Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 83430 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83430 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“Wait, hold on. You can’t buy a house in my name without talking to me first.”
“—and we know plenty of people at Baltimore First National so you’ll definitely get a loan with a very good rate. Unless you want to use cash? I’m pretty sure you can do cash if you want?”
“Riley!”
She turns on me, her playful smile gone, hands on her hips. I swear, the girl’s younger than me, but she’s turning into a massive pain in my ass in ways I never envisioned. I remember when she was little, begging me to teach her thieving skills, and how she took to them like a fish in water. She had grit and potential, this wild sister of mine.
But look at her now. Tamed by love and marriage.
Is that going to happen to me too?
Only if I let it. Only if I open myself enough for that to open.
Which I won’t.
And besides—
I’m not sticking around forever to find out.
“Talin Sarkissian is a nice girl, Brenden. She grew up in the Sarkissian family house, and do you know what that looks like?”
“I assume not the mansion.” I don’t bother mentioning that I’m intimately familiar with her home life.
“Close enough.” Riley juts a finger in my face. “You will get your shit together. No more wallowing. What happened in Vegas wasn’t your fault. Those people—“
“Died, Riley.” I say it softly and push her finger down. “The job blew up. Then Los Sambras came after me.”
“And you’d be in the ground if not for my husband.”
“Which is why I’m even doing this. I owe him my life.”
“This is another chance for you. I swear, it’ll be good. Only Talin needs a house. She needs a man who isn’t a shell of who he used to be.”
I turn my back on my sister. “This is all I’ve got left.”
“That’s not true! Look, I know you went through hell. When that Vegas job fell apart, they hunted you for it, they made you pay. They hurt you and almost ended you, but still, it wasn’t your fault. That’s over now. You don’t have to hide anymore.”
It’s over. She’s right. Whatever’s in my head is only a ghost. They’re apparitions of a mistake I made two years ago now, but I still feel them when I try to walk and my knee aches, or I twist the wrong way and my back cracks from stress. I wish it were as simple as letting the dead stay dead.
“Buy the house. Get me a good deal.”
“Really?” Her momentum is stalled. She definitely expected me to fight more.
“Yeah, really, go ahead. Talin needs a house, right? This one’s as good as any other.”
“She’ll love it.” But Riley doesn’t sound sure. She senses a trap, because my sister’s always been the smart one. “Are you going to?”
I don’t answer. I walk off, giving her a wave over my shoulder. Because what’s it matter? A house or an apartment? Dig a hole in the ground and I’ll be fine. What do I care, if I’m still only a shell, waiting to be filled again?
Waiting for the space to breathe.
Utensils scrape on plates. Someone’s lilting laughter slides over the heads of the people sitting nearby. Fairy lights dangle from the ceiling and wildflowers are placed in artful bunches. Crap hangs on the walls. Some vaguely pastoral bullshit mixed with wood-and-iron like a hammer factory got smashed into an artisanal florist. The theme makes no fucking sense. People seem to love it. The food comes out on tiny plates and each one costs a small fortune.
I ask the bartender for another club soda and leave a nice tip to make sure she stays happy and barely noticing me. I have a good spot in the corner, tucked beside a couple of louder older ladies, both of them big, hiding me from the majority of the restaurant. For a lunch rush, it’s busy. I tug my hat down and hunch my shoulders, outwardly looking like a stressed business man killing his only private hour.
She’s sitting at a table near the front windows, not close enough to hear what she’s saying, but she’s smiling. I like Talin’s smile. There’s something easy in it though when the smile goes away, I catch glimpses of something else. Anger, maybe, when she turns to her sister, a pretty blond girl who sits like she’s got an iron rod up her ass, or maybe like she’d love one there. Her brothers are on the other side of the table, that young bastard Sam who made me the other night, and the baby-faced Davit with his mop of dark, curly hair.
They seem nice. That’s a word I hate, fucking nice. Riley keeps using it to describe Talin and I know what she means. These are the kind of siblings who have inside jokes, who grew up going to sports together, who look forward to Christmas because it’s more time they get to spend feeling happy.