Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
I rolled my window back up, and Max drove away.
My phone buzzed.
Traine: Your car is still here.
Me: I’ll get it later.
Traine: Steele’s sister is coming to hang out this weekend. He wants to know if you want to meet her. She’s cool.
Unknown Number: I can ask her myself. You don’t have to be our spokesperson for everything.
Oh. This was a group chat. Scrolling up, I confirmed it. Traine was there. Me. I changed the unknown number to Steele. There were two other numbers.
Me: Who else is in here?
Unknown: Me! Axel.
Me: Got you. Who’s the other one?
Traine: It’s Aurelia.
I scrolled back up and removed her from the group chat.
Axel: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Traine: Uh…
Me: It’s me or her. I’m not going to deal with her in a text chat too. School and the few times I hang out with you guys is more than enough.
Traine: We’ll make a new chat with her.
Axel: Got a feeling this one will be way more interesting.
Me: I don’t sext.
Axel: Maybe not.
Steele: Gross, dude.
Traine: Uh…
Axel: Haha, Traine. Steele, wtf?
I was done with this conversation and wanted to get back to Max.
Me: More than likely I’ll be grounded again because I’m going to sneak out for that fight. So…probably no (on the hangout with Steele’s sister).
Traine: Haha. Okay. Hope you didn’t get into too much trouble? We didn’t catch up.
Me: The sentencing hasn’t happened. My parents were busy this morning.
Traine: Busy… busy busy? ** suggestive wink emoji **
Steele: Seriously? Those are her parents.
Axel: Her mom’s extra hot. You don’t got eyes, dude? We might be enjoying Maddy’s personality, but I mean, come on. She looks like her mom. I see no problem here.
Steele: STOP TALKING ABOUT HER PARENTS
Traine: Yeah, dude. Respect. Say it to her face.
I snorted, grinning.
Axel: Um. Okay. I’m confused about what’s going on here.
Traine: Steele, put your phone away.
Traine: No clue what’s up his ass, but let’s hang out. If you’re too grounded to sneak out, find us for lunch. You’re cool people, Kade.
Axel: And easy to look at too. Hot. **meant in a respectful but truthful way, because well… you are. Hot. And I’m a dude. And a teenager.** Hottie.
I snorted again. Max kept looking my way, but I ignored him. Once we got to wherever he was taking us for our talk, he’d get my attention.
Me: Meant to ask today, did you guys get in trouble?
Axel: You mean when your dad and uncle crashed our party and called all of our parents? Because that awesome ride was not one I want to find myself on again.
Axel: Kidding. I’m fine. My dad was annoyed more than anything. None of us got in trouble. Some of the others did. Some of the girls. And a few of the other guys, but the three of us were fine.
Traine: One of the benefits of having parentals who don’t give a shit.
Me: What about Steele?
They didn’t answer so I put my phone away, sliding it into my pocket as Max parked. I guess we were here, wherever here was.
My phone buzzed, but I ignored it. “Where are we?”
It was a clearing off the road. He opened his door and got out. “Come on. The river’s not far. We can have our fight and then go swimming.”
I scrambled out the door. I didn’t know what I was more excited about.
Fighting or skinny-dipping.
35
MASON
We were at a standstill.
I didn’t like it.
Two weeks passed, and my irritation had been growing steadily. It was quiet, too quiet. So quiet that Logan decided to return to Boston with Sammy. If something happened here, he’d be back. In the meantime, I went over the folder my PI got to me. Bennett was right. It was thin, extremely thin, and there was nothing in there that gave me a better feel on him. It was everything I already knew, except for how much he loathed any press talking about his family. He went to extreme lengths to keep his name out of the media.
There was nothing to connect Kai Bennett with a hostile takeover. Instead, she found meetings, photos, and calls going back and forth between Phillip Moreaux and a handful of other Kade Enterprises shareholders.
She kept sending more information on other shareholders daily.
I looked into how many shares Avoy had, remembering what Maddy had mentioned his daughter was saying. Avoy had the least amount of the shares. If he was running his mouth, it was just that. He was running his mouth. I asked my PI to look into him as well. But with the rest, the math made sense. If someone was in any place to push for a majority, it would be Moreaux. If each of those shareholders sold to Moreaux, he’d be close—except he didn’t know that Nate also had a stake in the company. When one of the previous shareholders wanted out, we’d gotten there first. It’d been a calculated move early on in case of this exact scenario.