Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“Everleigh,” Katie spoke up. “Let’s leave it, yeah?”
“She’s right, Everleigh.” Piper popped up and kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t waste any more of your time on this trash.”
Everleigh held up a hand, silencing her. “I’ll make this simple for you. Get Alistair back here, or your stepfather is out of the Royal line. I’ll have you and your fiancé expelled. Everyone will find out Professor A is fucking a student. Yeah,” she said, catching the shock on my face. “I know all about that.”
“If you say a fucking word about my brother—!”
I swung out my arm, holding back Victor. “Are you done?”
“Not even close. I’ve got a hacker on my side too now. From what I hear, he’s even better than yours.” She winked. “Wilder loves threatening people with putting them on the sex offender registry? Wonder how your mom will like it? After I leave your folks with nothing, the poor old perv won’t even get a job cleaning houses. Can’t have a handsy housekeeper around the kids.”
I blinked lazily. “Really, Starling? You think those bluffs are enough to get me to offer my father up to die? You really are dead inside.”
“I’m not bluffing. All of that is just to start.” The look in her eyes chilled me. “We haven’t even gotten to what people could be dared to do.”
I nodded slowly. “All right, I heard your proposal. Now hear mine. You back off, stay away from the people I care about, confess all your psycho-killer crimes... and I’ll tell you where your sister is.”
Her smirk twitched into a frown. “What? I don’t have a sister.”
“Don’t you? You’re telling me Daddy Everton never got around to telling you about that one-night whoopsie he conceived while on the run?”
Everleigh stilled. I couldn’t be sure she was breathing.
“That’s right,” I continued. “You have a little sister. Cute kid too. Looks just like her daddy. The only other piece of him living in this—”
“You’re lying.” A dangerous ferality darkened her face. “You’re a fucking liar.”
“I’m not lying.” I was lying through my shiny teeth. “Her name is Melanie. She’s ten years old, and living a sweet picket-fence life in... Oh, where is it again?” A grin stretched my mouth. “I’m so forgetful when people are threatening my family. I can’t remember anything until they confess, turn themselves in, and swear to stop.
“That’s all you have to do to see your sister.” I inclined my head. “Well, see her in twenty-five to life.”
“You’re not fooling me.” Her laugh couldn’t have been more forced. “I know you’re full of shit.”
“Everything I’ve said is true. I had a little chat with William Burkhardt.” Katie’s brows shot up over Everleigh’s shoulder. “Back in the day, hunting down Rogues was his favorite pastime. After your dad went on the run, William was afraid Alistair’s old troublemaking friend would run back here to Regalia. He had private investigators hunt him down, but they were always a step behind. On one of those steps, they found his daughter.”
“No.”
I shrugged. “Fine. Don’t believe me.”
“Of course I don’t believe you. Even if I did, why would I confess to fake crimes for this imaginary sister?” She shrugged. “Haven’t needed a sister for nineteen years. I’m cool to keep going without one.”
“Too bad for her.”
That nose she had high in the air came down an inch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means if you come after my family, boyfriends, or fiancé.” I looked her dead in the face. “I’ll do to your sister everything that you did to mine.”
A flicker of something lit in her eyes, then went out too fast for me to recognize. “Ridiculous. Even if she did exist, you wouldn’t do that to a ten-year-old girl.”
“Before this conversation, I wouldn’t have. But you’re putting everyone I love in danger so that you can kill my father,” I barked, and not quietly. “If it’s a choice between your family and mine, I choose mine. What’s your choice, Starling?”
Her gaze darted around. I could tell her thoughts were flying a mile a minute. I was lying. I had to be lying. But... what if I wasn’t?
“I’m not falling for this.” Her voice was an octave higher than usual. They called that doubt. “You think I can’t check up on your lies?”
“There’s a lot of Melanies out there.”
“But I know my dad.” She took out her phone and waved it in my face. “I know everywhere he went those years he was hiding from trumped-up charges and your father. I’ll find out in two seconds if he fathered some kid along the way.”
I zeroed in on her cell. Of course. Why in the hell didn’t I think of this before?
“—more proof that you’re a liar, spewing whatever garbage pops in your head.”
Everleigh is accessing the club through her cellphone.
“Better come clean now,” she said, unlocking the screen. “Because if I have to call your bluff, it’ll be even worse for—”