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)
Good news doesn’t punch you in the ribs before you read the words.
But these do.
Looney: We found something. Urgent.
My chest tightens.
Kelly is still in my arms, soft and warm, her breath trembling against my shirt. She’s stunned from remembering me, from the fear, from everything. And as much as I want to stay right here with her until the storm outside and the one inside her both settle, I can’t.
I lift my head and look down at her. She tilts her face up immediately trusting, instinctive.
It hits me like a blow.
“What is it?” she whispers.
I swipe my thumb across her cheek again I can’t seem to stop doing that around her. “I gotta step out for a minute.”
Her fingers fist lightly into my shirt. “Alone?”
My throat works. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
There’s fear in the question, the kind that slices me in half because she doesn’t understand yet that I’m not leaving her, not really, not ever.
Not after what happened.
Not after almost losing her.
Not after feeling her remember pieces of us again.
But I can’t show her the truth of what they found. Not yet.
“Because the Kings found somethin’,” I say quietly. “And I need to see it before I let you hear it.”
She swallows. “Riot.”
I cup her face again, slow, gentle. “I’m comin’ right back. Thirty minutes tops. I’ll be on the property in the clubhouse. We’re not in Freedom Falls, but we have Kings all over the world. Chux runs Bama. You are safe here.”
She nods, even though her eyes betray how much she doesn’t want me to go.
“I’ll leave Grit and Dice right outside the door,” I add. “Locked down. No one gets in.”
Another nod.
I should walk away.
I should be a professional.
I should do my damn job.
But instead, I lean down and press my forehead to hers, breathing her in one more time.
Her breath shivers.
“Don’t be long,” she whispers.
“I won’t.”
Then, because my restraint is hanging by a thread, I brush my thumb across her bottom lip.
Her eyes flutter shut.
And I leave before I do something I can’t un-do.
The walk to the clubhouse is hell.
Thunder cracks somewhere deep in the clouds overhead, and every rumble feels synced with my rage.
They want a war?
Fine.
They’re getting one.
I sneak into the back door just as Looney, Nitro, Chux, and Stunt step out into the common area, all of them wearing the same tight expressions.
Chux folds his arms. “You ready?”
“No,” I say honestly. “Show me anyway.”
Looney hands me a sealed evidence bag.
Inside is a scrap of cardboard, torn, waterlogged, mud-streaked, but the writing on it is unmistakable.
A thick black X slashed over a crudely drawn raven. The numbers etched on the bottom corner are known to me. My old unit when I was in the military.
My chest flames.
“The raven,” I growl. “Bratok’s mark. And my unit number.”
Nitro nods grimly. “Pinned to what was left of the truck’s grill. Hidden under brush. Someone wanted it found eventually.”
My jaw flexes until it aches.
“This ain’t Bratok,” Stunt says quietly, stepping forward. “He’s dead.”
“Yeah,” I snap. “But someone sure as hell wants to finish what he started.”
Chux looks at me, eyes sharp. “This wasn’t about Kelly.”
My blood goes ice cold.
“What?” I bark.
“It was about you,” Chux says, voice low and heavy. “They hit her truck because she’s tied to you. Because she’s familiar. Because they saw you with her.”
A slow, suffocating sickness spreads through my stomach.
“She was targeted,” Nitro confirms. “Because you were near. Because you matter to the club. Because you matter to them.”
“She didn’t do anything,” I snarl.
“They don’t care,” Chux fires back. “This isn’t about her. It’s about who she belongs to.”
“She doesn’t belong,” I choke on the words. She isn’t mine. Even when I wanted her to be. Not now. Not anymore. Not yet.
Chux lifts his chin. “They thought she was.”
Silence slams down.
The wind howls through the trees as if the whole world is bracing for what comes next.
I breathe hard, fists clenching, nails biting into my palms.
“They hurt her to get to me,” I say quietly.
Chux nods. “Yeah.”
“They made her forget,” I add, voice breaking. “They took her from me twice.”
“No,” Stunt says suddenly, his voice surprisingly gentle. “They tried. They didn’t succeed.”
He claps a hand onto my shoulder.
“You’re still breathing,” he says. “So is she. Means the fight ain’t over.”
I grit my teeth so hard the muscle jumps. “I’m gonna kill the son of a bitch who did this.”
Chux meets my gaze evenly. “Good. But you do it smart. Not sloppy.”
Looney steps forward, holding a second bag, this one containing a piece of fabric.
A torn sleeve, dark green, with a symbol printed on the inside cuff.
The same raven mark. But this one has something new.
A smear of red through the beak.
Nitro points to it. “We think it’s a faction symbol. Maybe a group that worked under Bratok before he died. Been quiet for years.”
“They just got loud,” Stunt mutters.