Kindle Notes & Highlights
There was a machinelike coldness in its eyes that Jessie had only ever seen in attack dogs, as if all the natural warmth and companionship had been trained out of it.
You don’t always need your hands; you can disarm your opponent with the look in your eye.
“To put it another way: stay on the level with me and everything’ll be fine.” He pointed at the sisters, first Brea, then Jessie, then Flo. “Mess with my money, my family, or my friends, and we got a problem.”
“I was sure it was a professional hit. It was all too clean, too goddamn slick, and God knows that nephew of mine had enemies.”
“The Trace. Yeah, that’s it.” Chance snapped his fingers, then looked at Brea and grinned. “My computer fellas hacked the hackers.
Whatever twisted revenge he had planned, the sisters were destined to suffer it.
We don’t use our real names at the Trace.” Jessie looked at Burl, daring him to challenge her. “They only know us as the Bang-Bang Sisters.” “It’s completely anonymous,” Brea added. “Which is why we don’t gig under that name.”
all your information is right there in the Trace’s database. Names, addresses, cell phone numbers. Everything.”
“We baited them,” Burl said. He had the smug air of a hunter who’d downed an apex predator. “We knew from certain correspondence how desperate you were to get your hands on the wren. And I can hardly blame you. He is a blight on our town—” “I’d kill him myself,” Chance interjected, “if I knew who he was.” “We all would,” Wilder chipped in. “Our team of hackers left a trail of digital breadcrumbs,” Burl continued. “Some were legit, to boost credibility: crime scene photos, witness statements, forensic analyses—all courtesy of our very own chief of police—”
we only kill people who deserve to be killed. Rapists. Murderers. Pedophiles. That’s what the Trace is all about—exacting justice when the system fails.”
what does the Good Book say about retribution?” “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Burl finished what he was doing and stepped back. Chance looked at the screen and grinned. “An eye for an eye,” he said. “And so we come to this.” He flipped the computer around, and every sister screamed.
He went for their family members
Two women secured to chairs. Both were gagged and crying. The woman on the left was Aubree Vernier—Brea and Jessie’s fifty-nine-year-old mother. She appeared unhurt but scared. The woman on the right was Imani Bella—Flo’s little sister. All the beauty and radiance had been removed from her. She looked shocked and shattered.
“I would never take a life in the womb, no matter the circumstances. An unborn child shouldn’t be punished for the sins of others.” Chance smeared more cobbler crumbs from his lips and pointed at the screen. “I can’t say what fate will befall this young lady—that’s up to you—but her baby will be fine. On that you have my word.”
“They want us to kill each other,” Brea said. Her voice was cold, steady, and hard. She looked from Flo to Jessie, then up at Chance. “A fight to the death. They’re placing bets on who they think will win.”
“Don’t think of it as a fight. It’s more like a game. An event.” Chance studied the laptop screen for a moment, then stepped behind his desk and dropped into his seat. “Strength and technique will play a part, but it’ll also come down to stealth, strategy, and instinct. True competition.”
they’d spent four and a half days in their respective prisons. Long enough for Chance’s goons to kidnap Aubree and Imani and drive them . . . wherever. Long enough for Chance to get all his crooked ducks in a row.
“You will then have forty-eight hours to hunt each other down. Sister against sister. Kill or be killed.”
one of you will earn her freedom. The last woman standing gets to go home to California, be with her family.”
“Friends in high places. Friends in low places. And a small army in between.”
“I think you’ll get what you want, but not in the way that you want it. We’re sisters, not opponents. We’d sooner kill ourselves than kill each other.”
Howie’s got a whole lotta nothing where his nut sack use to be, and Kyler don’t have a single memory left in his skull.” “A crying shame,” Wilder remarked, shaking his head. “Still, I’d sooner be Kyler than Howie.” “Ain’t that the truth,” Tay concurred.
Lmao
“Let me be very clear: the only way to guarantee these women go free is to play my game, my way. That means up close and personal, hand-to-hand combat. No suicides.”
“We will cut that baby out of the womb, swaddle him or her up in a nice clean cloth, then shoot both these mamas in the head.” Flo let out a long, hopeless moan, which turned into a long, terrified scream.
“Second: if we are forced to kill these women”—Burl nodded at Chance’s laptop—“then we will round you up and kill you, too. Not because we fear reprisals, but because you didn’t follow the rules.”
Jessie tried to bridge the divide. “Bring it in,” she said. Reluctantly, Brea and Flo did. They got close but wouldn’t touch foreheads. Their triangle—the special shape from which they drew such steadfastness and affection—was incomplete. “We’ll always be sisters,” Jessie said, attempting to find their harmony in all the noise. “They can separate us, but that will never change.”
Over the next hour, he killed fourteen more birds, nine of them crows. He walked around the yard gathering the corpses, then arranged them on the ground in a pillow shape and lay down with his head on them.
Wth
She had called him this for as long as he could remember. Piccolo santo, meaning “little saint,” and she would go to her grave believing this.
The boy stared back, fascinated not by the bird per se, but by its spectacular freedom—its ability to lift so effortlessly from the ground and fly away.
Twenty-six years had passed, and he was still in the car. That’s how it felt. His agoraphobia made him a prisoner, trapped inside by fear and anxiety. The little brown wren symbolized freedom, strength, and flight, everything he strived to attain.
The oxygen wasn’t prescribed. He discovered this remedy by himself, during his torrid years in the foster care system.
Jessie was quick, skillful, and strong, but she lacked the cold-bloodedness it would take to kill one of her sisters. Brea had no such reserve, and neither did Flo. Brea knew that Flo would do whatever it took to save Imani, and rightly so. Wherever she was in this city, Brea suspected she was already in hunting mode.
They wouldn’t become a sisterhood until they’d locked arms and walked through darkness (rest in hell, Johnny Rudd), but even before that first kill, Flo believed they were eternal.
She wondered what would happen when, finally, they came face-to-face. Would they talk first—console one another as they had so many times before? Or would they forgo the sentimentalities and collide?
Certain determinations were made immediately. Foremost: she wouldn’t kill her sisters, regardless of the consequences. She couldn’t, because what would her life be worth afterward?
Jessie planned on spending every minute of it in her own way, with a single goal in mind. She was going after Chance Kotter.
Was there a medical professional on hand to remove the baby from Imani’s womb, or would Chance’s goons do it themselves?
For every sweet thing in Reedsville, there was a flip side.
They knew that he was Chance Kotter’s head of security but not exactly what the job necessitated.
He’d said nothing about the blood he’d spilled, the bones he’d broken, and the bodies he’d disposed of (Burl had his own key to Ernie Pink’s crematorium). Caroline and the kids were fully in the dark, and Burl intended to keep it that way.
He’d lost a couple of good soldiers, sure, and Howie Chisolm’s man grapes had been blown to kingdom come,
Lmao
CHARGE TO CHANCE KOTTER THE BIGGEST SWINGIN’ DICK IN REEDSVILLE
She kept her eyes peeled for either of her sisters, now actively seeking them out—not to fight them, but to stop them from fighting each other.
“I didn’t know food was included with your murderous game.” Flo gave Burl a bitter look but kept hold of the sandwich. “It’s not,” Burl said. “But your friends have proved quite resourceful. Shit, Brea just ate a fifty-dollar breakfast at Chip & Chick’s. She’s fully recharged and ready to rumble. I’m just trying to keep everything fair.”
There’d been an unspoken alpha-female rivalry between Brea and Flo for as long as they’d known each other. It wasn’t caustic or obvious. It existed beneath the surface and very occasionally announced itself, usually when sparring.
“If the gloves ever come off, neither one of us is getting out alive.”
“Let’s settle this like women,” she said.
Her face was empty—beaten and bruised from recent abuses, but otherwise stony. Flo had never seen her from this perspective. This was the face their adversaries saw in the moments before they were put down. It was terrifying.
“Just know that I’m doing this for my sister.” Only loud enough for Flo to hear, Brea spoke the same two words: “Me, too.”
