Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Her hand on the mouse pauses, and I think I see her swallow as her cheeks go pink. But then she continues clicking through screen after screen.
“I checked my phone log, and I called Vlad at eleven twenty-three.” She zeroes in on the location and accesses camera feeds.
I sit down beside her as the alley comes into view from several angles and don’t miss her gasp as she rolls the fast-reversing cameras back enough so that the empty alleyway has several figures on it. She tries to drag the bar forward again, but not before both of us get an eyeful of us having sex in several positions, fucking comically fast.
“Wait, you have to go back,” I say. “Ammit fled at the beginning.”
“Dammit,” Phoenix curses. She starts to reverse again but pauses on a frame of her on her knees, hands on my ass, as she stuffs my cock balls-deep into her mouth. The beast inside me growls at seeing the erotic image of us lost in each other’s bodies. I go hard just looking at it and remember how her mouth felt on me. The suction. Oh god, the suction.
“Jesus,” she hisses, finally dragging the bar in reverse again before us having sex, stopping right when we leap on each other and start ripping off our clothes.
Because there she is in the corner. Ammit. There’s just one frame of her face looking freaked out before she tears off down the alleyway.
“South!” Phoenix announces triumphantly. “She’s heading south.”
Phoenix zooms in on Ammit’s face, takes a screenshot, and emails it off to her contacts at the police, who are watching the perimeter of the locked-down city.
Phoenix seems more than relieved to close out of the window with our sex tape and move on to a camera feed further down the alley. She must have noted the time stamp on the previous camera because this time, she drags the rolling bar directly to where it picks up Ammit running.
I was a little too distracted by the previous footage, but I try to get my head in the game and look at the time in the bottom left-hand corner. 10:47:02. Well damn. We were going at it for almost half an hour. It felt like just the blink of an eye.
Phoenix pushes play, and we watch Ammit run down a darker part of the alley, then turn left when she comes to a larger street. Phoenix clicks on another camera feed. “Got you now, bitch,” she whispers.
Phoenix keeps chasing camera to camera until she gets to a river that cuts through the middle of the city, where there’s no coverage.
“Dammit!” Phoenix slams a fist on the table beside the keyboard. I jump a little.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Vlad shut down the city by eleven-thirty, and look,” I say and point to the last timestamp we have Ammit on video. 11:38. “She’s still here, somewhere. It’ll just take a little longer to find her. Why don’t I take over for a little bit?”
Phoenix nods and shoves away from the desk. “I need to take a shower.”
Ah. I bet. Does she still feel me on her? Of course she does, and she wants to shower it off. I can still smell it—the scent of sex between us—but all of my brothers and I were cursed with an overactive sense of smell.
She shoves the door as she leaves, but it doesn’t close fully behind her, and I listen to each of her steps as she strides to her room. That door she slams.
Chapter Fourteen
PHEONIX
10 Years Ago
I want to ask Layden to hold me again when I get back from the job Vlad had for me. But I don’t. I can’t. That would feel like I was asking for—Like I was expecting or thinking we could be—
Anyway, even though Layden’s still up when I get back, still noodling in the computer lab, probably ready to hack into the Pentagon, considering how quickly he picks things up, I just tell him I’m tired and need to go to bed.
He stops me with a hand on my bicep. He doesn’t grab or yank or any of the other forms of physical intimidation I’m used to from my grandfather. His touch is light, and he immediately pulls away. Never taking without asking.
“Are you all right?” he asks, his speech so formal and his eyes so honest and open. Good. He’s so good.
God, all I want is his arms around me again.
But tonight, I went into the office of another good man and compelled him to ignore all his good intentions and allow the corruption he was about to expose. Because if he did that, it would upset the systemic hold my grandfather has on this city, this country. Vlad controls the entire network of police, government officials, important CEOs, and the media—everyone who’s anyone. The man tried to resist me at first. Some of the stronger ones do. But within moments, he was bowing and all but worshipping at my feet. He would have if I stuck around long enough.