Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
His world perfect, Jule closed his eyes and slept.
Jule walked out of the kitchen, a beer bottle in each hand, and stopped short at the sight of Tor scrolling through his phone. “Did you guess my password, or do you have a way to break into phones?”
“Yes.”
“Uh huh.” Jule sat beside him on the couch. “How many tries did it take?”
Tor grinned. “I was deciding between two and got in with the first one.”
“What was your second guess?” He handed a bottle to Tor and then twisted the cap off his.
“The first time we fucked.” Tor opened his own bottle and took a drink. “But you’re a softy so I started with the first time we kissed.”
He punched Tor’s shoulder. “Call me soft again, bitch.”
Tor cupped his cheek, gazed into his eyes, and kissed him as he whispered, “Motherfucking soft.”
The kiss was too enjoyable to interrupt so Jule didn’t hit him again. When they finally separated, he asked, “You remember both dates?”
“’Course I do.” Tor propped his feet on the coffee table and rested his head against Jule’s shoulder. “I’m almost as soft as you.”
“Almost.” Jule kissed the top of his head.
“I read the texts. It won’t be easy,” Tor said quietly. “With your family.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Tor tilted his head up and looked at him. “Have you really thought about it? Chuck blindsided you yesterday, having me walk into his office like that. It wasn’t fair of him, and you don’t owe—”
“Choose your next words very carefully, Tor.” He could feel his body heating.
Clearly recognizing the spike in tension, Tor sat up and turned to face him, his expression serious. “I’m only saying—”
“I understand exactly what you’re fucking saying and you’re wrong.”
“Jule.”
“No,” he said loudly. “First off, I owe you everything, but that’s not the point. That’s not why I said it.”
Tor rolled his bottle between both hands. “This’ll be much harder than what your father would have faced if he had openly dated Vickie and he…” He sighed and raised the bottle to his mouth.
He didn’t need to finish that sentence. They both knew what his father hadn’t been willing to give up and they both knew what that had cost them and their families.
“I’m not my fucking father.”
“I know that.”
“Then quit comparing me to him. That’s bullshit. How would you feel if I said that to you?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. His father, for all his failures, hadn’t been a psychopath who killed and threatened the people they cared about. “I didn’t mean that.”
Tor rested his forearms on his knees and swung his bottle between them, his gaze down. “It’s okay if you did. And the answer is that you’d be right.”
He blinked. “What?”
“If you said I’m like my father.” He raised his head and looked at him. “You’d be right.”
Words escaped him.
“Why do you think I was the only person who could bring him down?” Tor asked.
Jule was having trouble catching his breath, but he forced himself to focus. “Because he cared about you. You always said that he wouldn’t hurt you because you’re his only son.”
Nodding, Tor said, “That’s true. And it was enough to get me in the door. But it wouldn’t have been enough for me to stay alive. It wouldn’t have been enough for me to rise up in the ranks. It wouldn’t have been enough to make a case against him and take down the entire Knights cartel.” He looked into Jule’s eyes. “You have to know that, Jule.”
In truth, Jule hadn’t had enough time to think deeply about everything he had learned the previous day.
“I was able to do it, because I think like him. I could unravel what he’d done. I could predict what he’d do next. I could operate in a way I knew he’d respect and also in a way I knew he wouldn’t suspect. I spent almost thirteen years working to take down John Jones and I got to know him pretty well in that time.” He smiled but it wasn’t a happy expression. “The two of us had a lot more in common than we had differences.”
Jule snapped out of his shock and found his voice. “That’s not true.”
Tor gave him that sad smile again.
“It isn’t,” he insisted. “Your father may have been as smart as you. He may have been as strategic. He may have been as charismatic. It would make sense with how organized and hard to pin down the Knights were. But those are surface things. He didn’t have your heart, he didn’t have your soul, he didn’t share your moral compass.” He traced his fingers over the word printed on Tor’s bare chest. Loyalty. “I know you, Tori. I know you. Where it counts, you are nothing like him.”
Tor dipped his chin in acknowledgement and lowered his gaze again, his expression thoughtful.