Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Maintain composure.
I can do that. I’m a fucking professional.
“Remember how I didn’t eat much today?” I start off.
“Yeah?”
“It’s also why I didn’t see Hailey until…like right now. It’s because work was hectic, and by the time Jake convinced Katherine to let me go early, my shift was thirty minutes from ending.”
“Jesus Christ.” He rolls his eyes into a heated glare. “What does she have on him?”
“Nothing. He just respects her, I think, and apparently, she’s his godmother.”
His brows jump. “Come again?”
“She was first his nanny. That’s what Jake told me, at least. His family loved her enough that they wanted her to stick around after their youngest was grown, so they hired her to manage the country club.”
I explain further how I’ve noticed that Jake has mannerisms eerily similar to Katherine’s. The sharp side-eyes, the disappointed parental expressions. I believe she helped raise him.
Rocky pinches his eyes, then rests his arm on the back of the sofa. “He’s hiding too much.”
“We’re hiding more.”
“If he’s anything like us, then it really isn’t safe to be here.”
I watch him fixate on the paused intro of Chainsaw Massacre, and I tell him, “I don’t see you preparing for a big move.”
“That’s because I’m on a date with my girlfriend.”
My lips turn up. “I’d think you were flirting with me if you didn’t have a sarcastic fucking smile while you said it.” I use some of his words from much earlier in the night, and he must remember.
Because he laughs for real.
After abandoning the cereal on the coffee table, I sink against his chest, feeling the rumble of the last bits of laughter, and with his arm around me, he presses play on the remote. Not even three minutes in and his phone rings.
“For fuck’s sake,” he mutters, digging it out of his pocket. There’s only a handful of people who’d contact us at this hour. He flashes the random number to me. “It might be someone calling from a burner phone.”
I worry about my brothers. Until Rocky answers the call on speaker and his father’s stringent voice floods the room.
“Brayden? Are you alone?”
We’ve all been screening our parents’ incessant calls and texts, but we’ve known we’d need to confront them soon. I just didn’t think it’d be tonight.
He pries his bicep off my shoulder, then sits forward. “Yeah, I’m alone,” he lies. “It’s late, Dad.”
“We need to talk about what’s going on.” The urgency in his tone pricks the hair on my arms.
“What’s going on?” Rocky spits out. “Mom and Elizabeth show up here, unannounced—”
“Shit happens,” Everett cuts in. “You’ve been taught to coast into a con, have you not?”
“We’re not riding a fucking Malibu wave—”
“This isn’t new,” he interjects again, and Rocky’s annoyance could sever the air. He swallows the feeling and listens as Everett continues. “Your mother and Elizabeth showing up out of the blue is something you all should be prepared for. You’re not little kids anymore. You don’t need your hand held.”
Usually, I’d agree. Yeah, he has a point. The shock and awe shouldn’t startle us, but that was before we knew they’ve been actively lying to us. Rage swarms me just hearing his condescending lecture, on top of the fact that he might not even be Rocky’s dad! He might’ve stolen him out of an orphanage, a bassinet—hopefully not a womb, or I will murder him myself.
“Thanks for the pro-tip,” Rocky says coarsely. “Why’d you even call?”
“The rainmaking job.” It’s what the matchmaking con is technically called.
Rainmaking.
It’s where we promise a mark that we’ll use our influence to “make it rain” for them. In this case, our moms are likely promising Claudia Waterford they can break me and Jake apart by matchmaking me with Rocky.
“It’s not happening,” Rocky says. “Phoebe already told Elizabeth.”
“It’s a short con. It’ll last a week, tops. You can convince her to do it.”
My mouth drops. What? I mouth to Rocky.
His nose flares. “That’s not fucking happening,” he whisper-sneers into the phone. “Pocket whatever Claudia paid you and call it off.”
Everett sounds exasperated. “Whatever job you’ve started, you need to end it.”
We’re not here to scam anyone.
Rocky conceals this card. “Why?” he asks.
“It’s not safe for your sister or your brother or the Graveses to be there. Understand? You either need to do the short rainmaking job with your mom or finish what you’re doing and get out. We don’t pull jobs in Connecticut.”
I blow back, and my head whirls in blistering confusion.
“Since when?” Rocky barks.
“Since forever.”
No, this is a rule we’ve never been told until now. If I forgot it, then Nova would’ve remembered, and my brother never said Connecticut was a danger zone.
The line is dead quiet, except for Everett’s labored breaths. I’d believe he was jogging around a track if I could hear his footfalls. “You have one job, son. The most important job of your life—”