Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
The whole family’s rotten to the core, and those boys learned it somewhere.
I’m convinced Lucia and Montero Arrendell are fully aware of their sons’ twisted hobbies. There was Ulysses Arrendell first, ‘claiming’ girls and turning into their stalker-slash-suitor, only to strangle them to death and use Culver Jacobin to help hide their bodies.
Then there was Aleksander Arrendell, knowingly manipulating his own secret half sister into an engagement and then trying to murder her. Thankfully, his other half sister intervened with Captain Faircross before he could get that far.
You want to convince me Xavier Arrendell is innocent?
When he was forged in the same crucible of filth?
Guilt by association won’t fly in court, no, but I’ve been watching Xavier since I moved here.
And I’m pretty damned sure he’s got plenty of guilt of his own, no association needed.
Except for his association with the case I’ve been working.
The plague of cocaine sales and addiction-related deaths spreading like weeds up and down the East Coast over the last decade.
The ugly fact that most of the supply can be traced back to a single source.
The killing fact that I found my own brother dead in his apartment, his nostrils still lined with the dust of the last hit he’d ever taken.
Maybe the bad memories just finally crushed Jet in the end.
The fucked up pain of being beaten every day by a father too drunk to realize what he was doing.
Maybe I shouldn’t blame the drug supplier.
Maybe I should blame Jet for his choices alone, the wrong ones he made to escape the hellish way we grew up.
But someone tempted him down that path to death.
Someone gave my brother the poison and the habit that killed him.
I can’t stand that heartbreak happening to anybody else.
My brother deserves that much.
After the way he’d protect me when we were kids, standing between our father and his furious fists while he snarled at me for being so weak, so scrawny, this bloodless abnormal freak.
It took years to stand on my own, to find my inner strength.
Just like Talia Grey.
Maybe that’s why I’m actually feeling guilty as I eye that unanswered text. The double check mark says she left me on Read.
I do hope she’s feeling better.
I checked with dispatch for any new medical emergency calls, just in case. It’s more likely she doesn’t want to get involved with my mess.
Maybe she can sense I’m trouble, and she’s right.
I’m asking to drag her into something she should never make her business.
“Am I fucking this up, Rolf?” I scratch under his furry jaw. “She’s a nice girl. So innocent. If I ask her to do this, she might lose that. She might walk away tarnished and bitter.”
But if I don’t, I could lose my best chance to pin down Xavier Arrendell and destroy his greedy ass.
Rolf doesn’t have any answers, but his tail thumps harder.
I can’t help but smile.
“You’re never much for conversation,” I whisper, letting him lick my hand. “But you are a good boy.”
I start to swap my phone for my drink, but before I can set it down, it vibrates in my hand.
Talia Grey: I’m okay. No concussion or anything. I’ll be there.
Damn, now we’re talking.
Tonight, at least I can ask if Talia will hear me out.
So I drop my phone on the accent table, toss back my cocktail in a fuming burn of liquor and strong espresso, and stroke Rolf’s fur.
“C’mon, old man.” I stand to pull his leash down from its hook by the door. “Let’s go meet a girl and try not to scare her.”
5
GOING DARK (TALIA)
Idon’t know what I’m doing here.
Honest to God.
Not after Officer Ainsley texted directions to a secluded spot on Still Lake, over on the far side where it’s all trees hugging close to a thin strip of grassy shore.
It’s cold for April. The night breeze seeps under the collar of my light jacket and gives me goosebumps everywhere.
The chill. That’s all it is.
Not me wondering what Micah Ainsley really wants with me.
Something to do with the job for Xavier Arrendell, I guess. Which makes me as uneasy as Xavier himself, and considering Officer Ainsley is a cop…
I wonder if it’s something dangerous.
Something I should run away from before I even find out what it is.
Yet somehow, I can’t.
I can’t help wanting to see him and find out anyway.
I can’t miss a chance to be brave when I grew up afraid of my own shadow.
It’s definitely a challenge, considering who I’m meeting with.
Micah Ainsley, with those cold quicksilver eyes and that moonstone skin. Deadly, sharp, and honed.
And soon, all alone with me.
Just a strange, gorgeous man and a thousand wild thoughts I shouldn’t have.
Nothing spicy will happen, of course.
Officer Ainsley is an ordinary cop and he honestly seems like a bit of a hardass.
I’m a grown woman who definitely shouldn’t be having fantasies fit for a high school diary.