Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 102335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
I catch Jade’s eyes, which go from the girl, to me, to Wicked a few times, before coming back to me. Between the underlying silent conversation we both share, I can see it in the back of her mind, the wheels spinning.
“Oh my fucking God!” a little voice squeals from behind, and Wicked flies up so fast from his chair the blonde bitch stumbles to the ground. I’d laugh if I didn’t recognize the girl’s voice instantly.
I stand from the stool and pause when I see Poppy standing at the bottom of the stairs. Her hair is long and blonde, her eyes wide with shock. She looks the same. “Pop?”
She smiles so wide that my heart expands with it and I crash down the stairs, shoving Val out of the way. My arms fly around her neck. I squeeze her so tight—tight enough to make sure this isn’t a dream. She can’t run away. Papa, I’m mad at. Too mad to enjoy him being home.
“Where have you been?” I smack her arm but hook mine in hers and drag her up the stairs. “We are having a drink right after I finish God’s work.”
“That’s funny. They sent the devil to do God’s work?” Wicked snickers before dragging his eyes off me and onto Poppy. “I told you to stay at the house.”
Poppy rolls her eyes and shoves him out of the way. “Yeah, then I found out that my long-lost sister is here. I’m not going anywhere.”
I force down the laugh that wants to come out as she moves through the kitchen area. “I’ll get our drinks cold while you—do the devil’s work.”
Lowering myself back onto the barstool, I flutter my lashes up at Wicked. “Aw, now would you look at that. Just like old times.”
“Jesus Christ…” Royce mutters, grabbing Wicked’s shoulder and dragging him through the same way Poppy went. “You need to explain shit better.”
Breathing out a sigh, I look between Lion and Papa. “Now what were you saying?”
A look passes between the two of them before Papa leans back in his chair and flexes his fist on his knee. “You remember much from when you were a little girl?” I blink, running the edge of my thumb over the bottom of my lip. I pretend that it’s to check my blood-red lipstick, but really it’s to form a long enough pause to decide how to answer.
“A bit. Why?”
The skin on the corner of Papa’s eyes wrinkles as his smile softens and his hand rests on my knee. His tattoos are old now, faded from sun and aging, but he still looks like a badass. “How much?”
I shake my head, looking back into the house until I catch Jade’s eyes. “I think it’s time for a drink.”
“Principessa!” Papa says, his hand coming to my arm.
“No!” I snap, spinning back around to look down on him. “You left, Papa. You left Mama and me to pick up the mess you left behind. I thought you were dead, so everything I did, I did in your honor. To make you proud, and all along? You were alive. And now you want to talk about my childhood? About some vague note that was inside a parcel that fucking Wicked gave me after he goddamn kidnapped me and traumatized me inside a maze with a bunch of hillbilly fucking weirdos that sit around campfires and burn people on upside-down crosses? Hmm? Fuck you.” I yank my arm out of his grip. “Fuck both of you. I’m having a drink, and then maybe—maybe—I won’t accidentally kill you both for the shit you’ve put me through throughout the years.” I continue toward where Jade stands, holding a bottle of tequila in one hand and two glasses in the other.
Her green eyes are wide. “I get the feeling you’re a tequila girl…”
I take the glass from her and trail behind as she takes us down steps that lead to the area downstairs. “You guessed right.” This is a clubhouse I definitely expected. There’s a bar at the back with a flag hanging above the liquor cabinets. Couches are against one side of the room, where a billiards table is in the middle. A stripper pole opposite the other side, and more lazy seating. The main door is rolled open, so you can see directly out the front to where the parking is and where bikes are lined, separating the entry to the front area, and around the back of the bar, there’s an identical door that’s open with more tables and seating and where the bar wraps around to be mirrored. That side is widened out to see the mountains in the back and greenery. Unfortunately for me, I also know that a few yards back from there, there’s a stack of bodies on a mountain of one another. I wonder how the hell they’re going to get rid of that. Fucking Gio. I know he had his hands in helping Papa.