Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
“How long was I down there?” I asked, not even sure what day it was.
“Thirty hours, give or take,” he replied, placing a glass in front of me, then lifting a bottle of our best label to fill my glass.
I needed water. A lot of it, but I wasn’t going to complain. If this was my last hour, then I’d rather end it with my grandfather’s recipe.
I picked up the glass and started to down it, but decided to take it slow. Stretch this out a little longer.
“You gonna tell me why I’m here?” I asked. “In the game room of Garrett’s house, that is and not still strung up.”
Huck poured his own glass. “Blaise don’t like to take business around the boys and Maddy.”
Man of many words. That didn’t answer my question. I didn’t give a fuck whose house I was at. I wanted to know why I wasn’t still tied up.
“Not what I’m asking,” I told him.
He smirked and took a drink as he lifted his eyes to mine. “I know.”
Bastard.
Maybe I didn’t need to be aware of what was to come. Going in blindly might be best.
I took a long drink, forgetting my decision to go slowly. I was thirsty. When I set it back down, I figured I might as well ask what I wanted. It wasn’t like anything I said would change the outcome.
“Think he’d let me call Noa?” I asked, my chest constricting as I thought about her face. “Before …” I added. Not finishing that sentence.
Huck shrugged and leaned to rest his hip on the edge of the counter as he crossed one arm over his chest and held his glass with the other. “No reason to.”
His nonchalance sent rage coursing through me, and I fought to tamp it down. I wasn’t in a position to lose my fucking shit on anyone. If there was a shred of hope I might live, I didn’t want to chance anything.
The door to the room opened behind me, and I turned to see Blaise Hughes enter alone. Dread replaced the hope at the glint in his eyes as they leveled on me. Not what I’d call promising. I’d been visited by Huck, Gage, and Levi. But this was the first time seeing Blaise since my arrival.
His gaze cut to Huck’s, and he nodded once. Huck turned and got down another glass. He said nothing as he approached and jerked out the stool two seats over from me with more force than necessary before sitting down.
Huck slid the almost-full glass of bourbon over to him, and he took it, tossing it back in one long gulp. When he put it back on the bar, Huck lifted the bottle and poured him some more.
Blaise cut his eyes to me then. “I’ve killed men for less,” he said. “Defiance is something I don’t overlook.”
I said nothing. He didn’t want my explanation. If he had, he’d have asked me by now.
“I don’t like killing family. It weakens the power, puts a crack in the loyalty,” he said, then took a normal drink from his glass this time. “Overlooking disobedience, however, also weakens the power.”
If he wanted me to respond, I had nothing to say. At least that he wanted to hear. In my opinion, his command for me to stay away from someone I needed to survive this life was what had fucking weakened his power. He had my loyalty. He had all our loyalty. But he loved a woman. He should understand that it was its own brand of loyalty. One that trumped everything else.
“Linc Shephard fucking babysat me as a kid. Levi is as close as a brother to me as Trev. Having Linc in my office, doing his best to convince me that you should live, put me in a position I didn’t like. But I had been trained not to allow my emotions make my decisions.” He picked up his glass again and stared at it before taking a long drink.
I continued to wait. I still had no idea what my outcome would be, but I wished he’d just tell me already.
“Doesn’t matter now though,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “My wife stepped in. She took the decision out of my hands.”
What? I glanced at Huck—who might be almost smirking, but I wasn’t sure—then back to Blaise.
He turned his head to look at me. “You put your life on the line for the love of a woman. Disobeyed a direct order because you couldn’t let her go,” he said, then shoved the stool back as he stood up again. “Count yourself lucky that my wife got in your corner. Because it’s the love I have for that woman that I’m not doing something I didn’t want to fucking do anyway. At the rate the Mississippi branch was showing up on my land, there would have likely been a goddamn war if I’d killed your ass for defying my orders.”