AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“These meetings are no place for a girl, Theodora.”My father’s words replay in my head.
Girl my ass. I’ve probably got bigger balls than him.
Not that he showed me an awful lot of attention previously, but since my mother’s passing, Kennedy Harlow has treated me like an inconvenience and an incompetent little girl.
He still believes Mum’s death was suicide. Whether he really believes that or is too scared to do anything about my accusation against Carlo, I’ll never know.
After my confrontation with Carlo in the shadows at my house, I’d told my dad that Carlo had done it. Thathemurdered my mother. But he didn’t listen, not once. He said I was grieving and wanted to blame someone. After months of trying to get through to him, I gave up. I couldn’t show him the note my mother left me, so I had no proof to back up my accusation either.
But according to dear old Dad, if she couldn’t handle this life, then apparently neither can I, therefore I’ve been left in the dark for two long years, but what my father doesn’t know is that I’ve been training and plotting for this moment right here.
Emerson, although only a few years older than me, was appointed head of ‘Theo security’ by my father after my mother passed, but long before that he was my trainer and my friend. He's been teaching me to fight, to respond, how to use a gun since I was in my teens.
Emerson is a beefy guy and happened to be employed by my father’s ranks when he turned eighteen. His father used to work for him but when he passed and Emerson was growing up with his auntie, Kennedy Harlow saw an opportunity and took it.
Our relationship doesn’t stray from training and the odd conversation anymore. Twenty-year-old Theo had seduced him one night and used him as a get out of jail free card, to take her virginity and ‘show her what she was missing’.
It wasn’t anything special, but it was in a way, a metaphorical kick in the teeth to the guy who was supposed to take it and a stab in my father’s back, who thought his Theo security was a loyal henchman.
But, as I should have anticipated, when it comes to me, my father doesn’t even notice anymore.
I’m an incompetent, inconvenient, invisible little girl. We rarely speak unless he’s dismissing or insulting me.
But it has worked in my favour. His obliviousness to me is why he has no idea I heard him arrange his car for tonight to attend the District meeting about how the ‘confidential business deal’ was going and why he has no idea I was on my motorcycle, with the headlight off, speeding down behind him in the distance, following him to his destination.
I wasn’t overly fond of my motorcycle. I would’ve preferred to have driven my little Nissan convertible, but I knew it would be too obvious. Emerson, being my teacher in many things, had taught me how to ride a motorcycle a few years back when I was bored. Once he’d bought a new one, he gave me his old one ‘just in case’.
I’d cut off the engine at the end of the road that I knew led to the abandoned warehouse. Leaving it hidden in the bushes, not worried one bit if I never saw it again, I’d crawled most of the way up the dirt path, hidden in the shadows, before taking my place not far from the entrance, but far enough to not be seen.
Now I know I’m not incompetent like my father believes and I know how stupid and practically impossible this is going to be. A young, problematic girl attempting to murder the leader of the First District.
The boss man.
The most protected man in thousands of miles.
The man many capable men have tried to kill and have never succeeded.
But I have no choice but to try. Carlo Rhivers killed my mother. He took any kind of life I had left to live away from me, leaving me without a caring family, scars on my arms, and a hole in my heart.
Carlo Rhivers needs to pay, and I’m willing to pay the price.
* * *
After another tenminutes or so, movement piques my interest, and like a deer caught in headlights, my attention is focused sharply at the noise as I hear the wooden door make a deafening creak in the silence.
The men patrolling the area relax slightly and move aside, letting the small crowd of people stumble through. Edison Ramon, the leader of the Third District, appears first with another man behind him, his hood pulled up and head bowed down.
A couple other men I don’t recognise leave the building before my father appears with his head of security, Davidson, a breath behind.
Dax Rhivers follows, his eyes scanning the area, sussing out any potential threats. Fortunately, he pays little attention to where I am, his eyes never resting on my hiding spot.
The atmosphere changes as King Rhivers steps out the small wooden door, bending down slightly to fit through the frame. His left hand pulls up his fedora hat, sitting it on his ruffled hair before his hand returns to sit loosely in his pocket, his right hand occupied with his gun.
I hate that I’m momentarily distracted by his loose collar, the top few buttons undone in that way to give you a sneak peek of his tattooed chest.
The butterflies that are already flying around in my stomach intensify at the sight of King. Although grown into the rough, handsome man he is today, I can still recognise the sad smile of a boy I once thought I knew.
Even through my nerves, King stirs something deep within me.
