Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“Oakley.” He said my name with his thick Southern Georgia drawl.
“Thatcher,” I replied. “Long time.”
The corner of his lips quirked like he might smile but didn’t. “Not since you broke my little brother’s heart, I believe.”
I winced. I didn’t want to be reminded of that. I’d had fun with Sebastian. He was a great distraction when I desperately needed one. For a while, I’d almost been happy. Up until he had gone and asked me to marry him with a ring the size of a golf ball.
“No hard feelings. You did him a favor. He’s not meant for marriage. His life in Vegas is thriving. Thank you.” His words weren’t meant to be mocking. He was being sincere.
I smiled. “Glad I could give him the push to find his place in life.”
Thatcher chuckled then. Something that was rare. “You did that all right.”
His gaze swung back to Wilder. There was something unspoken there, but Wilder understood the silent conversation, it seemed.
When Wilder turned back to us, he looked at me. Not Sarah. “Why don’t you take Sarah to the kitchen and get started on one of the many baked items you plan on making? Thatcher will help me bring in the rest of the decorations.”
There was a seriousness in his eyes that had me placing my hand on Sarah’s back and turning her around.
“We have some cake pops that look like turkeys I want to try,” I told her. “Let’s leave the lifting to the men.”
Fourteen
Wilder
As I closed the door to the house behind me and stepped out onto the front porch, Thatcher’s amused look annoyed me.
“Oakley Watson here, playing house with your kid and dog,” he said with a smirk.
“It’s not like that,” I replied through clenched teeth. “Now, what is the issue in Atlanta?”
Thatcher glanced back at the house. “She’s a hot piece of ass. Don’t stand there and act like you haven’t noticed. I know she’s the kid’s aunt, but she’s also a looker. One who had you so wrapped up nine years ago that you stayed drunk for months after Sylvia got pregnant.”
I didn’t need to take a walk down memory lane. We had work to handle. Life and the real world.
“It’s in the past. Well and buried. What is happening with the Miltos?”
“Sure it is. You’ve got that sexy little cunt walking around your house, and you’re not at all affected. Tell me, Wilder, when did you get neutered?”
If Thatcher wasn’t unstable and emotionally void, I’d shove him off my fucking porch. But seeing as he was likely to put his gun in my mouth and make me choke on it, I didn’t.
“Don’t call her a cunt,” I said, trying to control my anger. “She’s Sarah’s aunt. Sarah adores her. She misses her. I don’t want her here, but if I want my daughter to be happy, I have to let Oakley come here when I go out of town.”
“And you want me to believe your dick doesn’t get hard when she enters a room? Because mine is from the brief five seconds I got to see her.”
Fucking hell. Did he have to keep talking about her? I knew what she looked like. We all did. She’d been in our lives since Wells had brought her into it eleven years ago. He needed to focus. This wasn’t a regular work trip. There was real shit we had to deal with. The dangerous kind that I normally didn’t get a front row seat to. Not the way Thatcher, King, and Storm did.
“My dick stopped responding to her years ago,” I lied.
“Of course it did,” he drawled. “Whatever shit you tell yourself, no one else believes it. At least not when it comes to her.”
“Can we please stop talking about Oakley?” I bit out.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Miltos have moved into our turf with their laced shit. Crack that’s causing hallucinations and cannibalistic behavior. We need it shut down and moved out. The Feds are only in our pockets if we keep the rest out. Especially bad press, like this is causing. Boss wants them out. He said he’d send backup if we needed it. To start, Levi mentioned you going in and breaking into all their servers, phones, et cetera, and freezing them out. We infiltrate that way first, and then we use brutality.”
Fuck. This was bad. If Blaise Hughes, the boss, was now offering his main hit men and Levi Shephard had stepped in, then things weren’t good. It had been a while since we’d had issues in Georgia. At least of this magnitude. Typically, it was the Southern Florida area that had the most bloodshed.
“Where am I wanted then? Do I go to the mountain and break into their security? Because I thought I was supposed to head back to Vegas today.” The mountain was a hidden location the family kept with the main computer equipment used to do the more intense cyber work.