Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
She nods once, but her fingers twist in her sweater sleeve.
I kill the engine, come around to her side, and help her down. She stiffens slightly when the clubhouse doors come into view. We are in the port, but the clubhouse is off to the side.
“You’ve been here before,” I remind her.
“I know,” she whispers. “It just feels bigger than ever before.”
Big.
That’s one damn word for it.
I guide her inside. The moment the brothers spot her, the noise dips. Guys straighten. Conversations pause. A few nod respectfully.
The Kings don’t treat women like property. They don’t treat them like porcelain either.
But Kelly?
Kelly earned a level of protection here long before she ever slept with me.
Some of that is her tie to Ally. Some is Chux and how he runs things.
The rest?
She did herself with sass, pastries, and fire. We all frequent the bakery even before my brother was hooked up with Ally.
“Riot,” Mellow calls from near the bar. The old timer not hiding his concern. “She okay?”
“She’s right here,” Kelly answers before I can. “No need to talk about me like I’m not.”
Mellow grins. “Feisty again. Good sign.”
Kelly blushes. Something in my chest pulls tight.
I point her toward a couch in the corner. “Sit. Don’t move.”
She arches a brow. “You know I can walk. And I’m not a dog.”
“And you can know I’ll be watching. You aren’t a dog, you’re fuckin’ fine as hell to look at though. Need to make sure my view stays in place.”
Her cheeks heat. “You always like this?”
I nod once.
She mutters something under her breath that sounds like bossy bastard, then lowers herself carefully onto the couch. My eyes stay on her until I’m sure she’s steady.
The second I turn away, the softness evaporates. I walk into the meeting room with murder in my veins.
Chux, Nitro, Looney, and Shaft are already there. The table is covered in printed camera stills, maps, skid mark photos, and Nitro’s laptop is pulled apart like it personally offended him.
“We got movement,” Chux shares without preamble. I got the text from him as I was driving home. I didn’t tell her this stop was necessary for intel updates.
I step forward. “Talk.”
Nitro gestures to the screen. “Pulled the traffic cams from the hour before Kelly’s crash. Look here.”
He zooms in on a grainy image the truck making a slow turn two miles from the bakery.
“Now here.” Another camera. Same truck. Driver hidden. “And here,” he says, switching views. The truck turns down the same county road Kelly takes home every night.
A chill crawls down my spine.
“They were watching her schedule,” Shaft mutters. “Knew her route.”
Chux nods. “This wasn’t opportunity. It was planned down to the damn second.”
My jaw flexes. “You’re sure?”
“Riot,” Nitro says, pointing to the timestamps. “They were trailing her for twenty minutes before the crash.”
Sickness pools in my stomach.
“So they knew she’d be alone,” I say my gut twisting because I should have been with her.
“Yeah,” Nitro says. “And they waited until she was far from town. Less witnesses. Less chance of interference.”
“And then they hit her twice,” Shaft adds.
I clench my fists hard enough to make my knuckles crack.
Chux studies my face. “There’s more.”
“Say it.”
He slides a photo across the table a burned-out truck shell pulled from a drainage ditch.
“You found it,” I state the obvious.
“Yeah. Tires match the skid marks at the scene. Engine number filed off. VIN removed.”
I skim the edges of the photo. It’s deliberate. Methodical. Someone who knows how to disappear and clean up evidence.
“Whoever this is,” Chux states what we all know, “they’re professional.”
Looney cracks his neck. “We looked into Morozov’s leftovers, but most of the family is either dead or under new leadership. Nothing points directly to them, except this.”
He flips open a folder — a symbol printed on the inside flap.
A raven perched on a sickle.
My blood goes ice-cold.
Shaft whistles. “Shit.”
I grind my teeth. “That’s Bratok’s mark.”
Kelly’s accident wasn’t gang noise. It wasn’t a message. It wasn’t a coincidence.
It was Russian business. Old business. Business that Chux ended last year.
“Bratok’s done,” I share what my brother’s already know. “Thought we made it clear before. They make any moves anywhere in Alabama the truce was over and they would cease to exist.”
“Yeah,” Looney says. “But apparently he wants to cross the line.”
“So if someone’s flashing it,” Nitro starts.
“They know what it means,” I finish. “And they want us to see it.”
A quiet falls over the room.
“This is connected to us,” Chux says. “And to Kelly either because of you or Ally.”
A violent rage courses through my body. “They come for her again, I’ll end their whole fucking bloodlines.”
“They won’t,” Chux cuts in.
“They already did,” I snap.
Shaft glances at me. “She okay? Looks better.”
“She’s alive,” I say. “That’s the only reason I’m not tossing bodies in the gulf already.”
Mellow steps into the doorway, wiping grease off his hands after eating a chicken wing, one of the boneless ones. “We got a problem.”