Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Jake expels an annoyed breath. His smile is a grimace. “Actually, I was going to ask for your help, even though you’re probably the most grating bastard I’ve met all year.”
“Just all year?”
“You haven’t met my brother.”
“Jordan?”
“Trent,” he clarifies. “I can’t get rid of you because for some reason Phoebe likes you, and I respect her. So I need you to understand what’s really going on here.”
He wants me to be less of a wedge. Because I’m preventing Phoebe from saying yes to extending the fake-dating scheme. If I approved it, then there’s a chance she would, too. He recognizes this.
Jake bows forward, elbows on the table. “I’m choosing to trust you, Grey. So if you screw her over, I’ll find creative and painful ways to ruin you.” The depth of the threat in his eyes is like looking in the mirror.
My temple pounds in confusion. “How could I screw her over, exactly?”
“She’s not a normal girl. Her name isn’t even Phoebe Smith.”
And then he says words I never thought I’d hear from him—not in my lifetime.
“She’s a con artist.”
TEN
Rocky
While most parents trained their children to “never take candy from strangers” and “always wear your seatbelt”—my parents would run drills where they’d accuse us of grifting.
I’ve practiced this scenario hundreds of times. But there’s a distinction here that I weigh carefully—Jake never called me a con artist.
I raise my brows. “A con artist? Phoebe?”
“I don’t know her real first name, but she goes by Graves.”
How the fuck does he know her last name? The wire is hot on my chest, and I wish I were back at the loft. She’s likely freaking out hearing that she got exposed, and I’m doing all I can not to burst a blood vessel in my neck.
This has never happened before to Phoebe.
Not once.
In the short pause, my phone vibrates in my leather jacket pocket. I dig it out and peek briefly at the message beneath the table.
Phoebe: WTF
Eyes on Jake, I text back without staring at the keys. Fuck him.
“Graves?” I act like he’s feeding me a bullshit story.
“I’m serious.” His expression is grim with the gravity of what he’s sharing. “She’s not who you think.”
I could laugh—because, really, who the hell does he think I am? But my face pulls in a painfully contorted frown. I’m going to have to borrow Oliver’s retinol cream after this. “I’d know if she were playing me.”
“You wouldn’t. She’s that good.”
Well, I hope Phoebe relaxes with that small kudos.
I have so many questions. How long has he known? How does he know?
Jake rests back and fists his beer. “She doesn’t go after regular people. She fleeces wealthy dirtbags who deserve it.”
And who exactly told him this? “Yeah?” I sound skeptical.
“I figured she got cold feet with you.”
I brush a hand through my hair. “With me?” I wrap my head around this. “She tried to fleece me?”
He skims my features, but my face isn’t conveying a semblance of truth. “I think she abandoned her plan.” He thinks. “Then she divorced you and tried to get away from you with Hailey. A friend she’d made when she was with you.”
“Oh, is my sister a con artist, too?”
He sighs at my mocking tone. “No. Hailey knows nothing about what Phoebe does. She’s just as in the dark as you are.”
Don’t laugh.
Do not fucking laugh.
I force a brittle smile before taking a hearty swig of beer.
Jake explains, “Phoebe moved to Victoria for a fresh start with Hailey. And you followed her here.”
I swallow the pissy taste of Koning Lite.
He thinks I was Phoebe’s mark.
A scumbag.
An abusive scumbag. Hence, the instant lack of trust he’s had in me from day one. It wasn’t just my “grating” personality then, but I’m sure that only validated his suspicions about me.
My mind rapidly backtracks to our first meeting. Hailey, Phoebe, and I were waiting on the main street for Jake to unlock the door to the stairwell. So he could give the grand tour of the loft. Once he emerged, I tried to read him, but I couldn’t get a good grasp of his intentions at all.
I didn’t understand the intensity with which he checked out Hailey from head to toe. Or how he did the same to Phoebe, too. I concluded that he was an uptight, snobby prick who was judging his tenants based on their appearance. That’s why he was trying to get a good look at them.
I was wrong.
He was casing them.
He must’ve known before they even arrived that one was a con artist.
“You don’t think I just followed her,” I correct him. “You think I stalked her here.”
Jake expels a resigned breath. “I don’t know what the truth is there.”
He is throwing darts in a pitch-black closet, and he doesn’t even realize the lights are off. Being kept this far in the dark—where you can’t crawl your way to the truth—it’s not a pleasant spot to be in. It’s where I’ve never wanted to be, but it’s where I currently am when it comes to a huge portion of my life, my childhood.