Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
“She’s not going to let us help,” Kip added quietly. For once, there was no smile on the man’s usually jovial face.
He had the same expression Rowan wore. Dread. Fear. Resignation.
“I don’t give a fuck if she is going to let us or not.” I ran my hands through my hair, wanting to yank it out from the roots. “We are going to ensure that whoever the fuck she’s going up against isn’t going to kill her. Because she seemed convinced that was a definite possibility the last time we spoke.” I hurled the words at the two men.
The last time. Fuck if it was going to be the last time I spoke to Calliope.
“I love you.”
Never had the words I longed to hear from her been so sour in the air. Because they were not spoken in surrender to us, to me, but in goodbye.
Both men winced when I mentioned Calliope’s death but quickly reapplied their masks. They were professionals.
“She can handle herself,” Kip proclaimed resolutely.
“You’re fucking kidding me!” I erupted, unable to keep my calm in front of two men I respected. Right then, I wanted to beat them into fucking pulp, even though they had years more training than me. At that stage, I felt I could take them.
“You’re going to leave her alone?” I spat the words, heavy with judgment. “She’s your sister.”
“I’m well fucking aware.” Rowan’s nostrils flared, his quiet voice brimming with menace. “And I have a lifetime of experience and worry when it comes to Calliope. I have faith she’ll come home.”
His words sounded resolute, heavy with certainty, but I saw the doubt shadowing his eyes.
“Faith,” I scoffed. “I’m not pinning anything on faith when it comes to her.”
“You have no choice.” Kip clapped me on the shoulder, and it took everything in me not to throw a punch at him for touching me. “Trust me when I say both of us would move heaven and earth to be able to do something right now. But it’s not heaven or earth Calliope is facing right now. It’s a dangerous fucking underworld we weren’t aware she was tangled in until you told us.” His jaw flexed as I saw how much he cared about her and how powerless he also felt.
“If we left right now, we’d be too late,” Rowan added. It had taken me half an hour to walk to his place, another fifteen for Kip to arrive, another ten for me to relay all the information I knew about what Calliope was wound up in. Then twenty for them to make calls, do research on Jasper Hayes—the man didn’t exist, although both of them remembered the boy he had been with Calliope. Both of them were surprised as all hell that he was not only still in her life but ruining it. She kept a lot from her family. I didn’t tell them about the attack, the rape. That was hers to share.
While I was doing all of that, she’d been speeding to New York, either by doubling the speed limit in her sports car or by taking a jet. We didn’t know. She could’ve been there already.
“You can’t know that,” I ground out, arguing with Rowan even though I knew deep down he was speaking the truth.
“I can,” he protested. “Calliope is not one to drag anything out. Whatever she’s doing. It’s likely already done. We can’t help her. All we can do is trust that she’s capable of fighting for herself.”
I stared at both men. Brimming with fury. Worse because I knew they were right. I’d known it the second Calliope walked out the door. There was nothing I could do to help her. Nothing but wait and trust that her strength would keep her safe.
Twenty-Five
labour — Paris Paloma
CALLIOPE
My first meeting should’ve been my most terrifying.
Coming face-to-face with the head of a criminal organization who I’d effectively run away from after being witness to him murdering someone and him having me attacked, violated as a warning. Me using the time I’d been holed up in my apartment healing to uncover the breadth of his organization.
Human trafficking. Murder for hire. Truly horrible, unspeakable shit.
The evidence I had was technically enough to take to some kind of law enforcement establishment. But I hadn’t. Not because I’d be implicated. If I knew beyond a doubt that those truly responsible for those acts would be imprisoned, that I’d be able to bring the victims justice and stop what was going on, I would’ve incriminated myself in an instant. I was guilty, after all.
But I was aware that there would never be justice. Not for those at the top. Not for those who were guilty. Because they were smart., richer than small countries’ entire GDP. There were fucking international politicians involved. Congressmen, prime ministers, foreign diplomats. Their web of depravity was tangled with organizations that promised to secure law and order. It was a sad truth the general public wasn’t privy to. That there was no true justice nor punishment for those committing the most unspeakable crimes on our planet because they ran the planet.