All Chapters of Sold For $1 To The Hawthorne Brothers : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

I hurry after Shane, picking up pace as he slips into a corner. I find him in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, a sullen look on his face. “Hey,” I smile a little, to brighten the mood. “Whatever is going through your mind right now, I promise you don’t have to worry about it. Adrian isn’t going to hold you responsible for something you didn’t plan.” He shakes his head slowly, his gaze trained permanently on the floor. I sigh softly. Between Julian and Shane, I’m not sure who feels the most awful. I walk closer to Shane, perching on the counter near him. “You know,” I say solemnly, like a wise sage, “when my mom was dying from cancer, when the doctor told us that it was terminal, my initial reaction wasn’t grief or sadness.” I click my tongue and shake my head, my eyes fixed somewhere past his shoulder, on nothing. “Nope. Right there, with her face pale as a white sheet, I felt happy. Like it was karma paying her back for being an absent, terrible mother.” My hands

"What are you suggesting?" I ask, half-convinced Henrietta is pulling an early April Fool's joke. She merely steps aside, tilting her head to beckon someone else into the room. The air shifts the moment the stranger appears. A woman steps through the doorway, her dark hair cut into a smart bob, dressed in casual yet elegant clothes and a sharp, serious expression fixed on her face. She looks intelligent, stunning, and an exact replica of Henrietta. "Vivianne?" I breathe when it dawns on me, hurrying forward to meet her. "Oh my goodness. Henrietta's told me so much about you." Vivianne's stern expression cracks into a smile, instantly transforming her face. She shakes her head, laughs softly, and takes my hand. "I hope she didn't tell you anything classified." I shake my head a little too quickly when Henrietta winks at me. "Nope. None of those things. Just that she's proud of you." Vivianne turns to her mother, one eyebrow arching. "Really?" The look she gives Henrietta says,

Adrian’s voice is the first thing I hear when I open my eyes again. He sounds both pissed and…worried. “Out of all the crazy things you’ve ever done, and the thing I’ve made a list of that you could do, going with a bunch of trained operatives to rescue the sister of the boy who lied to you, carrying him out of a house under gunfire, then fainting before I could get to you—” he takes a deep breath, raking his fingers through his hair, “—has to be the craziest ever.”I manage a grin, despite how weak I feel. “Pretty badass, right?”He groans, shaking his head like he doesn’t know how to deal with me. “Vivianne should’ve never dragged you into it. She knows better—” his tone hardens in disapproval. “She’s been working for the government far longer than you’ve discovered your knight-in-shining armor spirit.”I’m lying on the hospital bed, wearing an off-white get-up, with a pillow propped behind my head, but I manage to shrug effortlessly. “She gave me a cool pair of sunglasses,” I s

Chapter One—Where Is Julian? Betty “Yo!” I try not to roll my eyes as one of the drunk customers at the far end of the bar whistles at me. “Yo! Doll face! I’ve been asking for another bottle for the past hour. Are you just pretty for nothing or can you actually do your fucking job for once?” The bartender, Andy, shakes his head as he reaches behind him for a bottle of beer in the cheaper drinks section. “If he makes a move that you don’t like, you tell me right away,” he tells me firmly. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to ban the asshole from this bar.” I chuckle as I pick up the beer. “I think I can handle him. Besides…he’s one of those. All talk and nothing else.” Andy sighs as he slides a frosted glass with a few ice cubes in it over to me. “I don’t know how you do it, Betty. I would’ve smashed a bottle over his head a long time ago. I guess that’s why I’m behind this bar and not serving them.” He slides over to the far end of the counter as another customer calls

Andy goes from holding my arm, to getting out of his spot and coming to join me where I stand, whispering in my ear, “Okay…who is that man? The one that looks like a mafia boss?”I start to ask him the logical question of “Are you really asking me?” Before I remember that he doesn’t know who The Anvil is. Almost nobody knows that Victor owns this bar, as well as almost every other seedy part of our shady city. His reputation precedes him, but he keeps a low profile. Not low enough to reveal his identity to me, though. The day we met, he told me that he was going to skin me from limb to limb and hang me in the middle of the city with his branding on my forehead. So that everyone would know what happened while they crossed The Anvil. I didn’t need him to warn me twice. I was at the lowest point in my life already. That’s what happens when you take on a debt that your shitty parents owed when they were alive, then make some equally bad decisions. It wasn’t my intention to be indeb