Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
“Thanks.” She takes a slice and then looks around. “Where is Krisjen? At Mariette’s?”
I chew, the table falling quiet. No one has mentioned her since I came home that morning. They knew to leave it alone.
“We saw her in town today,” Dallas finally says. “She looked different.”
“Gorgeous, actually,” Army adds.
“Like glass,” Trace mumbles over his food. “Beautiful, shiny, fucking glass.”
He sounds angry.
“All the Saints look like that,” Dallas tells him.
I push my spoon through the chili, feeling eyes on me. When I look up, Liv is watching me.
“But when they love you,” she muses, “you’ve never had anything softer in your arms.”
My heart stops.
“Like they’re so grateful when someone is gentle with them,” she almost whispers.
I feel my pulse in my stomach, seeing Krisjen in my head. In my house, in the tub next to me that day, in my restaurant …
“Yeah, well.” Army rises. “Fuck it.”
He carries his bowl to the sink, and like Trace and Dallas, he hasn’t asked me what happened with Krisjen, but unlike Trace and Dallas, I’m not sure he cares. And I deserve it. He liked her. Even if he did offer to fucking share her.
“I was thinking we could all go for a ride tonight,” Liv says. “We all have bikes. They have the food trucks at Delgando Beach, and the weather’s pretty perfect.”
Trace perks up, but I feel his eyes on me as if waiting for me to allow it.
I finish chewing and stand up. “That’s a good idea.”
Trace slaps the table. “Hell yeah.”
“No girlfriends,” I hear Dallas order.
Army turns. “I’ll get Dex in bed later and see if Aracely can come over to sit with him.”
“I’m going to go get some more work done outside first,” I tell them.
Dallas stands up. “I’ll help.”
I point to Trace. “You got dishes.”
I start to leave, hearing Liv and Dallas argue behind me. “No girlfriends? I can’t tell Clay she can’t come, Dallas.”
“She can’t come!”
“We want you to ourselves for a while,” Trace points out.
“Ugh, fine.”
I shake with a laugh, stepping out the front door. Heading back to the addition, I pull on some gloves and look up at Santos. “Your wife’s sister …” I say. “When the walls are ready for paint, send her by.”
He smiles, and I start climbing up the scaffolding.
We descend the stairs.
My brothers’ and sister’s boots scuff the cement steps behind me on our way down to the unmarked black door. I tilt my head, cracking my neck.
It’s been a week.
Garrett Ames wants an answer to his proposal to buy land in Sanoa Bay.
And he’ll meet only on his turf.
The Wolfe Room.
It’s a secret underground meeting place where the real parties at Fox Hill Country Club happen. It’s on the lower level of the clubhouse, but anyone passing by on the golf course would just assume it was an employee entrance. Or a utility room. Very few members—or their families—know what happens inside.
But Liv does. Army didn’t want me to bring her, given that Milo Price and Callum Ames tried to hurt her in here last spring, but this time she has us.
And Milo Price has a scar. For now.
They’ll both pay. They just don’t know it yet.
I knock twice, and in just as many seconds, the door swings open.
Garrett Ames greets us with a smile. Sickly sweet. Like spit filled with sugar. “Please, come in.”
He steps back, making way, and I glance at Jerome Watson and another man sitting at a round table with five seats. The other one looks vaguely familiar, but before I can place him, Garrett speaks up.
“I’m surprised you agreed to meet here.”
“Well,” Trace says. “We wanted to see inside.”
And then he proceeds to look up and around, wide-eyed, like if we pinch our pennies, maybe we can golf here someday, too.
“Wow,” he coos.
I contain my smile but feel the pride all the same.
“Excuse us for being late.” I set my helmet down on the round table and sit in an empty seat. “We were out on a joyride.”
Jerome Watson eyes me, amused. “All of Tryst Six, huh? Oh. No, I forgot. There’s only five left now.”
For now, fucker.
My siblings pull up chairs from around the room, and while I’m tempted to take a long look around the infamous place in person, I refrain. They don’t need a reminder that I’ve never been here before. They know.
“Let’s hurry this up.” Ames pulls out a chair, unbuttons his suit jacket, and sits. “The markets are about to open again in Tokyo. I need to get on the phone.”
I never noticed the smell of the leather of all the Jaeger jackets—mine, Army’s, Dallas in Iron’s, and Liv in my old one (Trace prefers a T-shirt)—but I smell it now. The muscles in my arms feel ten feet thick.
An attendant stands at the wall behind Ames, his hands locked in front of his body as if he’s ready to pour a drink or pull out a chair.