Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
His eyes widened. “You zebra-striped a kid?”
“She had this gorgeous, almost white-blonde hair down to her waist,” I said, already starting to laugh. “I chopped five inches off one side…”
Roque tilted his head. “Just one side?”
I sighed. “I got a little over-enthusiastic and took about nine inches off the other side.”
He burst out laughing, shaking his head. “Okay, I take it back. You were way worse than we were.”
Roque was still chuckling, eyes crinkled with amusement when I added, “And that wasn’t even the worst thing I did.”
He sat up a little straighter, eyes lighting up like a kid hearing there’s more candy. “Wait, there’s more?”
“Oh, so much more,” I said, grinning. “The very next week, I shaved my brother Cash’s head.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What? Wasn’t he just a toddler back then?”
“Two and a half,” I said, nodding solemnly. “Just a sweet, innocent little cherub with these soft golden curls my mom was obsessed with. So naturally, I took clippers to them.”
“Oh my God,” Roque muttered, laughter already bubbling up.
“But I didn’t stop there,” I went on. “No, no. I took it to the next level. After I shaved his head, I thought it looked boring, so I drew flowers all over it. Big, pink, and purple ones with green vines. He looked like a bald little spring garden.”
Roque was fully laughing now, one hand over his chest like he needed to hold his ribs together. “Please tell me there are pictures.”
“There were,” I said with a dramatic sigh. “But my mom destroyed most of the evidence in a fit of maternal rage.”
“I bet she did! What did she say?”
“Oh, she almost had a heart attack,” I said, remembering the moment vividly. “She walked in the door after work, saw Cash with his flower head, and just stopped breathing for a solid five seconds. My grandparents had been babysitting, but Grandpa was in the bathroom, and Grandma was doing dishes in the kitchen. I was left unsupervised with a toddler, clippers, and a vision.”
Roque had tears in his eyes now and was laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. “You’re a menace. A literal childhood menace.”
“I was creative,” I said, chin high with faux pride.
“You were a terror,” he corrected, wiping his eyes. “That’s it, I’m hiding every pair of scissors and every single marker in this house. If you so much as look at a Sharpie, I’m calling for backup.”
I smirked and leaned back in my seat. “Oh, go ahead. But remember—you’ve got to fall asleep eventually.”
He stopped mid-laugh, staring at me with mock horror. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t piss me off, Roque,” I said sweetly. “I’m very resourceful, and you’d look great with daisies on your scalp.”
Roque groaned and dragged a hand over his head like he was already mourning his future hair. “I regret everything.”
“Too late,” I sang.
He grinned, shaking his head. “God help me, I think I’m in trouble.”
“You absolutely are.”
And this—this—was why I liked him. Not just because he was ridiculously good in bed, though that definitely didn’t hurt, it was moments like these when the walls came down, and he wasn’t off doing whatever mysterious, complicated things he did with the rest of his time. When he let himself just be—easygoing, quick to laugh, a little goofy around the edges—he was genuinely fun to be around. The kind of person who made you forget, for a second, how messy everything else was.
Roque
I watched Sayla, her head tilted back in laughter, eyes alight with mischief. It was the kind of sound that made everything feel a little less heavy—sharp and bright, cutting straight through the fog still clinging to me from that damn phone call.
Judd’s voice was still bouncing around my skull. He’d sounded tight and measured, hiding more emotion than he was letting on. Another development, another name, and another betrayal. This thing was deeper than we thought, and somehow, it kept getting darker the closer we looked. What started as whispers about a prostitution ring in Palmerstown had unraveled into a full-blown case involving money laundering, corruption, and now—God help us—the chief of our own department.
I didn’t want it to be true, but it fit. All the loose ends we couldn’t tie, the way some reports vanished, how people kept turning up silent or scared. And now that Sayla’s old neighbor—a woman I wouldn’t have looked at twice before this—had come forward, we were seeing the truth behind the curtain. She’d risked everything to tell us what she knew. The kind of bravery that gets people killed if you’re not careful. She was done being silent, and now we were trying to make sure she didn’t regret that.
I ran a hand over my jaw, the tension still coiled in my shoulders from the call. We were walking a tightrope, and the longer this continued, the more it felt like the ground was crumbling under our feet. Judd, a few trusted guys, and I were flying blind, trying to root this thing out without tipping our hand. We couldn’t trust most of our own. That was the worst part.