Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
And then he decided to beat her over his own sky-high, impossible expectations.
It was no wonder she jumped on the opportunity to take this house. It didn’t sound like Kingston had filed any sort of official paperwork. And all the bills were included. I even kept the cable and streaming services running because I could use the logins abroad too.
There was no paperwork that would point back to where she was here.
The phone thing, though, that was niggling at me.
How had he found the number?
And, no, I didn’t think it was possible for him to trace a burner. That was the whole point of them. But there was something somewhere with that number on it, and I was worried that it might point in the direction of Navesink Bank.
In which case, changing the phone wouldn’t make a difference.
“Can I make a suggestion and have you give it some actual thought?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, brows furrowing.
“I’d like to have King come in and set up a security system on the house. Just as a precaution.”
“That’s not necessary,” she insisted. “I mean, that’s a big expen—“
“I’m not worried about the money,” I cut her off. “Is that the only objection?”
“I just… I don’t know if I want them all to—“
“Sweetheart, that’s not my story to tell anyone,” I said. “King doesn’t need to know that to set up the house. I can just say that I want the place more secure in case I’m not in town.”
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, though.
Her hand pulled from mine, resting in her lap instead.
“I’m obviously not going anywhere,” I added, trying to play it off. “Not for months. Even then, who knows. But once I have a boot on, I will be more mobile. And the house might be sitting empty.”
“But why would he think that you’d want a system now when you’ve been thinking the house was empty for months and months without one?”
“Fair point. But now that I’ve been here for a while, I give more of a shit about the place than I used to. He’d get that.”
“It’s your house,” she said, getting up and gathering the dishes to take to the sink.
This was one of the times I cursed my body for not healing faster.
Because I wanted to get up. I wanted to reach for her.
I had to settle for staying put and watching her tense back as I spoke. “It’s not just my house,” I reminded her. “Which is why I’m asking you to think it through, not telling you I’m doing it.”
“What would it be? Door alarms?” she asked, turning to look at me.
“And window,” I said. “Flood lights with cameras facing the driveway and backyard. Then a doorbell with a video feed as well.”
“That’s a lot.”
“It sounds like it. But, trust me, King does way more complicated shit all the time.”
It used to amaze me how far personal security had come. Shit you put inside your vents in your house. Balcony sensors. Reinforced walls and bullet-resistant windows.
“There was one client. Guy had pockets deep as Midas,” I told AJ, just to make it clear how crazy personal security could get. “He was building a doomsday bunker. But he wanted a moat. Not just any moat, mind you. One that could be ignited and have flames that burned high enough to create a literal fire wall.”
“Oh my God,” she said, mouth falling open a little. “That’s crazy.”
“He was a complete dick. I imagined if I worked for his ass, even an actual fire wall wouldn’t stop me from heading to his house on Purge day.”
“Is that the kind of work Kingston usually does?” she asked.
“It’s a big mix. There’s the clients like that here and there, sure. But it’s a lot of personal home security for average Joes. And a lot of businesses, for obvious reasons.”
“What made him want to go into security?”
“Oh, sweetheart, you’re gonna want to sit down for this,” I said, waving toward her chair.
She watched me with scrunched brows as she crossed the room, and sat down.
“I’m assuming you haven’t heard anything about what my siblings and I used to do before we all started on our various careers?”
“No. I mean, I never really talked about personal things with Kingston when he came around.”
“King went into security because it was a specialty for all of us for years before we came to Navesink Bank.”
“Okay…” she said, nodding, waiting for me to find the right words.
But… were there right words for this? To tell a woman you had feelings for that you used to be an armed robber? That you had reasons? That you didn’t regret it? Even if, looking back with more mature eyes, you could see how much your combined grief had fueled your actions?
I guess I just had to lay it all out on the table.