Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
I’m not going to let him sell Hailey to this fucking asshole. “This seems flimsy.”
“How so?” Varrick asks.
“My sister will never agree to it.” Nor would I fucking want her to.
Trent downs his whiskey. “What about Phoebe?”
My whole body catches fire. I should’ve been more afraid of burning alive. “We’re working on our marriage—”
“You got divorced for a reason, Grey, come on.” He makes a face like I’m being pathetic thinking I have a chance with my ex.
“No.” That’s Varrick, not me. “It won’t be Phoebe. Locals would prefer she marry Jake, and like I said, she’s not malleable. You need to marry a woman you can control. Someone who will do whatever you say so you won’t have to sign a prenup. Her money will be yours. Her property, yours. Her body—whether you want it or not—yours.”
I want to strangle him. To calm down, I take a breath and fixate on the weight my Rolex is bearing on my wrist. The cool leather of the chair beneath my bare forearm, my sleeves rolled. Another breath.
I still want to strangle him.
Trent crashes backward, his hands on his head. “I have to think about this.”
“You have all summer.” Varrick stands, his glass only half empty. I’ve barely even had a sip—or else I’d need to go puke in a toilet. I don’t trust him pouring my drinks. I am that paranoid here.
Once Trent heads off to bed, me assuring him I’m not far behind—because to Trent, I’m not important enough to be alone with just Varrick—I seize Varrick’s shoulder and keep him in the smoking room for another second.
“We need to talk,” I whisper between my teeth, my blood coursing hotter and hotter.
“Later. Five a.m. in this room.” He speaks furtively and motions me to follow. The vein in my temple is pulsing too hard as I track his footsteps. When he twists a statue of an onyx wolf on a bookcase, the shelf swings open to reveal a hidden sitting room. “Five a.m.,” he repeats. “Bring the others.”
“You’re calling a meeting?” I stare into him, wondering why he thinks we’d ever work with him.
“Five a.m.” He keeps a cautious eye on the door while unpocketing a skeleton key. “This is to Phoebe’s room.” He’s speaking more hurriedly. “Use it to stay with her.”
“Why?” I ask, even knowing I can’t believe anything he says.
“Trent has made me aware that he plans to win Phoebe over by the end of the summer, and I don’t trust what he’d do in the middle of the night while my daughter is sleeping. I can’t tell him off. It’s better if he believes he can say anything to me so I can use it to my advantage.”
He called Phoebe his daughter.
He’s feeding me sincerity. It sounds like he’s being honest, but I’m scavenging for areas of manipulation. He’s just saying what I want to hear.
As if he sees what I’m thinking, he says, “I won’t lie to you. That’s how this works. We never lie to one another.”
It’s the playbook we were raised on. “Yeah. That’s what your old friends always said to us,” I tell him bitterly. “And look how that turned out.”
Varrick nods, his gaze so empathetic, I question whether he is in the dark triad. His understanding tries to reach me. “They lied to me, too, Brayden.” Because Elizabeth never told him she was pregnant with triplets. He checks the door again. “You need to go now.” He shuts the hidden room. Bookcase back in place. “Trent will want to make sure you’re following him.”
He’s not incorrect.
But before I go, I make him very aware of one thing. “If you think we’ll let you run a con where you force my sister to marry that fucking prick, you’ve got us pegged so fucking wrong.”
“Five a.m.” is all he says.
SIXTEEN
Oliver
Anything can happen. I’ve told myself that since I was a teenager struggling to maintain a Glaswegian dialect for a job. Gain trust from the mark by also being born from the same city—in this case, Glasgow, Scotland. Easy.
Eh, it was challenging. It challenged me. So, naturally, I loved every second. I loved being so close to failure that I had to push myself to the brink of what I believed I could do.
Anything can happen.
I’ve stopped being surprised at what can go right and what can go wrong. At curveballs. At breaking balls. At fastballs. I’d like to believe I can hit every single hundred-mile-an-hour pitch out of the park. Until tonight with Hailey.
I don’t know what she threw at me. I just know it struck me in the face.
I get a reprieve from this whole thing with Jake when he takes his hands off the wheel, says he’ll shower, and leaves me alone with Hailey. He’s not a dumb dude, so he knows I’m going to help her sleep.