Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 114793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
When we pulled into Jackson’s driveway, the place was already buzzing with activity. Trucks were lined up along the drive, and armed friends moved through the shadows just beyond the reach of the porch light. It felt less like a gathering and more like a war council coming together.
Inside, Sasha was already waiting. The moment I stepped through the door, she spun around from where she’d been pacing and stormed up to me, her eyes blazing.
“She hasn’t woken up? Are you serious, Webb?”
“She made it through surgery.” I understood why Sasha was so upset—my feelings mirrored hers in every way. “She’s stable, but she just hasn’t opened her eyes.”
Sasha’s eyes welled up for a second before fury overtook the fear. “I swear to everything, I’m going to de-ball Colin Maddox and Clayton Barris with—” she spun on the spot, scanning the room, “—my cat’s nail clippers.”
Everyone froze, scanning the room for them in case she decided it'd be therapeutic to start now.
Jackson blinked. “You mean those tiny—”
“Yep, the blunt, slightly rusted ones,” she snapped. “Then I’m going to play tennis with their nuts before feeding them to my cat, who, I’ll remind you, is cross-eyed and unpredictable.”
Even I took a step back. That cat was fucking unnerving.
“Don’t worry, he’s got a real taste for revenge,” she muttered, grabbing a bottle of water and unscrewing it like she was prepping a weapon. “And maybe I’ll just send my dad to the hospital. He has privileges. He can get Gabby moved somewhere safer. Hell, maybe I’ll get him to do plastic surgery on her and change her face entirely.”
“No,” I growled, sharper than I meant to. “She’s perfect as she is. No one’s touching her.”
Sasha raised an eyebrow, clearly pleased by the reaction but unwilling to let me off easily. “You better hold onto that energy, Webb, because I’m calling in Malcolm and Benny.”
Every single brother in the room froze and spoke in unison.
“Oh, shit,” Jackson whined. "But they're unquestionably insane."
Sasha grinned wickedly. “Exactly.”
Marcus groaned, rubbing his face harshly with his hands. “They make us look like kindergarteners on a sugar crash.”
“They don’t play by any rules,” Jackson agreed.
“Good.” The smile on Sasha's face was sinister. “Because neither do I anymore.”
The dining room resembled a tactical operations center combined with a tech startup’s panic room.
Phones buzzed nonstop across the table, competing with the soft clatter of keyboards as open laptops displayed GPS routes, social media tracking tools, and encrypted internal comms. Handwritten notes scribbled hastily on napkins were wedged between coffee mugs and a half-eaten plate of breakfast sausage someone had abandoned hours ago. The tension in the room was palpable and thick enough to cut with a knife.
Marcus was on one end, looping through digital traffic cameras Remy had tapped into, while Jesse barked into his phone, trying to lean on a friend in FDLE for unofficial surveillance logs. Jackson paced along the back wall, muttering strategy to himself and occasionally punching details into a shared doc we’d been updating like a living beast.
I sat at the head of the table, half-listening to Elijah and Sasha go over timelines and possible fallback points for Barris, my knee bouncing with pent-up adrenaline. My eyes flicked constantly to my phone—waiting for any call, any update about Gabby, even though Eddie had promised to text if she so much as twitched in her sleep.
Then the door blew open.
“We have chaos!” Sasha shouted, fist-pumping the air as two men strode into the house like they owned it.
Malcolm and Benny—the "legends"—were finally here.
Benny looked like he hadn’t seen a hairbrush in years and might have fought one to the death. He had tattoos crawling up both arms and a denim jacket with what I thought was dried blood on one sleeve, but I wasn’t going to ask. Next to him, Malcolm wore an old motorcycle cut with a patch on the back that read “No Chill, No Mercy.” His grin was as charming as it was unnerving.
“Gentlemen,” Malcolm greeted, clapping his hands and surveying the war table. “So, who are we hunting and can we blow them up?”
Jesse leaned in and whispered to Elijah, “I thought you were exaggerating with that story you told me.”
Elijah whispered back, “They always say that… and they’re always pussy cats. At least, so far, they have been.”
Benny dropped into the chair across from me, cracking his knuckles. “Here’s the play—we bait him.”
“Barris?” I asked, wary.
“Yeah, let’s put something online like a fake update about Gabby’s recovery. Keep it just vague enough to make him twitch, to make him wonder if we’re bluffing or if she’s really talking. We need to add a location—somewhere we control the exits. Then we wait and spring the trap.” He made an exaggerated exploding sound while throwing his arms out wide, mimicking the blast of something going off.