Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89331 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89331 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
They’re right. I need to get my shit together. These guys are my family. Not this girl who just came in to take everything from me.
She is the enemy.
But then why don’t I hate her the way I should?
All I have to do is avoid Athena and start acting like myself again. The weird feeling I have will fade. It has to. In the meantime, I’ll just fake it until I make it.
I play pool, have a few more drinks, and even half-heartedly flirt with the girl at the bar then let her go down on me in the bar’s back alley. I even lie and tell myself that I didn’t wish the girl in front of me on her knees worshiping my cock was Athena. Telling myself not to close my eyes and picture her rich-brown locks slipping between my fingers while her lush red lips wrap around me. When I pull this random chick up and push her against the cold brick wall, I don’t think about what it would be like to push inside Athena’s tight, innocent body again. And again. And then once again.
I fuck this nameless woman hard into the wall, punishing her with my cock for not being the woman I want.
The next few days go by in a blur. I avoid Athena the best I can, and I think it might be working. If I don’t have to see her, I don’t have to face her, then I can continue trying to destroy her. It’s going well until I hear a loud explosion and a scream from outside. I run outside to see her standing next to her Porsche, shaking. The car has smoke streaming out from the back, and I run over and pull her away from the car in case it catches fire. She whirls around, and her hand slams into my face.
“Which one of you did it?” she screams.
“Did what?” Paris asks as he and the others come up beside me.
“Tampered with my car to try to kill me?”
Paris and Eros both go pale, eyes wide open.
Heph just stares, mouth slack.
“None of us,” I say.
“Bullshit. I am calling a mechanic to figure out what the fuck happened, then I am going to make whoever did this pay!” Athena is so shaken, her face is bright red, and tears are streaming down her cheeks.
She swipes at her tears. “You assholes think you are the first to attack me?” She huffs. “Think again, motherfuckers. I’ve played nice up until now. But no more. You just unleashed the viper from her den.”
Paris reaches out to comfort her, and she pushes him away and storms inside, making calls.
“Did one of you do this?” I ask.
They all shake their heads no.
“Fuck no,” Eros says, his eyes darkening and his jaw locking, “but I’ll kill anyone who did.”
The mechanic arrives in a few hours, and I’m sitting in the living room on my phone, waiting to eavesdrop to find out what the fuck happened. He tells her there is something wrong with her car’s mechanical controls. Athena asks if it looks like someone tampered with it. He says he honestly doesn’t know but will have the car towed and let her know if they find anything.
The second the door closes, she turns on me again.
“Why?”
“Why what?” I cross my arms over my chest.
“I get you hate me, but is murder really the way you and your little band of psychopaths want to go? Do my mother’s last wishes mean so little to you?”
“We didn’t do this.” I grit my teeth as she glares at me.
“I don’t believe you. I think you did.”
“Then you don’t know shit about me or how I work.”
“Really? Let’s look at the facts, shall we?” She starts pacing in front of the couch I’m sitting on and lists her points with her fingers. “One, you want me gone. Two, the will says you can’t hurt me, but if it’s a freak accident with my car, the lawyer will give you everything. Three, it wasn’t Paris or Eros.”
“Oh, because you think your little flirtation is enough to turn them against me?” I sneer.
“No, because if Paris was going to do me harm, it would be through some sort of hacking. And an explosion in my car is too fast for Eros. He likes to take his time, and he would make it personal. And after the texts last night, I’m confident in saying he wouldn’t kill me before he got his hands on me again. He’d make sure he at least gets to fuck me before he’d kill me.”
I ignore the jealousy that burns through me and the idea of Eros touching her. She should be mine, and only mine. I laid claim.
“It’s either Heph or you. And since Heph doesn’t do anything without your approval, it was you.”