Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
I let him go, but as he started to stand up, I tackled him again. A full body slam any lineman would be proud of, and I flipped him around so he was facedown. My arm went around his neck. My whole body went on top of him, securing the chokehold.
He couldn’t move.
But he tried. He fought. He tried to twist. He tried to throw me off. He tried to find a weakness. He tried to knock out my legs.
I never gave an inch. I only tightened my hold.
And then, as blood rushed through my body, my eardrums feeling as though they were about to pop, my vision blurring at the edges, his entire body jerked, strained, squeezed, and then he began to go limp.
I still waited.
There was always a lull, a time when they tried to pretend they were unconscious. I didn’t fall for it, and this time it proved true, because he came alive suddenly. He thrashed harder, more violently, rougher, and with a choking, gurgling sound, he went limp for the final time.
I released him, seeing the door opening from the corner of my eye.
Josh walked in, his weapon drawn. A line of men trailed behind him, and all came to stand in a circle as I got to my feet. It was only then that I kicked his body over and got a good look at him.
He was still breathing. His chest was rising steadily.
Josh glanced across the room. “Scanners didn’t pick up that switchblade.”
I grunted and knelt down.
I reached for the bottom of his ski mask and took hold.
“You think he knew about the security measures?” Josh asked.
I paused and looked up. “What do you mean?”
“We scanned for weapons. He was only allowed inside because it showed he didn’t have any. That blade must’ve been well hidden on his body to get through. I’m saying maybe he knew you knew he was coming. That’s why he only had that blade on him.”
It was food for thought.
My blood was still pumping fast and hot inside, and it didn’t matter. I wanted answers, and I needed another hard workout with the boxing bag because this hadn’t been enough for me. It hadn’t quenched the fury really building inside of me, simmering there all my life.
I didn’t answer Josh.
I whisked off the ski mask and stepped back.
The men grunted, a few stepped back.
And me … I was looking at me.
TWO
Bailey
Three weeks later
The dress was itchy.
It was made of some super-strength alien fabric that hugged my body like latex, but it looked like gaudy cloth fabric. And it was plaid. Holiday break and all, and my friend Tamara, the hairdresser extraordinaire, swore I had to wear this red, black, and silver plaid dress contraption.
I hated it.
If I was going to mourn my mother, at least let me do it in comfort. This Lycra bodysuit invention gone wrong was adding insult to injury here. Chrissy Hayes would’ve thrown a fit at seeing her in this.
Her.
Crap. I was doing it again.
I winced, because here I was, thinking of myself in third person once more. It’d become a habit I picked up over the last three weeks, ever since I had to report in detail to the cops how I witnessed my mother’s murder. Chrissy Hayes’s murder.
Seraphina asked if I wanted something to drink the other night, and I’d responded with, “Yes, Bailey would love something to zonk her out. A valium and vodka, please.”
My little sister had nodded, turned to fill my order, then stopped. She turned back.
I cringed, catching what I had said, but she only asked, “Vodka and valium?”
Crap.
I coughed and covered, “I mean an orange juice please. Maybe some champagne with it?”
She nodded and went to do it, accepting that drink order instead. Mimosas were almost the norm in the rich, high-society world that Seraphina had grown up in. I was newer, coming into the family this past summer, after a kidnapping attempt because I was Peter Francis’s illegitimate child. Shock and awe to me because, one, I had no clue my childhood hero was actually my father; and two, Chrissy Hayes had a whole lie set in place that my dad had been killed in the line of duty. She’d even enlisted help from a few veterans at the local VFW. I’d been livid when I found out. Now I started crying because I would take more of her lies with actors and accomplices and a whole universe created to back up her story if that meant she were alive.
But fast-forward from that first kidnapping attempt, because life happened at breakneck speed after that.
I had left Chrissy behind, thinking it was for her own safety, and moved into the villa of my dad’s right hand and somewhat adopted son, Kashton Colello. Who was hella hot, with smoldering cognac eyes, a jawline that made my knees weak on a regular basis, and those high and chiseled cheekbones. Kash wasn’t really adopted, but he’d been taken under Peter’s wing and, feeling all sorts of gratefulness, Kash dedicated his life to taking care of the entire Francis family in return.