situations where you might think you’ve got no way out.” The corners of her eyes soften, but her mouth flattens. “But you always do, Halen. You’re more like your father than you are me, that’s for sure.”
She blinks back the tears I can see forming in her eyes.
“Mom…” My heart sinks. I hate seeing her upset, because she never is. She’s the toughest woman I know, and I know this because she married my dad.
She winces. “Go up. I’ll be right behind you.” She stops for a moment, holding my eyes. My stomach twists like she’s the one holding it. “I need you to take what I’m about to show you with a softness you only share within the family. And by family—" She reaches out to touch my cheek and my eyes close. “—I mean the entire family. Incest aside…”