Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Who will we be burying tonight?
Fuck, I hope it’s not Fiora.
My legs are shaky as I hurry up the stairs. I skip two at a time to make it there faster, tugging on my leather gloves as I go. I don’t give a fuck if Marco is police. If he touched a hair on Fiora’s head, I’ll enjoy watching the light drain from his eyes as I choke the life out of him.
I skid onto the top floor of my dilapidated parking garage and walk right into Marco’s hand.
He holds onto Fiora’s upper arm, a gun pointed right at her temple. She’s covered in blood, dark red smeared all over her pale skin and white hoodie. Jasper’s blood. My bodyguard and driver lies unmoving at Marco’s feet, a spreading pool of blood trickling from his gunshot wound.
Fuck. Jasper’s been with my family for years now. Proven loyalty to the Frost family time and time again. He’s supposed to be getting married next year. There are no guarantees in our world, but he deserved better than this bullshit.
I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.
“Nice of you to join us, Braken,” Marco teases. He thinks he has the upper hand because he’s got a goddamn gun pointed at Fiora’s head and a dead man at his feet. “I knew you’d show up.”
“This is my building.” I chance a step forward. Marco doesn’t move the gun nor does he take his eyes off me. “But why the hell are you here?”
“Enjoying a night with my girl.” Marco chuckles like a dumbass. “That’s right, my girl. Since I had her long before you.”
A rebuttal is on the top of my tongue, but I swallow it back. Now’s not the time to talk about their lack of sex life.
“You should probably ask her since it’s her choice.”
“She doesn’t have a choice,” Marco snaps and presses the gun closer to Fiora’s head.
Fiora winces at the move. Her eyes lock on mine, and the fear and desperation in them make me clench my jaw. Now that I can see her more closely, she’s completely fucked up. Dried blood is caked in her hair, her ponytail is a mess, she’s got blooming bruises on her cheek and jaw, and her body shakes—she seems barely able to stand. And are those Marco’s fingerprints on her neck? Oh, this motherfucker is dead and buried. I just need to find a way to get the gun away from her temple.
“Well, clearly you wanted me to come.” I try to avoid any wild gestures that would make Marco trigger happy, but I keep shuffling closer, one tiny-ass step at a time. “You have something to say to me?”
“Not really. Just wanted you here for the show.”
“The show?”
“Fiora,” Marco says simply, pulling the gun away from her temple to gesture to the rocky ground below. “There. On your property, nonetheless. What do you think the cops will say when they catch wind of that?”
“Whatever you tell them to say,” I respond, fingers flexing. I have a gun strapped to my back belt loop, but I don’t dare reach for it.
Fiora keeps her eyes on me, her gaze sharpening when I catch it again. She mouths something I can’t make out, but she isn’t able to try again before Marco jerks her into his chest.
“Maybe I should have tried to get into the Frost family’s good graces,” the bastard muses.
He looks decently fucked up himself. His hair is all over the place, he’s got scratch marks on his cheeks, and there’s a little bruise near his jaw that might be gross stubble. Fiora fought back. And based on the look she gives me when she stares again, she isn’t ready to give up yet.
I shrug, placing my hands in my pockets. “We don’t have any women you can use to fuck your way to the top.”
“Put your hands where I can see them!” Marco yells, flashing the gun at Fiora’s temple again.
Shit. His finger on the trigger means he’s serious. One wrong slip and she could be joining Jasper. I pull out my hands to show Marco I don’t have anything in them. I’m going to have to play along with his game until the right moment.
“I don’t want to get to the top of your organization,” Marco spits. “Assholes like you are ruining the country. I’ll be perfectly happy watching you all rot in prison. A blowjob or two is just icing on the cake.”
Fiora doesn’t react to his crude comment. She makes the smallest gesture—a jerk of her head toward Marco’s chin—and mouths something again. What the fuck is she trying to tell me?
“If a blowjob’s what you want, you should have just asked,” I joke. “Though I can’t promise you’ll get it before I kill you.”
“You think you have the upper hand here, Braken?” Marco nudges Fiora’s temple with the barrel.