Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
"What kind of dinner?"
"Your favorite." I hop up from my bed, following him out of my room and down the hallway to the kitchen. I finally talked him into getting a drop house a few years ago.
"Lenny." I smile when I enter the kitchen to see him sitting at the table, half a grilled cheese shoved into his mouth.
"Your dad said you were back." He stands, coming over to give me a side hug.
"That better not be my grilled cheese."
“I’d never.” Lenny drops a kiss on the top of my head. “Glad to see you back home, kid.”
“Me too,” I lie. I mean, I am happy to be home, but I’m hiding out, lying low for the time being.
It’s always nice to see everyone here. The small community of mostly retired vets has grown, and they are all family to me. I've had a big part in helping this place grow and keeping them completely out of the Dark Ages. Thank you, Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel and physics, for giving us solar power.
Dad pulls out a chair for me. I drop down into it. When I’m here, I get part princess treatment and also part drill sergeant dad. There isn’t a morning when I don't wake up to go for a run. Working out is good for the body, don’t you know? My body rebels and turns cherry red like I’m allergic to it, but Dad still makes me go.
“Eat, sweetheart.” He drops another grilled cheese down onto my plate, with extra bacon. I dig in. My thoughts quickly venture right over to Ronan and what he might be eating.
He wanted to eat another woman tonight. The reminder sours my stomach.
“You okay?” Lenny asks when I put my sandwich back down.
“She’s been off.”
“Dad,” I growl.
“She won’t tell me what’s going on.”
“A girl can’t just come home to visit her dad?”
“She can, but you’re acting off.” He takes the seat next to mine.
My dad is far too good at reading me and everyone, for that matter. It’s a superpower I don’t understand. Reading people has never been a skill set I’ve had, but in all fairness, all these people aren't the most normal, and they’re who I grew up with.
At least I don't believe the world is about to end.
Though if it were up to others, they’d end my world altogether.
Chapter Three
RONAN
Ilean back in my chair, my feet kicked up onto my desk. I’m restless, and I hate that sensation. It makes me think I’m missing something, and I don’t miss shit. Fuck, I wish I was able to ignore some shit.
I toss my apple into the air, catching it while watching the Dodgers play. They’re having a shit season, but for once they’re up in the ninth, and the game is almost over. They might actually win this one. I keep tossing the apple into the air and catching it. My radio starts to go off. It’s the only form of communication you can have down here. I drop my feet down and grab it off the desk.
“Ronan,” I say when I answer.
“How is the extraction going?” I turn my head toward Mr. Lark. He’s passed out, his head lolled forward, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. It's going to be a bitch on his neck when he comes to again, but that’s the least of his worries at the moment. He and I have only just started.
“I’m on break.”
“Break?” War asks, sounding confused.
“Can’t a man get a break?”
“That fucker sold our sister out.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Does he think I'm down in the asylum for shits and giggles? “He passed out on me and already pissed his pants.” The smell of urine and death are two you never get used to. That drain I installed in the center of the floor is a lifesaver.
We'd been searching for who had given up our sister's location after we wiped out the Amato family. We knew someone had to have told them where she was when she left the country. They didn't have the intent to hurt her. The opposite, really.
The son of the Amato family wanted her hand in marriage and was hoping to win her over on his own. None of that shit matters, though. A person from inside our organization handed the information over to another family.
Whether the other family was a friend or a foe made no difference. Doing so made you as good as dead. It’s never a good sign when I show up on your doorstep, and everyone knows that. I’m not the Marino in the fancy suit that spends my time behind a desk like my brothers Z and War. I take more of a hands-on approach.
"I want this house cleaned up." War is irritated. I don't blame him. It's an uneasy feeling when you don't know who to trust around you. I’m just as antsy to get answers as he is, but there's really no time limits on these things. Sometimes the offender sings like a canary, and sometimes it takes a little more persuading from me before they divulge the information I’m looking for. Let’s be perfectly clear, though; I always get what I want in the end. “You think he has another name to give you?”