Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Tonight was a misstep. But the plan can still work. I need to play nice. The idea doesn’t sit well in my stomach, but I’m a survivor. There is nothing I can’t do.
When I was young, cold, and hurt, Michael Lawrence took me in.
Now it’s my turn to do what I need to for him.
No matter the consequences.
I’ll do whatever I have to so I can save him and protect him, even if that means ending my own life.
14
Alaric
We’re getting closer. There’s only another day or so before we will hit port. I know Michael knows we have a guest on our boat. It’s only a matter of time before he’ll try to contact us.
We are still too far out to make a concrete plan, but as of now, when we call him, we expect the exchange to go smoothly.
We’ll suggest a simple trade.
Her for him.
My men on the island have already secured his guns. The information will spread fast, and he will know I have him exactly where I need him—royally screwed.
There has never been a moment in the last four years that Michael Lawrence hasn’t had a hit on him. He’s been smart, though. He rarely leaves his compound. When he does, he has an armed guard with him. He’s like me in that way. That’s why seeking my revenge has been unfruitful. But now I have him.
Now, he’ll be lured out of the hole he’s been hiding in.
He is a dead man walking the moment the Camerino family finds out they had paid to secure guns, and he has no product.
Maybe he can figure out a way to get out of this mess and pay back the money. But I have already fucked him there too.
The money from the deal is gone. I don’t just want revenge for my brother’s death; I want him to suffer for the innocent life he took. That’s where he and I differ; I have never killed someone who hasn’t deserved it. Take George for example, he was plotting against me with Michael, but my brother …
Michael Lawrence deserves what’s coming to him, and he’s soon going to pay for his crimes against me.
Without the guns, he has no choice left but to make this easy on himself. Striking a deal with me will have the same result. Him dead. But this way, in the offer I gave him, his precious child will be safe.
I’ll make the call tonight. But first, I have to find the little minx.
It’s been hard to keep my distance, even with a boat as large as this is, she’s always there. Always barely dressed.
It’s as if she’s doing it on purpose, which I wouldn’t put past her, to be honest.
She knows she is gorgeous, and she is wielding her beauty like a weapon.
Too bad for her, I appear to be immune. Even if it’s not true, and the idea that I’m not pisses me the fuck off, she’ll never know the truth. She thinks I am, and that’s all that matters.
My men, on the other hand, aren’t so lucky. She’s been laying it on thick by batting her eyelashes at them.
But I know my men. I’ve saved them from too many wars to have them turn their back on me.
That’s the thing a girl like her will never understand. When you lie in the trenches with someone, when you bring them back to life, they owe you a life debt.
My men owe that to me, and I owe my life to them. There is no coming between us. Not now. Not ever.
I find her right where I expect her to be, in the scrap of a bathing suit I bought her. I should have thought this through better.
If she’s going to be flaunting her beauty, I might as well watch as she slathers sunblock on her legs. Legs that go on for days.
I step forward. Like yesterday, I purposely block out the sunlight, giving her no choice but to stare up at me with a hand covering her face against the glare.
“What do you want?” she hisses.
I’m used to the attitude. The sugary sweet voice she has is only ever aimed at my men. No, for me, she reserves the lethal one, a voice dripping with venom.
“We need to talk.”
That makes her sit up, and her hand reaches out to grab a towel. She knows what I’m about to say is real, and she doesn’t want to be vulnerable when I do.
Not naked like she is now.
Once the towel is wrapped around her body tightly, she looks at me.
“Speak.”
“Such an attitude. Have I harmed you in any way to have you talk to me with such disdain?”
“I’m here—somewhere I don’t want to be—alone. I’m thinking that yes, you have.”
“But see, that’s where I must have gotten mistaken. You came on my boat. You chose to look around … If anything, this is your fault.”