Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
It had been so easy and had gone unnoticed, so the next one had been even easier to pull off. I should’ve stopped there. Talking young fools out of their money had been like taking candy from a toddler. All they wanted was the fame, and the few dollars I sent their way had always been more than enough to keep them from realizing that they were worth even more.
Life was good. I was a millionaire before I knew it and on the fast track to the life of luxury and excess, I’d always dreamed of. But all it had taken was one wrong step at one of those elaborate parties, and my life was no longer my own.
I should’ve pulled out then, taken the hit to my image. I’m sure I’m not the first or the last person in my position to like my bedmates a bit younger. The way things are now, no one would even bat an eye at something like that.
But back then, it could’ve meant the end of everything that I had worked for. So, when Mary pitched her business idea to me after threatening to expose the truth, I’d gone along grudgingly. I should’ve known when her underage daughter came onto me all those years ago that it was a setup, but the lure was too powerful to refuse. And to think, I wouldn’t touch any one of them now with a ten-foot pole.
I’d balked at the idea back then, even though I was backed into a corner. Trafficking human flesh was a far cry from the drugs I’d been dealing in to keep my clients on the hook over the years. But then it had become like a drug. The money, the connections to some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world.
I had the world at my fingertips; I was untouchable. The people who backed me were like a shield, and I had the added benefit of knowing things about them that they would never want the world to know. It was a friendship forged in the dark that had paid off very well.
But now it was all coming to an end, and all because of one stupid girl. I’ll never know, I guess, why Mary had such a hard-on for that Elena bitch. So what she’d turned her down, so what she’d been one of the only ones to escape the life Mary had planned for her?
She’d procured others for the sheik over the years, and he’d all but forgotten his fascination with Elena. But Mary could never let it go. I had no idea, though, that her obsession would bring us all to ruin. I went along with her idea of marrying off Ryder to that idiot because she was easier to control, and we needed him. He still had a few good years left in him, after all, and the money would’ve kept rolling in.
The drugs could only do so much, though, to keep him under my control, and his suicidal attempts over the years were becoming a problem. Elena was the only person who had been able to bring him back from the brink. She’d cleaned him up before the world even knew that he had a problem way back when and for years, the two of them had been the perfect teen couple.
Everyone loved and adored how wholesome they were, and his fame only garnered me more money in more ways than one. But then he started talking crazy. They wanted to take a break, to go off and have a normal life with kids and the picket fence, the whole nine yards. That would’ve caused me millions. I couldn’t have that, so it didn’t matter the reason for Mary wanting to split them up; I was on board by then as well.
Matt had come up with the idea. His association with that fourth-rate actor had alerted him to the fact that the man’s daughter had a sick obsession with Ryder, and from there, it was easy to get the two of them together. I’d orchestrated most of that with Mary’s help until the end result, which led us to now.
I took a deep swallow of my scotch and looked at the glass, wondering why I felt more intoxicated than I should. No sooner had I had the thought than my hand went numb, and my head rolled back on my neck listlessly. It became hard to breathe, and I knew that I was dying. I could feel it in the sudden heaviness of my limbs and the pressure on my chest, as if something heavy was there.
The glass shattering on the marble floor was the last sound I heard before I drew my last breath.
Chapter 79
*Ryder*
“What’s all this? Did you know about this stuff? Not that I find it hard to believe, but wow, that Mary really is a piece of work. I wonder what this all means about her and the kids. What do you think that was about?”