Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
The Jaegers are more powerful than ever.
“A lot has happened in the past four years,” I state to my friends before looking pointedly at Milo. “And Dallas doesn’t drink beer out of cans.”
Just for your information…
“He’s clever,” Jerome says.
I dart my eyes to him. “And smart.”
We can boost our egos by joking around that the Jaegers are Neanderthal garbage all we want, but they didn’t keep hold of their land for five hundred years by force alone.
Dallas might not have had the educational pedigree to deserve that job, but the number of students requesting his class for fall has doubled in a year.
“But…” Vincent chimes in next to me, “isn’t it the boosters who fund the humanities and the arts now?”
I nod, smiling a little. “Yeah.”
Soft laughter echoes around the interior of the car, because Dallas’s class is an unessential course, unlike math or science, and his paycheck is covered instead by alumni donors.
By us.
We can decide if the class is useless and that the money should go to athletics or a trip for the seniors or fucking bidets in all of the bathrooms.
But I won’t do that. I don’t want him gone.
I don’t want him fighting for his life.
I just want him trapped, preferably in the same room as me.
“They’ll want revenge for what we did to Liv,” I point out.
“What we tried to do,” Milo grumbles.
The two of us were in high school with Dallas’s sister, and I took my anger with him out on her. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but it did get his attention.
Milo tells everyone, “Macon is mine.”
“Macon Jaeger is mine,” Jerome retorts.
I shake my head at both of them. Krisjen Conroy went out with Milo in high school, and when she dumped him, Jerome Watson wanted her for himself. Sadly, Dallas’s oldest brother, an ex-Marine with the most miserable fucking personality I’ve ever encountered, fell in love. Jerome’s still seething, and Milo only gives a shit because Macon gave him a beating so bad he finally decided he’d rather be at college.
Their eyes find mine as if I’m going to have plans of my own for them to consider, but they can have Macon. They know which one belongs to me.
The car dips just before it inclines, heading up a long, steep hill, and I don’t have to look to know we’re at the country club.
“We should take off for a couple of weeks.” Milo’s gaze meets everyone else’s. “There will be plenty of storms to face and plans to put in place when we return.”
The car passes the clubhouse, veers around the restaurant and patio, and heads toward the field house.
I shake my head. “I already know what I’m going to do.”
“Care to share?” Milo teases.
“No.” I toss him a smirk as we stop at the side door of a lonely brick building off the golf course. “You blab like a motherfucker when you’re drunk.”
Everyone chuckles, Milo flashing a little snarl. He knows it’s true. He’ll find out soon enough, but I don’t want him running his mouth tonight once all the attention starts feeding his arrogance.
The driver opens our door. “And you’re not going anywhere,” I tell Milo, climbing out of the car.
The Jaegers have an army over in Sanoa Bay, and I need one, too.
Walking up to the steel brown door with an average sphere knob that looks like any door on any utility building, I open it and lead the group down the dim stairwell. Dark carpet covers the stairs, small flame bulbs glowing against the black walls, and I hear the door slam behind us as I stop at the entrance at the bottom of the stairs.
Flipping open the keypad, I punch in the ten-digit password and then press my thumb to the scanner. Any St. Carmen couple who contributes the club’s annual membership fee—successful payment of which simply proves you belong in this crowd—has access to the Wolfe Room. For a little extra, rising adult sons twenty-one and over may also be admitted if their parents allow it. Daughters, not officially. Until they become wives anyway.
But unofficially? That’s a whole different story. I snap the cover closed again, twisting my neck till it cracks.
The door opens.
A young woman in a tight sleeveless black dress with bone-straight brown hair smiles at us. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
We step into the antechamber, a small round table to the right, a tray with a decanter and glasses in the middle. Shelves and monitors line the walls, and a fake fire casts a heatless glow into the room.
“May I take any jackets?” she asks.
Another girl approaches, and Milo and Vincent remove their suit coats, handing them off to the two women. Four doors branch off from the room, but I only look at the one ahead.
“How’s the selection tonight?” Milo asks.
May, the redhead, throws him a smile over her shoulder as she hangs up his coat. “Some of them have delayed their summer travels simply so they could welcome you young men home.”