Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 128585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 643(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 643(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
My lungs seized up, and I knew what I was seeing. My mind tried to fucking catch up.
Pearl …
“Annie,” Ollie said, speaking my mother’s name. He didn’t deserve to speak her motherfucking name. I would rip out his dirty fucking tongue if he said it again. “That right there is my sister, Annie Lawson.”
Victory spread across his face as his words sank into my head. Ollie’s arm hung by his side, his leg was broken, but the fucker still glared at me. “What better way to fuck you all up than to take your beloved little sister and make her one of our own?”
“You lie,” I snarled, but I stared down at the woman sitting in a café in some other fucking country—France or Switzerland or some shit by the looks of things. Someone approached her table, and she smiled, shaking their hand. Every part of me froze. Because I knew that fucking smile.
It was Pearl … They’d fucking taken Pearl!
“Cunt!” I flew at Ollie, but the fucker was prepared. He pulled out a gun and fired a shot, grazing my arm. I didn’t feel the pain, I didn’t stop coming at him—I just needed this arsehole dead.
As I lifted my hand to smash his face, he said, “Annie runs our European enterprise.” I stilled and pictured her in that suit, shaking someone’s hand. The video she clearly didn’t know was being recorded.
“Trafficking?” Betsy asked, devastation in her voice. “Pearl’s involved in trafficking?”
Ollie raised an eyebrow at my cousin. “Annie wouldn’t stand for that shit.” He looked at me again. “Quite the spitfire, my sister.” I was going to kill him. I had to fucking kill him. Pearl was my sister, not his. My fucking little sister.
“She’s more suited to drugs and guns.” He smiled again. “Quite similar tastes to you, actually. She knows nothing about the human trafficking side of our business.” He shuddered. “Annie can be quite the little sadist if she doesn’t like someone—likes to make them pay. And she loves me. Her big brother. I would never tell her about the true nature of our London ventures. Wouldn’t want to incur her wrath.”
“Where is she?” I snarled.
“Where the fuck is she?!” Vinnie screamed behind me, still being held in Charlie’s arms.
“Not here,” Ollie said, and my mind became a fucking sludgy mess. Pearl was fucking alive, and working for the Lawsons. No, not working for. She was a fucking Lawson. A fucking Adley adopted by the Lawsons, wearing our murdered mum’s name.
“She doesn’t remember a thing about you,” Ollie said, and I heard Betsy suck in a sharp breath like she’d been fucking shot. “She doesn’t know that the famous Adley family was once hers.” He laughed, and the sound of it grated on my nerves. “In fact, she fucking hates you. Loathes you …” Ollie leaned into me. But I was fucking paralysed, the crack in my chest draining of lava and hollowing out to nothing.
My sister hated us. Hated me.
“And if anything happens to her dearest big brother—me—then she has orders to bring you all down.” All I could see in my head was Pearl. Pearl was alive. Sitting at the café, smiling and shaking some wanker’s hand.
My little sister was fucking alive.
Ollie moved the gun to my forehead. The barrel pressed into my skin, and fire lit in his fucking eyes. Death. He wanted to bring me death.
I saw blackness dance in my vision, Satan himself ready to drag us both down. “Do it,” I snarled, eyes fucking lit, pushing against the gun. “FUCKING DO IT!” I shouted, lifting my own gun to his skull. Ollie smiled a wide smile, clicked off the safety of his gun just as I clicked off mine. We were going to die. The fucker would die right the fuck now even if I had to go down into a fucking blazing inferno myself to see it done …
Then he froze.
His eyes widened.
And Lawson started choking, lips moving. His hand shook and his gun dropped to the ground. I drew my head back as he fell to the floor, only to see Cheska stood behind him, one hairpin blade in her hand, and the other in Ollie Lawson’s neck, the blade cutting right through his pulse.
Her green-brown eyes lifted to mine. I fucking breathed, my slamming heart wrecking my fucking sternum. Then I was on my feet, crushing my mouth to hers, her hands desperately raking at my back, my neck and my head. “Princess,” I croaked, dropping my hands to her body, checking she was okay.
She was alive.
She was fucking alive.
“I love you,” she said, pulling back and staring into my eyes, no tears. There were no fucking tears.
I whipped around. Freddie was glaring my way, still in Eric’s arms. But I saw the fear in the rat’s eyes. His boss was gone, and now it was his time to face the fucking reaper.