Lucky Penny

About the book

About Lucky Penny

If you had the chance to ruin someone's life to improve your own, who would you choose? Could you actually go through with it? Penny has caught some unlucky breaks in life, which is why she is driving an Uber instead of running her own restaurant. However, her luck changes when a mysterious stranger gifts her an antique coin and then quickly kills himself right in front of her. Before she can process the trauma, Penny learns this coin is her ticket into Pendulum, an organization that controls all of the life-altering luck in the world. But to earn their unique good luck, Penny needs to choose someone and cause their bad luck. To help herself, she needs to hurt someone she knows, over and over again. All of her dreams can come true, if she doesn’t mind stepping on someone else’s dreams. Penny decides she’s morally against the idea. That is, until she learns that her best friend is a Pendulum client and he has been rewarded for sabotaging her life at every turn. Chapter 1. The Uber Driver app offers a red Emergency Call button for when drivers feel like they're in danger. In her 18 months of driving, Penny had never even thought about using it... Until today. Of course, the job had put her in plenty of dangerous situations, but Penny considered herself tough. She could handle scary drunks, handsy guys, and the generally insane. One time, a large woman pulled a small camping hatchet out of her purse, claiming that it was for her protection. Nothing happened. The woman tipped well and gave Penny a 5-star review... but still. Yes. Penny had driven with a hatchet-wielding woman. She had also been rear-ended twice and ran out of gas on the expressway last week. But the emergency call button still went un-pushed. She always felt like she could handle things. But today would be different. Today would be the first time that Penny was scared of the person sitting behind her. His name was Noah, and he was Penny's first fare of the day. She picked him up at the Fairmont Hotel. He was tall and well-dressed, with adorable curly hair. And he immediately charmed her with an even more adorable English accent. It was one of those piercingly cold February days in Toronto where the wind seemed to be coming right off the lake in every part of the city. Noah couldn’t get into the car fast enough to escape the damp bitterness outside. “Fuckin’ hell, it’s bad out there,” he said with a smile as he rubbed his gloveless hands together. Penny snorted and agreed. They chatted for about 15 minutes as she drove him to the airport. It was pleasant. For a while, she thought he was flirting with her. She flirted back. Penny even felt comfortable enough to confess that she was a bit hungover today because her friends dragged her out last night. Noah said he was a little bit worse for wear himself, and they laughed. "Are any of your friends working today?" he asked. "Nope. They're all comfortably sleeping it off right now." "Cunts," he said with a smile, making the word sound elegant in the way that only Brits can. Ironically, cunts would be the last pleasant word they shared. Things got strange after that. Noah asked if he could sneak in a quick cigar. He said he had a long trip ahead of him and this would be his last chance. Penny agreed, as long as he rolled down his window. He pulled a cigar and a cigar cutter from his pocket. But no. It wasn't a cigar cutter, actually. Penny squinted into the rearview mirror and saw that it was a... box-cutter. Is that a goddamn box-cutter? she thought. Noah met Penny's eyes through the mirror. He laughed and flicked his wrist to cut off the end of the cigar with unsettling speed and ease. "Sorry about the mess," he said with a smile. "I've cleaned up worse," she mumbled. "I'm quite sure you have."

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