Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 151097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 504(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 504(@300wpm)
We’d been abandoned.
We even had our own Tower of Babel, where the rich and powerful gathered to show the poor that they were gods amongst mortals. And guess who owned the deed to all of that decadence?
Malcolm Kilpatrick—the boss of the Fola.
Although everyone knew it was his son who was truly running things.
I turned my gaze toward the glittering onyx tower in the center of the city. Only a few blocks separated me from it, and yet it felt a world away. The highest three floors of the penthouse were cloaked in clouds and fog, casting its resident in obscurity. Did they feel safe and secure hidden away from the rest of the world, or were they lonely?
Some days, Black Veil felt dreary and grim. On nights like this, it was as if I were trapped in a noir film. Considering the overwhelming crime rate—including the one happening right now—it was pretty astute of me.
Hunter and I just paid our rent despite the heat in our unit being broken again for the fourth time in two months. Luther kept hiring his cousin to fix it because the labor was cheap, but that fake-ass handyman couldn’t seem to get it working for longer than a day or two. To make matters worse, we’d heard his cousin got pinched for running scams and was currently locked up at county.
Luther promised to hire someone else to fix our heat, but it’s been two weeks, and each time we pressed him about it, he’d give us the run-around. And now Hunter and I were running up our electric bill using the open oven to heat our apartment on top of the cheap space heaters we had running around the clock. It was a good thing our apartment wasn’t large to begin with.
To solve our Luther problem, Hunter had the bright idea of withholding our rent until he fixed the heat, but all it had gotten us was the threat of eviction and a hefty late fee tacked on to the two grand we owed him.
Luckily, we always paid in cash.
Luther had quickly left after collecting our rent, but we knew he’d be back soon, and since he was nothing if not predictable, he wouldn’t be alone. We lived only a block away from the red light district, Luther’s favorite haunt, and a creep like him wasn’t picky, so we didn’t have a lot of time.
“Got it!” Hunter finally said before shoving it up the rest of the way and quickly scrambling inside. My short arms hurried to catch the window before it could slam down on her spine, and then Hunter tumbled inside the apartment with a yelp and a curse. Something inside crashed to the floor and shattered.
“Are you okay?” I asked while rising to the tips of my toes and trying my best to peer inside the dark apartment.
There was a lengthy pause, and then she grumbled, “Yeah.” Hunter stood to hold the window ajar while I heaved myself up and over the sill. I was even less graceful climbing inside, ending in a heap at Hunter’s feet. “You okay?” she whispered after letting go of the window and helping me stand. Her dark brown eyes were full of concern as she waited for a sign that I’d hurt myself.
“Yeah. I’m fine. You?”
I didn’t wait for her answer as I pulled away from her soft touch under the guise of looking around the cluttered apartment.
“I’m good,” she answered. I could feel her gaze on me.
Nodding absently, I wrinkled my nose at the smell of musty ass and feet and sighed. “How the hell are we supposed to find our rent money in all of this? We should just call the Department of Public Health on his ass.”
“That won’t get our heat fixed,” Hunter reminded me as she peered around the apartment through the holes in her light pink ski mask. Since we were partners in crime, I was wearing a similar one, except mine was a dark pink. I didn’t even know why we bothered since everyone in our neighborhood knew everyone. If Luther walked through that door, he’d definitely recognize us. According to him, we’d been nothing but trouble since we moved in, so he was looking for any excuse to kick us out.
I tiptoed over to the tiny kitchen table by the front door, cringing at the sticky sound the dirty floor made under my feet. On the table were several containers of days-old takeout, mail, and papers scattered everywhere, a few empty liquor bottles, an overflowing ashtray, and a gray lockbox with a black handle.
“Hey, Hunt…” I called out as I came to a stop in front of the box. Hunter immediately moved from the side table drawer she had been searching to inspect the box with me.
“That’s got to be it,” she said with a huff while I tried to pry open the box. “See any keys anywhere?”