Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 125121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“What?” Wilder asked.
“To bring down every Royal that turned their back on him. And he’s in luck,” I said, smiling wide. “That was on my bucket list.”
I DARE YOU TO FIND Out Where Levi Thompkins Is Hiding
Dare: Completed, Awaiting Reward
Dare: Completed, Awaiting Reward
Dare: Completed, Awaiting Reward
Dare: Completed, Awaiting Reward
Dare: Completed, Awaiting Reward
Five photos of proof on my screen, all saying the same thing in different ways, and I still refused to believe it.
“He’s gone?” I cried. “Levi survived and the first thing his coward ass did was run away? This can’t be true.”
But it was true. Stark on my screen was a photo of a pale guy in a wheelchair who could only be Levi Thompkins. My strike didn’t kill him, but it injured him enough that he had to be carried onto his private plane. CounterCurse12 said the flight plan was filed for a one-way trip to the Maldives.
“I’m not surprised.” Wilder rocked in his desk chair, monitoring three screens at once. One was the site selling Saylor’s text messages. It crashed three times because the servers couldn’t handle the traffic. “Levi knows he’s never getting near you again, because I’ll rip his fucking throat out if he tries,” Wilder growled. “Since he can’t get you to take back the truth, his family has no hope of getting back into the Royal line. There’s nothing left for them here except cold shoulders and hostility.”
“So he just gets to fly off and spend the rest of his days sunning it up beach side?! Everything aside, he still mutilated a girl and was an accessory to rape. He belongs in prison!”
Wilder just took my hand, kissing my knuckles.
“No, no,” I said, tossing my head. “This can’t happen. It doesn’t get to end like this. We have to bring him back.”
“Not even the United States government can do that, Sinclair. Non-extradition country.”
My mind rebelled. Winter’s killer did not get away free with nothing but a little boo-boo to show for it. He just couldn’t!
“It’s not over. The members found him, maybe they can bring him back.”
“There’s limits even to what they can do.”
“They we do it ourselves. Lucien has a private plane, we can—”
“Luna,” he said softly, cutting me off better than a raised or harsh word. “I’m sorry.”
My legs gave out. Collapsing onto his lap, Wilder held me while I broke down.
He got away with it. Levi Thompkins, the worst of all of them, got away with torturing my sister. Who cares that he got kicked out of his little Royal club? He was still rich, connected, and privileged, and that got you far no matter where you go. His suffering was over.
He’d spend the rest of his life exactly how he always lived it—fawned over, catered to, and indulged. He’ll have learned nothing and make no changes to how he treats people.
Levi was out of my reach, and so was everything he knew about the Phantom.
“What do we do now?” I had a stranglehold on him, needing his warmth and comfort more than ever. “Levi’s gone and Wesley’s surrounded by an army of bodyguards. After Cato ripped out the guy’s throat, his bodyguards hired bodyguards! We’ll never get near him.”
Wilder stroked my hair. “We will. We just have to get creative about it. This is what we do, baby. Your Rogues have never failed a job. We won’t start now.”
“Severed heads and seeing his friend killed right in front of him didn’t work. The worst that he’s done we’ve already put on his truth list. We can’t blackmail him with some deep, dark secret. And Saylor isn’t about to remove him from the Royal line for me. Where does that leave us?”
Wilder looked at me steadily. “It leaves us picking him up for a little chat.”
I opened my mouth, and slowly closed it. That was the option we had left, wasn’t it. If Wesley wouldn’t give it up willingly, then he left us no choice.
We had to beat it out of him.
“It didn’t have to come to this. If he’d just do the right thing and give up the person who ordered the torture of an innocent person, this would all be over. He chose this. He chose it when he accepted that dare.”
Wilder waited me out.
“Let’s do it.” I braced for a twinge of conscience and felt none. “How do we get to him? He’s not sleeping in the dorm anymore, and he has his guards with him on campus.”
“We’ll never get near him,” Wilder confessed. “That’s why it can’t be us. We use the club. His guards don’t know to look out for dozens of anonymous screen names. Once they separate him from the guards, we’ll take care of the rest.”
I nodded along, latching onto his thought process easily. “We can’t ask them to do something that’d make him suspicious though. Or that’d get his parents to call out the National Guard. Wesley needs to choose to send his guards away.” I grinned. “Like he would on a date.