Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 65210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
I made a few friends, and one of them had even talked me into going to a party tonight. With Hades hardly around, I didn’t feel the need to ask him for his permission. Not that I would have, even if he was here. He couldn’t expect me to just stay cooped up in this house and not socialize.
But a part of me wanted to ask him because it would give me some interaction with the man who was slowly consuming my thoughts over the last few weeks.
I couldn’t stop picturing him working out in his basement gym, his tattooed body sweaty and bulging with muscles. I imagined those enormous hands sliding over my skin. It would be such a stark contrast. His tanned, ink flesh against my unmarred, pale skin.
I even slipped my fingers between my thighs and touched myself as I envisioned that before quickly realizing it was sick and twisted and stopped myself.
My phone beeped with an incoming text. I picked it up off my vanity and looked at the screen. It was from Sophia, one of the girls I had classes with. She’d befriended me shortly after I started school, and over the last few weeks we’d become closer.
She told me her parents were Italian immigrants and that her father was in the import and export business.
Sophia: Be there in five.
I grabbed my clutch off the vanity and walked downstairs. Although Hades wasn’t here, there was always staff around.
I could see Bruno sitting on a chair in the cigar room. As soon as he saw me, he set the newspaper down and stood, strutting over to me with a scowl on his face.
I rolled my eyes as he looked me up and down. I could see the judgment on his face, even though I was fully clothed. A pair of skinny jeans and a formfitting shirt wasn’t me trying to proposition people for sex, but the look on his face said otherwise.
“Mr. Cronus has instructed that you stay inside unless with a chaperone.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and cocked my eyebrow. Bruno was an intimidating man at six-foot-five and built like a tank. But I noticed he always stayed five feet from me, as if sharing the same airspace would somehow offend his boss.
“Well, Mr. Cronus isn’t here, and I am an adult. I can come and go as I please, Bruno.” I emphasized his name, and turned, gripping the handle and opening the door just as I saw Sophia’s headlights pulling up the driveway.
“He won’t like this,” Bruno said from behind me, and I looked over my shoulder.
“No, I suspect he won’t.” And then I shut the door and climbed into Sophia’s car, feeling a surge of pleasure at the fact that I was pissing Hades off.
Why did getting under his skin make me feel so good?
Chapter 13
Hades
Listening to Markov drone on and on about what he didn’t enjoy regarding the recent development was grating on my fucking nerves.
But I sat there with my stoic expression in place, acted like I was paying attention, and tried not to curl my lip in disgust that he conducted this business meeting at a fucking strip club, of all places.
We were in one of the back VIP rooms at the salacious strip joint Markov owned. I’d had to tell the women to get out because none of the other men were paying attention with all the half-naked asses on display.
These men might be criminals, using this recent development to launder their money, but this was still business. And business made money, so I let Markov call the shots… to an extent.
We should do this in a fucking office, not with tits and ass being shoved in our faces. I looked at Markov and Ivan as they kept talking about why they didn’t like a particular aspect of the building.
The third Russian was too busy staring out the floor-to-ceiling wall of glass that overlooked the main floor of the strip club. It was clear the only thing on his mind was pussy.
Cronus Enterprises was the legitimate side of the business. That was what Zachariah and Michael had handled. The legal shit that had them front and center in the public eye. Me? I was just the piece-of-shit fake brother and son who had never been good enough to help run the “family business”.
I had been given the seedy side of work. Money laundering, drug and illicit gun trafficking, and a host of other despicable things that no one else in our circles would have the stomach for.
And so I made a shell company. Cerberus Corp.
But things were different now. With Zachariah rotting in the ground, and Michael on his deathbed, I was in charge. I was Cronus Enterprise’s.
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw, done with this shit. “Markov, does it really matter how big the square footage is for each room?” I finally said, unable to keep my annoyance down.