Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“Yes, and he’s very dedicated to the company. There is no place for Alexei in the organization.”
“Yet Hologrid Hub was started by his father,” I say. “Don’t you want the brothers to work together?”
Her eyes flare and the blue darkens. “They’re not brothers.”
“They’re half brothers.”
The car rolls to a stop.
“Remember what I said,” Lillian says, looking much older than her years. “You need to see the danger in Alexei before it’s too late. Also, it’s hard to explain, but to look professional to our, um, organization, it will be better for him if he marries. He’ll want to look stable and settled. Do not get caught up in his schemes.”
Organization? Why would investors in Hologrid Hub care about his personal life?
As the bodyguard opens the door, Lillian leans forward to stare at my three-story, light-pink Victorian townhouse.
“Your home is charming,” she says softly. “I know about your boarders, and I know how much you care about them. Alexei will take everything you love and destroy it, just so he can have you all to himself.” She rubs her arms as if freezing in the warm car. “I believe you have two best friends, Alana Beaumont and Ella Rendale, as well.”
I laugh. The idea of anybody getting to Alana Beaumont, now that she is with Thorn Beathach, is hilarious. “Alana is safe from any danger, don’t worry. Thorn will never let anything happen to her.” He owns the number one social media company while also running the Irish mob.
I don’t even want to think what he will do to anybody who tries to hurt her now. I wonder if Lillian has any idea that Thorn possibly killed her youngest son. I doubt it. As for Ella, she can disappear on a moment’s notice if needed. Her family owns TimeGem moments, one of the four powerful social media companies—although her stepmother has kicked her out of the family. For now.
The bodyguard steps out of the car and holds a hand to help me out. I have to take it, since I’m balancing the two platters. I look behind the vehicle, not surprised to see my SUV also parking by the curb. Another hulking bodyguard jumps out, tosses me the keys, and moves toward the other side of Lillian’s car.
The guy next to me snatches the keys out of the air and then places them gently on my tin foil wrapped tacos. “Thank you for not throwing these in my face.”
I blink. “I didn’t see a reason to do that.”
“You’re smart.” With those words, he gets back into the car.
Lillian leans over and looks at me, her expression somber. “Remember what I said. You’re in more danger than you can imagine right now.”
The door slams shut, and the car smoothly drives away. I shiver in the sudden cold and look up at my refuge. A window from the second floor opens, and Merlin pokes his gray head out. “It’s about time. You’re half an hour late with the tacos. We’re starving.”
EIGHT
Rosalie
After a mostly successful taco night topped off by a delicious apple pie I baked the night before, two of my boarders help me finish cleaning up the old-fashioned kitchen. I recently updated the counters into marble and the appliances into stainless steel, but the worn and uneven wooden floor is too costly to change for now.
Merlin finishes drying one of the plates. He’s dressed in his usual fancy slacks and shirt. With his thick gray hair and eyebrows, he looks like a distinguished professor and not the retired computer hacker I know him to be. We’ve hacked more than one secure system in an effort to help people who need assistance with the pseudo-doing-good group I created with Alana and Ella. “I’m sorry Percy crunched his taco so much at dinner. We’ll buy him new dentures.”
“He was fine,” I protest, having thought I hid my reaction.
“Huh,” Felix says. “There are some new treatments out of the Misophonia Institute.”
I nod. “I’m working through one of the trials now.” Most people have never heard of misophonia, which is a weird and extreme internal reaction to certain sounds, usually mouth or nose sounds. Sniffing sends me spiraling for my EarPods.
Felix finishes replacing the glasses into the cupboard and then turns to stare at me. “Good. We can try hypnotism again when you’re finished with their sound protocols. Speaking of your overall health, are you taking those vitamin D supplements I prescribed for you?”
“Yes,” I say. “I take one every day.” I’m not entirely sure I need 5,000 milligrams of vitamin D every day, but my energy level has increased.
He crosses his arms, his bald head gleaming beneath the soft light. The lines on his face are well worn, and I still find it amusing he won’t tell anybody his age. I guess him to be around eighty years old. Merlin has offered to hack into government systems and find out, but I figure if one of my boarders wants to keep a secret, they should. Felix worked as a doctor at a large hospital in Pennsylvania in his youth and then moved to a more rural area before he ended up with me, one of my renters who lack family.