 by Tijan.jpg)
Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
This was my place. My business. Easter Lanes.
Then a guy comes in, trying to rob me, daring to take it away from me.
My home. My life.
Hell no. I won’t let my livelihood be threatened.
No one knows what I’ve done to build this life for myself.
Except he might.
Ashton Walden, a man I remember from when we were kids.
Even back then I could tell how dangerous he would be one day.
He’s now the head of the Walden mafia family, and my father is so in debt to them that they practically own him.
My dad and I are estranged and I want nothing to do with him or his debt, but the day after the attempted robbery, I don’t wake up in the hospital.
I wake up in Ashton Walden’s home. And he drops a bomb on me.
If I want my livelihood back, I need to earn it back.
And thus begins our cruel arrangement.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
MOLLY
I had a problem.
I was pointing a gun at a guy with green makeup on his face, and I kept thinking how he looked like that goblin guy from one of those superhero movies. A bubble of laughter was coming up in my sternum. I tried stopping it, I did, but once it was past my throat, it was hopeless.
I bent over, my gun still in the air, and the laughter was kapoosh! Totally coming out of me.
I winced, hearing a note of hysteria on the edge of it.
“Molly!” That was my employee who was on the ground, his arms folded behind his head as he lay on his stomach, and I could hear how horrified he was.
I raised my head back up, steadied my arm, and cleared my throat. “Let’s review the changes that just happened here. You”—I shook my gun, indicating the green guy—“came in here, to my bowling alley, to rob us. Correct?”
He had a rifle aimed at me, and it was at this point I realized how crazy I really was.
Like, seriously crazy.
A rifle against my handgun. And I was laughing.
I was verging on lunacy. A lunatic. Me.
But he was wearing green makeup, so there could be an argument about who was the more irrational one in this situation.
“You do this sort of thing often?”
“Molly, my god.” That was from a different employee. “What are you doing?”
We had a good situation here. Not the robbery, obviously, but what I’d built in this business. Easter Lanes. This was my place. My business. I was proud of what I’d done for the bowling alley when I took it over from my dad. He’d already run it into the ground, so I seized an opportunity when he was particularly vulnerable, and he was a lowlife street gambler, so those moments were fairly common. We were talking twice a month, but this time was when he was up a literal shit creek and he had no one to come and save him. So, me, being his daughter, well, I took a page from his book—I conned him. Meaning, he called me for bail money and he seemed extra frenzied to get out of there, which probably meant there was someone on the inside who wanted to give him some sort of beating.
I told him I wouldn’t post his bail until he gave me the bowling alley. I was aware that some debts came with the business, but at that point in my life, I had nothing to lose. So I got the bowling alley, renovated what I could, and have continued renovating it over the years as profits got better. I paid off the bowling debts, but that was it. Anything to do with Easter Lanes was all mine. Added a whole pub part and gaming section so families could come here too.
I made sure it appealed to all ages to maximize our customers.
And it worked.
This robber guy had no clue what he was threatening here. This was my life. My only life.
This place was in my blood, and because of all of that, yeah, I went a little unhinged when I looked up and saw a rifle pointing at me.
“What are you playing at, woman?! I told you to give me the money. Why are you waiting? Give me the money!”
Oh, boy.
Boys, girls, don’t try this at home.
The register drawer was closed. The key was right next to it. I looked at my staff because they knew where the extra keys were, but . . . I could grab it, so quick. I could—I did something. That I was going to regret.
“Molly!” from my one employee.
And my second employee. “What did you do?!”
My staff was shouting and gasping, but one scream drowned out the rest. The green-faced robber was shrieking at me, shaking his gun. “What did you do?! You crazy psycho bitch!”
I swallowed the key to get into the register.
That’s what I did.
I was still holding my gun up, but it was shaking because my hand was shaking because my arm was shaking because I was shaking. My whole body was trembling, and I was tasting tears.
Enough!
Screw this. I’d not endured my whole tragic, sad story of a life to get it all taken away from me by this guy. “You come in here! Thinking you’re going to rob my place! This is mine. And I’m not going to take this. You know who my dad is?”
I had temporarily stunned the green-faced robber, because he began backing up, slowly inching away from me. He’d forgotten he had the rifle in his hands, but he paused at my question. “Your dad?”
I could see the realization start coming to him.
His eyes were flickering, skirting, panicking, and he was beginning to remember that some businesses in our neighborhood were hooked in. I’m talking Mafia-style hooked in. I wasn’t above using some of that intimidation if it meant I wasn’t going to be arrested for homicide today.