Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Weston Evers knows a lot about the art of a deal. He’s managed to parlay his meager army earnings into a financial empire. He can size up an opponent in one look and take him down in the next. What he can’t seem to do is convince his old love that he’s back for good but he’ll do anything to get her to say she’ll stay forever.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
VASEY
“Iknow the bird isn’t going to heaven. I don’t believe in that, but at least he’ll be at peace, right?” Jasmine, my twelve-year-old charge, pushes a piece of sod down into the dirt. I help the girl to her feet.
“Yes.” Even if I believed otherwise, I’d lie to make this girl happy. I smooth down her golden hair. “This is a good place for him.”
Jasmine found the bird on the terrace this morning. The neck had been snapped and the body left there for her to find. She and I always are the first ones to have breakfast. Her father, Thomas Ware, is the only one who is up before us, and he eats breakfast in his office downtown. Jasmine’s stepmother, Roberta Franklin-Ware, doesn’t roll out of bed before nine as only the “poors” need to see the sunrise. She’s not wrong, just a classist narcissist. Yes, poor people see the sunrise because they’re either getting up to work their grueling jobs or coming home from working their grueling jobs. Only the indolent rich can sleep in every day.
As for Jasmine’s stepbrother, Gideon, he stumbles home in the early morning hours from whatever drug or alcohol, mostly both, dominated rager he attended. At sixteen, he’s on the fast track to destruction, but his mother is too afraid of him to intercede. Jasmine’s dad is busy tending to his empire. Plus, it’s obvious to everyone, including Gideon and Roberta, that the Ware patriarch does not care about Gideon.
He does love Jasmine in an absent-minded, open-wallet sort of way, but this enrages Gideon and Roberta even more. It would almost be better if Jasmine’s father despised everyone equally.
“Let’s go inside, sweetie. I think it’s going to rain.”
Jasmine wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and lets me lead her back into the mansion. The summer sun is starting its descent, and by the time we reach the back of the house, the outdoor lights have turned on and the cicadas have begun singing.
Kai, one of the staff members, holds the door open. “There’s a situation near the front,” he warns quietly as I pass by.
I nod in acknowledgment. “Jasmine, go upstairs and wash up. I’ll have dinner brought up. We can watch some Minecraft builds together.”
She sends me a grateful, watery smile. We part ways with her going upstairs and me heading toward the situation. I find Roberta and Gideon facing off.
“Going out?” Roberta steps toward her son, who is at the door. Every line of her body screams fear from her tightly clasped hands to her hunched shoulders and bowed head.
The sixteen-year-old stares down his newly healed nose. The surgery he got earlier in the summer has made it perfectly straight. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“The Academy’s entrance examinations are coming up, and I thought we could go over a few things.”
“You study it if it’s so important.”
“I can’t take the test for you.”
Gideon makes a face. “Figure it out.”
“If you take this one test, then your future is secured. The Academy has a 100 percent placement rate.”
Her son pulls the door open. “I don’t give a rat’s ass.”
“Every Ware has gone to Harvard, Gideon. You must get in.”
The cold in his eyes could freeze a battalion. “Buy my way in like everyone else does.”
The door slams shut. Roberta’s head falls even farther. I back away quietly. I don’t think Roberta will come after Jasmine tonight, but I can’t be sure. I wish I could pack her up and spirit her to a safe house away from Roberta and Gideon, but her father would hunt me down and kill me then. I do like my life.
Jasmine is pretending to study when I arrive at her room. The TV’s off, and the dinner tray is barely touched. “Hiding on the stairs again?”
She shrugs lightly, not a denial but not a confession either.
“If Roberta caught you, you’d be locked in here for a month,” I chide. The plate is cold to the touch. I take it to the little kitchenette that separates her suite from mine and reheat it.
When I return with the warm food, Jasmine is watching a Minecraft simulation. She hardly ever plays it, but she enjoys watching the videos. I don’t understand the appeal, but there are worse ways to spend an evening.
“I know he’s going to hurt me someday. That’s why I watch him.” She takes the tray from me without looking away from the screen. The nonchalant tone spears me. Her world is one where she assumes she’ll be harmed. I hate that. “Do you think the bird felt anything?”
“No. It’s a quick, painless death. I looked it up.” I’ve researched so many gruesome animal deaths that if anyone saw my browser history, I’d probably be locked up. It would be okay if I could get Gideon in there with me.