Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“It’s a whole thing with the family. His mom and my mom are distant. I don’t like it. I came here to start fixing it. I wanted to meet him.”
“Do you have a phone number? Could you call him and see if he wanted to meet that way?”
I frowned. “My mom never gave me his number. My aunts would. Aunt Clara knows people online.”
“Knows people online?” The cop wasn’t looking impressed with me, pressing his mouth in a tight line. “Ma’am, at this point, I think you need to get going. Find another way to reach out to your cousin. I’m sure there’s a way.”
I shook my head, so much else spiraling inside of me, all of it going down the drain. “There’s no way. He doesn’t want me.” It was the pattern in my life.
Beck didn’t want me.
“Ma’am?”
He wanted someone else.
I said, “He married someone else. He didn’t want me anymore.”
“Your cousin?” The cop’s voice sharpened.
I shook my head, tears pricking at my eyes. God. All of it was blending inside of me.
Beck tossed me to the side. Like garbage. I was trash.
“Ma’am, you either need to leave or I will be removing you myself. It’s better for you if you leave of your own accord. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Tears began falling down my cheeks.
He was going to marry someone else, and I was being questioned on the streets across the country, eating a sub that was so cold by now. I was tempted to give it to the rat that was hanging out a few steps away. Him and his buddies were moving around, doing their thing, but the one kept watching me. He knew what was up. He could tell. I was a prime target.
“Miss, are you going to leave or not?” The cop was getting impatient.
Leave? I shook my head. I couldn’t leave New York City.
“You’re not going to leave?”
“I have no place to go,” I mumbled, looking down. More tears were falling, but I wasn’t feeling them. I wasn’t tasting them either.
I couldn’t go back to Montana.
I had things to do here.
Tourist things. I still needed to go to Times Square. Ellis Island too.
I failed at even being a tourist. I’d meant to get a fanny pack on Canal Street, but I never went there. I never got a fanny pack. That was Tourist 101, right?
All the spiraling inside of me took me over.
I was openly sobbing.
I meant to regroup.
I had not regrouped.
“Okay. Miss, you’ve given me no other option. I’m going to take you in for your safety.” A hand touched my wrist and I was jerked backward.
I cried out. My sandwich fell to the sidewalk.
The cop yanked my other arm behind me, and cold metal was slapped around my wrists at the same time I heard the click. “Miss, you are being detained for now.”
“Wait. What?”
He ignored me, leading me to his squad car. He put me in the back seat, a hand to the top of my head guiding me inside. When the door shut, reality slapped me in the face.
Well, shit.
Being detained by a New York City cop hadn’t been on my tourist bucket list. It was now. Check that off.
I looked out.
The little rat dude ran past the car, my sandwich in his mouth.
Chapter Four
Jake
The second I stepped inside the station, there she was.
The woman from the subway. The same woman I’d not been able to get out of my head. She was like a fly, buzzing around me, poking at my thoughts. I’d been on the train that day because Shorty was still in town. I knew he was going to get banished. It was inevitable because he was a pain in the ass on his good days. He was never going to change, and Ashton would want Shorty as far away from his woman as possible, but I wanted to make sure I got all the information out of him that I could about my cousin.
Christ.
My cousin. That was all a shit show by itself, but Nicolai was dead. And my fucking family decided to take a vote and appoint me as the new head. It was a farce. The whole thing. I had a shit ton of family members. Some were cops. Some were in the oil business. And then I had a section that was Mafia, except most of those uncles all lived in Maine. They ran the business from there, which was a joke by itself.
I was a cop.
Fuck.
I had been a cop. I wasn’t anymore, not for two days now. There’d been a short period of time I considered going up to Maine and taking over the business. They gave me the power, but I started thinking about it, really thinking about it.
I hated the idea. Loathed it, in fact.
If I was going up there, it would be to destroy the family from inside. I had no allegiance to them. Not one fucking bit. They’d stood by when my parents died in a car accident. I’d just turned eighteen. Justin wasn’t far behind me, and no one stepped up to help us out. No fucking way was I going to let my little brother go into the system. We lived in Maine back then, but I took him on.