Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“I’m more focused than I’ve ever been. I’m locked in on my mission. You’re my target, and I won’t get off the track until you’re in front of me. Do you see how foolish you’ve been? You were crazy enough to think that you could leave me, and I wouldn’t have any say in it. You’re mine.”
“Don’t—”
My voice roared through the phone. “You’re mine!”
Silence.
Her voice cracked as she spoke, “I’m sorry, baby.”
“You will be.” I licked my lips. Tears mixed with rage and lust. “You’ll be so sorry, when I get my hands on you.”
Her words came out as a low shiver. “Chase, you have to ... you have to—”
“Focus.” I finished her sentence. “Focus, right? I know. I’ve been around your mother enough. She says it every minute. Focus, Chase, focus. Troy says it, too. Focus, Rich Boy. Now you’re saying it. But don’t you all understand, I can’t concentrate, if you’re not next to me and safe? Where are you?!”
My hold on the phone tightened to the point where I could swear the plastic cracked around me.
“I can’t tell you.” A sad sigh passed over the phone. “Chase, listen. We have to—”
“See each other.” I finished her sentence.
“No. Stop that. I’m trying to talk. We need to—”
“Be together immediately,” I finished again.
“You’re not listening.”
“Because you’re not making any sense.”
“Troy and I came up with a plan.”
Great. They’re going to get each other killed.
“No.” I kicked the door with the back of my foot. “You and I are one. We don’t make plans with other people. We don’t keep secrets. We don’t do things unless we’re together. Where are you?”
“Stop working with my mother. I don’t know what you’re doing, but Benny was upset this morning. Please, tell me you had nothing to do with it.”
Aww. Benny’s upset? Maybe I should come over there and give him a hug.
I grinned. “Where are you?”
“Get away from my mother.”
“You want me away from her, then come home. Until then, your mom and I will be best friends.”
She sighed on the other end. “And how’s this friendship working out for you?”
“Currently, I’m on a plane. She’s here, too, in the back. We’re heading your way. She’s just had lobster and will be getting a massage soon.”
“From who?”
Jealous, are we?
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“No, Chase. You can’t be around her.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Go home. Troy and I—”
“Don’t have the resources that I do,” I finished.
“What? No. Troy and I—”
“Are morons and weak next to Benny.”
“Stop interrupting my sentences!”
“Then start making sense!” If my hold on the phone got any more constricting, the device would be cracked to bits and pieces of plastic, electronics, and metal. “Where are you?”
Jasmine huffed. “I think Benny knows you and Mom are together.”
“Good.”
“Whatever is going on, she is the mastermind.”
“Mastermind?”
Jasmine sighed. “Troy’s words. Not mine.”
I grinned. “Tell me more.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No. I’m trying to keep you on the phone longer so I could just listen to your voice. I’m trying to imprint this conversation in my mind so I’m not biting my pillows as I lay in bed tonight. Tell me more. I don’t care. If you want to talk about your mom, then do it. Just don’t hang up.”
Her voice came out strained. “I’m sorry.”
“I love you.”
“We ... listen—”
“Our love is worth everyone’s death.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I don’t care if everyone dies around us, just as long as you’re with me.”
“Chase, I do care. I don’t want anybody else to be hurt.”
“Everyone that’s dead knew what they were doing. Half of them caused it. Dawn, Wendy—”
“And Lucy?” she asked.
“No, not Lucy.”
“No more innocent people.”
“Where are you, tesoro?”
“Benny is calm now, besides the fact that he’s just got upset over something probably about you and Mom. Leave this alone. Benny thinks this is a big family trip. He wants us to learn about where he came from. Troy and I have a plan. If it works, then maybe we can be together again.”
“There isn’t a maybe. I can’t live with maybe. I’m on a fucking plane! I don’t care about your and Troy’s plan. It’s nothing to me, unless this plan leads me to you.”
My name ripped out of her mouth in a ragged plea. “Chase, please go home. Don’t look for me, and stay away from my mother.”
“Why?”
“There’s a reason my brothers had all of South End on lock. Do you think a bunch of teenage boys could’ve done that all by themselves?”
“Your mother helped?”
“According to Troy, my mother masterminded the whole thing. And if she’s with you, she’s doing it again.”
“Well, you’re not here so fuck it. And by the way, she took me to South End,” I admitted.
“Jesus.”
“We went into the Chops.”
“Oh God.”
“I own the building now by the way.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Did you know that one of the elevators doesn’t work?”
“The odd one? It never worked.”