Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 90972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
But it’s already too late.
I feel him behind me. Looming over me. Breathing down the back of my neck. His voice moves through me, deep and full of danger. “Why were you staring at me?”
It’s not the question that makes me shiver. It’s the menacing way he delivered it. Some guys might take a girl looking at them from across the room as a sign of interest. Flirting. I’m not going to pretend I’m anybody’s fantasy woman or whatever, but I’m not exactly ugly. I wouldn’t imagine a guy being insulted by me looking their way.
But he seems more than insulted. He’s pissed off, or at least suspicious. “I wasn’t staring,” I whisper, wishing everybody would get out of my way so I can make a run for it. What is it with this guy?
“Yeah, right,” he growls, and I shiver again as he leans down, making me shrink back no matter how much I want to stand up to him. He doesn’t need to raise a hand to me for the threat of violence to hang heavy between us.
The slight tugging at the corners of his mouth tells me he knows the effect he’s having. His nose twitches before a menacing smile slowly spreads and chills my blood. “I can smell the fear on you, little dragonfly.”
He might as well have hit me, since I’m reeling and a little dizzy by the time he effortlessly moves through the crowd and out of the room. Dragonfly? It doesn’t make sense at first, until I realize he was talking about the dragonfly I got tattooed on my right wrist after a drive-by shooter took my brother away last year. My quiet way of keeping him with me.
I’ve never wished he was here more than I do right now.
Chapter 3
Kellen
Dad: See me in my office before you leave for class. Very important.
Great. That’s exactly the text I wanted to wake up to this morning. My eyes are dry and gritty after yet another night that ran so late that I ended up sleeping in the room upstairs where I crash when necessary.
It’s also where Dad first sent one of his girls to ‘entertain me.’ That’s how he describes it. I’m being entertained by hookers on his payroll. Definitely not the kind of father most people want.
Rolling onto my back, I rub my fists over my eyes and groan. It’s like somebody packed my brain in cotton. I closed the curtains over the windows before dropping into bed, but enough light leaks in around the edges to tell me it’s a bright, sunny day. I don’t know why that bothers me like it does. I can’t expect the weather to match my mood. It’s a good thing it doesn’t, since that would mean storms all the time.
All the rooms up here have private bathrooms attached, so the girls who are working can clean themselves up between clients. I take advantage of that now, grabbing a cool shower that goes a long way toward waking me up. By the time I’m finished and running a towel over myself, I feel a lot more human.
That doesn’t mean I’m in any hurry to get downstairs to Dad’s office, but I do have to be at school, too. It’s one thing for Dad to lean on me like he does when I’m on break, but this whole burning-the-midnight-oil thing is almost impossible to deal with when I’m also carrying a full course load. It would be beyond a waste of time to even bring it up with him, of course. He only hears what he wants to hear, and everything else is noise.
The building is eerily silent, but I break that silence as I tread the stairs that creak and moan under my weight. The only door open is the one leading into the office, and I can hear him in there as I join him, using one of those old-fashioned adding machines to work out last night’s take.
“I won’t keep you long,” he tells me without looking up from his work, which means he’s not asking me something. He’s telling me something. Granted, he doesn’t usually ask for my opinion about anything he wants from me. I’m supposed to fall in line no matter what request he comes up.
Finally, he glances up, narrowing his eyes at me from behind the pair of thick glasses he wears when he’s tackling business. “You don’t look so good. Are you getting sick?”
“It could be because I’m burning the candle at both ends.” That’s about the nicest way I can think to remind him he’s working me to death. “I haven’t been sleeping much.”
“Then you’ll be glad to know I have something I need you to do that won’t keep you up so late at night. I want you to turn all of your attention to this. It’s important.”