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)
“Forty-one thousand.” Varrick surges the bid like it’s nothing, and the volume in the square amplifies. I can’t even hear myself think. Words muffle together, and Varrick slowly begins to smile again.
My eyes sear inside out. I can’t quit glaring. My mind is reeling at theories behind his motives. This forty-something arrogant prick thinks he can take a girl half his age from a Koning. As a power move—a Wolfe showing up to put the Konings in their place. Phoebe is a pawn in a rich man’s game—and I fucking hate it. I can’t stand it, and yet, I’ve entered the arena far too many times to count.
Or he might just think she’s the most attractive Clue Girl. He wants to fuck her.
I don’t care which one is worse. It’s all emotional. Unhelpful. Pain.
Phoebe is cringing. She threads her arms hotly over her chest.
“Quiet down! Quiet down!” Katherine calls out into the microphone.
Over the noise, I pull Jake closer to whisper, “Stop bidding on her.”
“What?” His blue eyes narrow back at me. “No.”
“He’s doing this for a reason,” I say roughly under my breath. “We need to figure out why.”
“Grey—”
“We’re a team,” I remind him just as quietly. Flashes of my brother, my sister, Nova, Oliver, Phoebe race through my head at the word team. I can’t believe I’d also include Jake in it, but we are so permanently, doggedly on the same side. I think we’d die here together before stepping even a hundred feet closer to the warring position.
Katherine speaks into the mic. “Do I hear forty-two thousand?” She gives Jake ample time to respond.
All eyes are on the third-born heir.
My pulse breaks every speed limit, and I wait for Jake to relent. He slips me a look that says, I’m with you. But also, This better work.
He trusts me. Scarily enough, I’ve been slowly learning to trust him, too.
“Going once,” Katherine says, worry straining her voice.
Then I step in front of Jake. “Forty-two thousand,” I call out.
There’s no thunder of noise. No buzzing chatter. Silence falls on the square in certified shock. It’s been three months.
Three whole months where I’ve never protested or fought for Phoebe. I’ve let her be with Jake as if I’m the bitter ex-husband with an L on his forehead.
Until today.
When I bid on her.
Heads swing to Varrick. And for the first time, he pries his fixed attention off Phebs. And he sets these glimmering, strange, bluish eyes on me. They’re boring. Like a drill into the eye sockets. It’s uncomfortable, and I know why Phoebe would avoid his face.
I also know I’ve used this look on others before. To intimidate them.
I say nothing. I just meet his challenge head-on. Never breaking our gaze. He thinks he’s a jackhammer? I’m an entire fucking wrecking ball.
His lips hike up.
Yeah.
He likes this. Competing. Is he just bored then? Is this what gets him off? He’s tired of holing up in his mansion on a lonesome island, so he came out for some afternoon entertainment.
I can’t see the truth, but I’m accustomed to living among lies. Varrick Wolfe doesn’t scare me.
He sees, and his smile seems to brighten.
As Katherine says, “Do I hear forty-three thousand?” Varrick is already casually strolling out of the masses and down the street. As if The Hunt means next to nothing to him.
“Going once,” Katherine says. He’s gone, but my ribs have caged my lungs. “Going twice.” Noise suddenly picks up around me. Katherine leans into the microphone, disappointment etched in her voice. “Phoebe Smith and her clues. Sold to Grey Thornhall.”
TWENTY-ONE
Phoebe
“What the fuck was that?” I whisper in slight panic. Okay, maybe more than slight. I can’t catch my breath, and partly, it’s because we practically ran into the bathroom together.
A graffitied single-toilet bathroom.
Rocky locks the door. McIntire’s, the local Irish pub, was near dead when we entered, but it wouldn’t even matter if someone saw us slip in here together. He just publicly won me in an auction. Now we’re paired up for The Hunt, and this is the only source of privacy we could find in such a short amount of time.
“I don’t know,” Rocky growls out, a rough hand skating through his black hair.
“The job,” I whisper. “We just risked the job. It’s not what we do. We’re very, very good at this, Rocky.” We can set aside our emotions to do the hard thing.
So why did he win me?
He’s too quiet.
Concern flares. “Rocky?”
His eyes hit mine, and the emotion penetrating his gray irises takes my breath away. “I had to.”
My chest rises and falls.
“I wasn’t going to let him have you, Phoebe.”
I just collapse into him like a book closing its pages. His arms fit so snugly around me. His chin settles at the top of my head.
I grip him. He grips me.
Leather and pine smell stronger against the crook of his neck than Jake’s cedar-scented cologne on the overcoat. It’s not that often we can steal time together outside of the loft or the boathouse. I’m already craving to pause this moment. So I can sit inside of it for hours.