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)
No one ever measures up.
Callum will stick his nose where it doesn’t belong this summer, and maybe he’ll even try to get me fired, because he’s fucking predictable.
But he won’t have the imagination for much else. In a week, it’ll be a bore, and the years of preparation to build a presence in St. Carmen will prove to be useful, but ultimately…unexciting. St. Carmen’s golden boy won’t surprise me.
I tilt my head, cracking my neck as the memory of last night floats through my mind.
Okay, maybe he surprised me a little.
His piece-of-shit father is his enemy, too, but he’s the only one Callum might heel to.
Callum is after him as well. Should I warn him? The enemy of my enemy is my friend, et cetera?
No. I want Callum to stay. I’ve waited a long time for this.
I ball my fists, still feeling his hands around my wrists like cuffs.
One thing I will say…I didn’t quite get a read on what he’s going to do next. I can make assumptions—the threats in my ear were clear, after all—but then his smile at the end? It was so pure. As if he’s not worried about a goddamn thing and already knows exactly how this will go.
And he’ll want to issue a response for that little scar I gave him the last time I saw him.
Walking to the door, I open it and tap my fingers on the symbol on the wall before I step into the hallway. He got in my head a little back in the day. He said some things that consumed my attention and other things that made me want to kill. I love being that angry.
Until he started to feel like someone I couldn’t walk away from. No one gets under my skin.
Crossing the hall, I step into the wet bar that Krisjen asked Macon to install during the expansion of the house. The scent of coffee fills the space, and I lean over the sink, flipping on the faucet and splashing water in my face. The cold opens my eyes, and I grab a towel, wiping dry.
My brother’s wife hasn’t been completely useless. This little room was a great idea. It’s nice to not have to go downstairs for coffee. Just because I’m up walking around doesn’t mean I want to go through a round of “Good mornings” with every fucking person in the house.
There’s also a fridge with water and other light snacks and a small table with four chairs. It’s fantastic. After we hydrate whoever we brought home like the gentlemen we are, we can march them straight to the front door.
Not that I do. I don’t bring sex home anymore. Macon was right about that. Strangers don’t need to be sleeping here.
Pouring a cup of coffee, I head down the hallway and quietly twist the knob of the last room on the right.
Iron lies on his stomach, a light purple sheet covering his bottom half, one of his feet dangling off the side of the bed.
I step up next to him, taking a sip of coffee as I study his new tattoos. The alligator on the bottom left of his back has been there since he was seventeen, and I glance at the faded palm tree on his right forearm, accompanied by Sanoa Bay’s latitude and longitude. I can’t see the hourglass with the snake wrapped around it on the side of his neck pressed to the bed, but it’s an old one, too. We all have that one. The symbol of Tryst Six—what everyone else calls my family when they want to refer to us as a whole rather than by name. Mine is at the top of my arm, where it meets my shoulder.
In the forty-four months my brother was in prison, though—because he couldn’t control his temper with people who pissed him off—he’d acquired several more. The Seminole flag hung down his back, the word UNCONQUERED above it like a crown. There’s also a map of Cuba trailing down his left arm, as well as several smaller ones. I caught a picture of a seaplane on the right side of his chest last night, and there was also a cigar on his neck, a tall ship on the inside of his right forearm, and Our Lady of Guadalupe on his right bicep. I cock my eyebrow, loving how my family chooses to ignore their English, French, and German heritage in favor of the Seminole and Spanish. That’s all the St. Carmen rich pricks see when they look at us, so we fight for it.
Taking another sip of coffee, I slurp extra loud, causing Iron to shoot his head up and twist his neck to look at me. His chest rises and falls fast, his green eyes alert.
I laugh, and it takes about a second, but he drops his lids, exhaling. “What the fuck?”