Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Ooops.” Maven snickered. “Too bad you don’t have that Ring camera up yet.”
“I’m not putting one up,” I admitted. “This apartment is only temporary until I can find a better place to stay. If Shasha finds out that I’m living there, he’s going to shit a brick.”
Shasha was my big brother.
He was also very…particular.
Why was he particular?
Because the man was running the Russian Bratva and felt like it was his God given right to run roughshod over my life.
The only reason he hadn’t realized yet where I lived was because I might or might not have used a fake name on the lease when I signed it.
See, I knew that I was in danger.
Your sister gets kidnapped, and you start to realize a few things.
Like how connected your family is, how ruthless your father and eventually your brothers are, and finally, how overwhelmingly protective they can get once they realize that they’re not invincible.
“So how did you get our brother to allow you to move to an apartment that’s on the south side of Dallas without having the entire place wired and under twenty-four-seven surveillance?” Maven asked curiously. “And when are you going to move into the house he had built for you?”
Never.
I would never move in there.
I bit my lip, not wanting to tell her, mostly because I didn’t want to have her lying for me.
And she would.
If anyone knew overprotectiveness, it was her.
Though, that overprotective instinct came from all the men in her life, not just her brothers.
Having a cop for a husband who’d almost witnessed you die…that tended to amp up the protective streak.
Not that I blamed poor Auden.
“I didn’t.” I left it at that.
“Didn’t how?” Milena leaned forward.
“If I tell you, I’d have to kill you,” I teased.
She smirked. “You couldn’t kill me if you tried.”
I gasped. “I so could, too!”
“No, you couldn’t.” Maven snickered. “You accidentally stepped on the cat’s tail last week, and you called me crying about it for an hour.”
Well, that was different…
“That was different,” I grumbled, echoing my thoughts.
“It’s not different, and you know it.” Milena snickered. “There was this one time when she was taking me to college. The college has this long ass drive, and so you kind of wind back on yourself a bit as you go through the trees. I was getting her to drive me because I’d just had my wisdom teeth out and I was under the influence of Vicodin. We turn down the drive, and she accidentally runs over a squirrel. When we turn back toward the direction of where she hit it, she could still see it struggling, and she started to cry so hard that I had to go finish it off with a shovel from the groundskeeper. And drive her back to the road with her eyes closed.”
“That was awful,” I admitted. “I never want to run over another animal again.”
And stepping on Rudy’s tail was awful.
He was a feral cat that my sister tried, and failed, to domesticate.
The vet had told her that he had some health problems when she trapped him to get him neutered, but ol’ Rudy was still going strong.
Movement had me turning my head toward it.
The man at the bar caught my eye again, and I nearly had a heart attack when I realized he was staring right at me.
“Your cobwebs are making themselves known,” Milena drawled.
I flipped her off. “Fuck you.”
“You haven’t gotten laid in a while?” Maven teased.
I sighed. “I haven’t gotten laid in a while.”
“How long is a while?”
I changed the subject.
“What’s the plan with your hair, Milena? Are you going to keep it or dye it next week?” I asked.
Years ago, we’d thought it would be awesome to all have the same hair color like we did when we were kids, and I’d gone from black hair to blonde. I loved being blonde, but I hated the upkeep it took to make it happen. That, and my hair felt like it would break with a stiff wind the more I dyed it.
Milena had been complaining about her frequent trips to the hairdresser herself last week, and she’d told me that she was thinking about going back to black like I had.
Which would leave Maven alone with her blonde curls.
“Haze Hopkins, as I live and breathe.”
My head turned, and I once again locked onto the man behind me.
I pray that I don’t go through whatever makes y’all drink unsweet tea.
—Haze to his parents
HAZE
“Haze Hopkins, as I live and breathe.”
I grinned as I held out my hand for my old coworker, Mackey Haynes.
“Hell, man. How are you? I haven’t seen you in a while,” I said as we shook hands.
I didn’t bother to call him on his misuse of the idiom.
It was pointless.
“Doin’ good. Got a new wife and a baby on the way.” He paused. “I’m actually here right now because my house has been infested with women, and I needed a break. Her mom and sisters are down, and they’re a little much.”