Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
“Scarlett.”
I want to tell her to stop. I’ve heard enough. But it’s a selfish request, and she doesn’t hear me. The secrets spill from her lips freely.
And I know that come tomorrow, there will be more blood on my hands.
“She couldn’t bear to go back there. To face the prince and his friends. So, she let them all think that she was dead. She fled the kingdom and never looked back. She was alone, but she was happy.”
“Was she though?” I whisper in her ear.
“Stories are supposed to end in happily ever after,” she answers.
“But maybe the story isn’t over.”
She sighs.
“You’re right. The story is still being written.”
“Tell me how the rest goes. The part where she meets her new King. Because fuck princes. Tenly needs a King.”
She nods into me and continues.
“Okay. So, she meets this King. He was a good King. A fine King. A strong King. And all over the land, panties dropped for him whenever he smiled at the maidens.”
I snort, and she smiles against my shoulder.
“He was charming and funny and brave, and everything a good King should be.”
“But…” I say.
“But,” she answers. “The thing was that for all the King’s good qualities, the princess had none.”
“Bollocks,” I tell her.
She is quiet for a while after that, lost in thought. I don’t press her, and eventually she comes around on her own.
“Rory,” she whispers against my skin.
“Aye?”
“I think she might’ve given him her heart. If she still had one to give.”
“The story isn’t over,” I remind her.
She nods and allows herself to relax into me, breathing me in the same way I do to her.
“Tenly.”
She doesn’t answer, and I don’t expect her to. So I just tell her what needs to be said.
“They’re dead, sweetheart. They just don’t know it yet.”
Twenty
Scarlett
Some people are nobody's enemies but their own- Charles Dickens
I still recall quite vividly, the discussion we had in our English Lit class that fateful day. We were reading Hamlet. The topic of discussion was how he had sacrificed his relationship with Ophelia in favor of his descent into madness.
It is exactly this thought that I wake up to. Tangled up in Rory.
I have my own descent into madness to pursue, and sacrifices will need to be made.
There are only two days now.
Two days and I have not told Rory about Alexander.
Nothing I do is without intention. I was not vulnerable last night. I was prepared to sacrifice. Sometimes the truth is better motivation than a trick.
And it was with intention that I told Rory that tale. He volunteered to avenge me, just as I knew he would.
That’s when things took a left turn.
The trap had been set. All I had to do was tell him about Alexander AKA Agent Royce.
A girl like me doesn’t ask for help.
She sets it up in a way that someone offers instead.
Rory did offer, in his own way.
I know that I can’t take down Royce by myself. He’s well aware of my modus operandi, and I don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of drugging him. A physical altercation is out of the question because I’m not Mack and I can’t take him down alone.
Adding to that is the fact that he’s a federal agent. Which means he needs to disappear without a trace. Literally.
No DNA. No blood. No breadcrumbs leading back to me.
I don’t have the resources for something like that, but Rory does.
All I have to do is tell him.
But the nagging voice inside my head won’t shut up.
Royce isn’t just an ex-boyfriend.
He’s FBI.
FBI and mafia don’t mix.
This could mean trouble for the syndicate, and no doubt about it, Lachlan Crow would not sanction a risk like that for me.
Rory would probably do it, anyway.
And I am torn.
There are two voices in my head now, at war.
Don’t drag him into this, the first voice says.
All the while, the other is telling me we don’t give a fuck and let’s just do this already.
Moral dilemmas aren’t my forte.
I’m paralyzed with indecision when Rory wakes up beside me.
He kisses the mangy looking hobo that I am sans makeup and doesn’t blink an eye, and this does not make it any easier.
“Gym?” he asks.
“Oh.” Right. “Sure.”
We shower again. Together, again.
And everything’s becoming too comfortable. And I feel like I can’t fucking breathe.
It only gets worse as the morning progresses.
Once my hair is braided and I’ve got makeup on, Rory walks up behind me and snaps a picture of us with his phone.
“Did you just take a selfie with me?” I ask, horrified.
“I did.” He smirks. “Get used to it, Satan. I want lots of pretty pictures of you on my phone.”
As if that comment weren’t bad enough, he introduces me to ‘the lads’ at the gym as his girlfriend.
“You want to put a collar on me while you’re at it?” I ask. “Property of Saint?”