Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
I was glad someone could enjoy my humiliation. Was he drunk? Was that something he was capable of?
Alex leaned back, away from his sister, and spread his legs wider. “They came by to talk to me about the cartel,” he said.
I smiled mildly like I wasn’t in shock and started to take a step back before he held his hand out.
I guess it was second nature that I took it and took a step closer to him.
His face… his face went from mocking to just… soft. Open. Different from just about every other look he’d ever given me.
And I knew I’d screwed up. “You wanted the multi-tool, didn’t you?”
He lied to me. He flat-out fucking lied to me, and I knew when he said, just so, so seriously, “No.”
I tried to take a step back, but he didn’t let me.
Instead, Alex pulled me toward him, just fast enough that I couldn’t stop myself, turning me at the same rate until he tugged me down onto his lap. Sitting me up high on one of his thighs like I belonged there or something. One of those muscular arms wrapped around my lower back, and I knew I wasn’t imagining that he was holding me down on him, like he knew I was going to try and get away from sheer humiliation.
My spine went straighter than it had ever gone before.
We sat right next to each other all the time. Laid beside each other so many times by that point it meant nothing. We’d slept in the same bed a lot.
What was sitting on a lap? He’d said touch was important. I’d seen him be physical with others. With me too, I could admit.
Even though I’d been wrong about what he’d wanted.
But I still whispered, “Are you drunk?”
What had to be his palm settled low on my back near my hip. His free hand he set on his other leg. “Alcohol doesn’t do anything to me.”
“Then why…?”
“We can argue about it later.”
“We can argue about it now.”
The son of a bitch grinned.
I swallowed hard as I caught the faint smiles of the two members of the Trinity looking at me sitting there. On his thigh. In their street clothes. Robert had a T-shirt that said WELCOME TO MOAB on it. Alana had bobby pins in her hair.
And I was on Alex’s fucking lap.
All righty then. I could focus. If he didn’t think this was a big deal, why should I? If he got a boner, that would be another thing. I almost wanted to check. “Thank you… for helping,” I told them, not sure what to say since I could barely think with a granite-like thigh under me.
“You saved our little brother,” Robert replied. “You put your life at risk for him. We’re all in your debt.”
Oh.
“You can trust us. Your secret is safe,” Alana said in her warm, ethereal voice that reminded me of an angel… that could demolish your ass. “It’s family business now. We’ll help any way we can. Selene is already doing what she can.”
Family business.
I couldn’t help but nod.
I had been on my own for so long now that it was almost overwhelming to have someone else willing to help me. Especially when that “someone” was him. Them.
And if the ball was rolling now on getting something else done to make my life a little safer, that was a good thing. I was supposed to move on eventually. Why not sooner than later?
And if that made me sad, it was okay too. I’d been spoiled already being here. I was grateful for it.
A big hand settled on my hip, giving it a gentle squeeze and pulling me back to the present. Peeking over my shoulder, I found those purple eyes. I could tell what he was trying to say: that it was okay. That I could trust them.
Why did that feel so monumental?
I was kind of in a daze as I kept sitting there as Alex spoke about the cartel and then repeated what the family’s legal department had planned for me, which was basically sorting out whatever issues had risen from the loss of the house, my car insurance, and setting up a new identity. I was going to close my business account as soon as I got it, I decided, regardless of what happened with my translating work.
That was what I had too much hope riding on. If I could change my name, that might be enough to get under the radar for the rest of my life. It would be as good as it could be.
Then I could move on, like I’d promised him.
I was so hung up on thinking over the details of what they had planned that I was caught off guard when Alana eventually asked, “Gracie, have you considered reaching out to law enforcement?”