Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 234
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
Tom nods repeatedly like this is a great idea. Albeit dramatic, but great. It’s nuts. My family is certifiably nuts. I smile a little more. Until he says to me, “You don’t have their songs saved in your playlists, right?”
Uh, yeah.
I do.
I like all kinds of rock music, and Spotify has recommended their songs to me about a billion times. I’ve known Tom has a feud with the band, but I didn’t think he’d ever see my playlists or grill me on it.
I could lie.
I have the ability to lie and do it pretty well. Evidence: I’ve lied to my therapist before, and he never noticed. Though I’m definitely not the best liar out of my siblings. Being cunning and skilled enough to deceive receives applause among Cobalts. It’s a positive attribute.
But I don’t love lying, especially to them.
Which is why skirting around the truth of my empty bank account is going to be impossibly fucking hard.
I thumb at my cheek where I have a beauty mark. “So I might’ve saved a couple of their songs—”
Tom groans before I even finish and flops backward on the bed. “Fuuuuck me, dude.”
“So incestuous of you,” Eliot banters.
“Shut up,” Tom moans into his palms. “Ben Pirrip, you’re giving them listens, numbers, hits.”
Eliot tilts his head to me. “Don’t listen to the enemy’s music. Solidarity, baby brother.”
“I’ll delete it.” I pull out my phone and easily remove all traces of Nothing Personal. I’m just reminded of how much Tom and Eliot eat, breathe, and shit loyalty. It runs through all our veins to certain degrees, and theirs is to the extreme.
I tense when I shove my phone back in my pocket.
Tom has very bad history with Harriet Fisher. If he knew I’m meeting up with her for a job interview…yeah, this isn’t going to end well. But no one gets anywhere being careful.
So I can delete a song I like for Tom. But I can’t delete a person. Which means I suck at the whole loyalty thing.
Probably because I can’t be pressured to do anything I don’t want to do. I have a titanium-strong backbone.
Which does make me a Cobalt.
I’m just not a very good one.
“House meeting!” Charlie calls from the living room. “Beckett is home!”
Tom springs off the bed and pushes his hair out of his eyes.
Eliot follows.
I’m the last one out—but I’m trapped for a beat by the humongous, ornately framed painting on the wall.
My eyes grow wide at the dark oils illustrating the sack and annihilation of an ancient Roman city. A storm brews in the background as warriors kill and seize prisoners. A woman in white is being yanked backward by an aggressor. Marble pillars are crumbling. A bridge is broken. People drown in the water. Buildings and boats are on fire.
It’s The Destruction of the Empire by Thomas Cole.
The fourth of five paintings in his The Course of Empire series. Our parents gave us each a replica of a particular one. They depict the rise and fall of a civilization. This one—the one given to Tom and Eliot—has always disturbed me.
It’s an empire at war.
“BEN!” they all call.
I tear myself away. “Yeah, I’m coming!” Duffel on my shoulder, I go to my brothers.
4
BEN COBALT
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” I tell Beckett directly even though I’m facing all four older brothers. I’m the only one even sitting on the couch right now. He’s in the matching blue chair beside Charlie.
“It’s not a pull-out,” Beckett says with a mountain of confusion knitting his features—features that can only be described as angelic.
It’s weird that he shares that in common with Charlie when A.) Charlie is a demon and B.) they’re fraternal twins. They don’t look that alike, really. Beckett has much darker brown hair, and he’s a couple inches shorter at six-one. They do have the same penetrating yellow-green eyes and lean builds.
But Beckett is ripped.
His body could probably be studied in art and humanities courses.
He shrugs off his leather jacket, and I notice the floral tattoos crawling up his arm. He has the reputation of being “the bad boy of ballet” at his company, which I’ve never completely understood how it could be true. Not until the past few years.
“The couch is long enough to fit me,” I tell him. “I can just throw some blankets on it.”
“You’d rather take the couch than a king-sized bed?” Beckett is very confused. He slips a look to Charlie like how much did I miss? They share short glances. Talking through their eyes.
They do that a lot.
“Maybe Eliot’s room has a funk that we’re nose-blind to,” Tom says, straddling a kitchen chair backward. He dragged it over here.
“Bronwyn would’ve said something,” Eliot replies, the only one standing. His bare foot is on the glass coffee table which has to be bothering Beckett because it sure as hell would bother our mom. “She was here two nights ago.”