Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 84194 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84194 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Dawn?” Neptune whispered brokenly. “What happens at dawn?” She wrung her hands. “Are you…are you going to finish what you started?”
I closed the distance in one angry stride. My temper flared, remembering the scene Skittles had dragged me to. The painful witness of Eleanor being strangled by a scarf.
Both girls jumped as I snarled, “I would like to. I’m not going to lie.”
Jupiter made a feral noise in her chest. “What are you waiting for then? Just get it over with.”
I narrowed my gaze on her. She was a beautiful woman, but envy had pinched her lips and entrapment had sunken her cheeks. Her original price hadn’t been as much as Eleanor’s. I’d paid three-hundred-and-fifty thousand for her. At twenty-four, she’d never quite lost her hatred for me…even while professing her undying love.
In eighteen months, she’d slept with seventy-six guests (I’d given her two weeks to settle into her new employment), and charged fifty-thousand for her services. She’d padded my bank balance with close to four million dollars. Minus the four hundred thousand I would give her when she left and the purchase price, she’d been a worthwhile investment.
Neptune, too.
Younger than Jupiter, she’d served sixteen months and had seemed to embrace the lust of elixir. She wasn’t the instigator in this…Calico was. Neptune didn’t need to go. Without the ringleaders, she would fall back into place with the other goddesses on this island. She might even learn to like Jinx.
But…Eleanor had asked me to free them…and I fucking promised.
What the fuck made me do such a thing?
I didn’t know, but I wouldn’t go back on my word. Unlike other people I knew, I didn’t believe in betrayal.
But it would be hard to say goodbye to assets that kept me rich. Not that their funds came close to what I earned from my pharmaceuticals and successful breakthroughs in the legal drug market. Then again, running Sinclair and Sinclair Group was nowhere near as much fun as being god on this island.
I’ll just have to source new goddesses to replace these.
Eleanor would most likely have an issue with that…but I stood by my beliefs. Black and white was the only way to view the world because it ensured all things were usable, killable, saveable. A stray dog’s life was worth more to me than a goddess’s because the dog had existed in suffering for far longer than my own species.
A stray dog’s life was worth even more than mine.
And that was the goddamn truth.
I didn’t twist my rules to benefit me. If an animal was at risk from my existence, I would put myself down…not them. They came first. Always.
Even over Jinx.
“Where’s Calico?” Jupiter asked, her dress unable to hide her goosebumps.
“She’s alive.”
“Why isn’t she with us?”
“Because I had other plans for her.”
Her eyes glistened with tears. “It wasn’t all her fault. I encouraged her. I know she’s become a little obsessed with you, but…Jinx had it coming.”
I went deathly still. “I suggest you tread lightly, Jupiter. My leash might snap at any moment.”
She gulped, ducking her head. “Just…Calico…she’s nice. Please, don’t hurt us. We promise we won’t—”
“Enough.” I sliced my hand through the air.
Nice or not, Calico had made me the most at almost seven million. Her contract was close to ending anyway. Her punishment wouldn’t be in a cage, but being kicked off my island without so much as a goodbye. I would not visit her. I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing my guilt over what I’d done.
How much I’d ruined her from the shy, skittish beauty when she first landed to the bitter, jealous thing she’d become.
In the morning, Cal would round them up, give them a bag packed full of clothes suitable to whatever climate home was, and an envelope with two things.
One, a thick pile of cash. Not a cheque or bank deposit. Just fresh, crisp four-hundred thousand dollars in American bills. The other was a simple note. A threat, really. A reminder that if they spoke of what happened on my shores, the money in their greedy hands would vanish, their lives would be forfeit, and I would take no fucking mercy on their soul.
But stay silent and slip back into their world as if they’d been working for an exclusive hotelier who required utmost secrecy for his high-calibre guests, then they could keep every penny. They could live. They could resume their existence before I got in the way.
Clean and simple…for all of us.
That note never left the helicopter, burned to ash as the girls slipped onto a plane and went home.
So far, out of the few goddess that’d reached their four-year term and been released, not one had blabbed. Money was a powerful cage…better than any other trap or threat.
Jupiter puffed hair from her eyes impatiently. “Just tell us what you’re going to—”