Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Gage didn’t need help, and everyone in the room knew it, but Gage took it anyway…because he liked Adrian.
Liked that Adrian made him smile. Liked that Adrian had shown up day after day and helped him develop all that confidence.
But Scar had done little to nothing, while expecting some unseen force to place Gage in his arms.
Adrian glanced back at him with smugness.
Scar balled his fists until his nails bit into his palms.
“Don’t you even fuckin’ think about it,” Meridian growled.
Gage and Adrian walked out of the door together, leaving him beside an empty seat and the half-eaten dinner they’d been sharing.
Scar stood so fast his chair flipped over. He grabbed the plate and hurled it across the room.
It shattered against the far wall with a crack like a gunshot, as au jus and potatoes splattered everywhere.
His brothers didn’t even flinch, and Roz just shook his head at him like he thought he was pathetic.
Corvo lifted his watch and spoke to whoever waited for orders at his beck and call. “Remove Adrian Shaw’s access to the Ravens dining lounge.”
Meridian looked mildly inconvenienced, his voice dark and strained. “Let me give you some advice, Scar. Stop being a fuckin’ pussy. If you want him…take him.”
Scar was damn near hyperventilating, his chest pumping up and down as he struggled not to go after Adrian and put his head through a wall.
Roz sucked his teeth. “Gage is not for the taking.”
Valor covered his grin.
Roz pointed at Scar. “Gage is a decent man. He’s the kinda’ guy you gotta come correct with. If you’re not serious, then find some other random ass to play with and leave him alone.”
Scar’s hands shook as he turned and stormed out.
He didn’t leave to go cool off.
He went to plan.
White Ravens
Scar
Scar stood in the center of the Blacks’ arena.
The floors were polished composite built to take impact, wall panels that stifled sound, ceiling rigs with cameras, sensors, and programmable drones.
Racks of weapons lined one side, gleaming in orderly rows. Everything from blades, spears, bows, machine guns, to fucking boomerangs and nunchucks.
Nothing in the vast space was decorative, even the lightning was designed with a purpose.
Scar had been in the arena for two hours already, sweating through his shirt, hands wrapped, knuckles throbbing in a satisfying way.
He’d run the simulators until their predictive algorithms started lagging. He’d sparred with holographic opponents that’d tried to learn his habits and failed. He’d lifted fifty-pound dumbbells and squatted four times that, until his muscles burned.
He’d hoped it would’ve bled some of his anger out, but…
The rage wasn’t a result of the room. It belonged to the images that wouldn’t leave him alone.
Adrian’s too-familiar lean-in and Gage’s hand gripping his bicep were coupled with his humiliation.
Midnight got closer. Scar got tenser.
He checked the time more often than he wanted to admit, hating every time he did.
He told himself he wasn’t waiting, he was staying ready.
Right.
At eleven fifty-eight, he stopped looking.
At midnight, the doors still didn’t open.
At twelve-ten, his jaw locked hard enough to ache.
At twelve forty-five, his anger went bright red.
He drove his fists into the heavy bag with a steady, brutal rhythm, each hit landing with enough force to make the chain struggle. He pictured ribs, not the bag. A smug smile instead of leather.
A smooth voice slid through the space behind him, calm enough to make it feel like a hot palm on the back of his neck.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Scar could see Gage’s reflection in the mirror, but he didn’t turn around, didn’t stop punching.
The bag took another sequence of blows that would’ve dropped a man, maybe for good.
“Save it,” he said, voice rough. “What’d you guys do? Praise God at seven and was fornicating by eleven.”
A soft chuckle filtered through his haze.
“You really gonna’ preach to me?” Gage asked.
Scar landed another hit that shocked his shoulder before he stepped back, breathing steadily, sweat making his shirt stick to his skin.
He turned to brush past Gage as if he wasn’t there, but he immediately answered the insult with his cane.
It took a split second, metal shot out six feet with a vicious click. The spearhead tip stabbed into the padded wall beside his shoulder, the titanium bar now a blockade against his chest.
Scar froze. That had been close…too close.
Gage spoke with hardness tinged with a hint of compassion.
“It’s not like that.”
“Then explain it.”
“Church was a couple of hours,” he murmured. “I went back to my quarters after and laid down. I didn’t mean to doze off.” He paused, breath brushing Scar’s skin. “And I didn’t mean to make you wait.”
A tiny fraction of Scar’s anger dissolved.
Soft strands of Gage’s hair brushed his cheeks, light threads against the dark band of his sunglasses. His skin looked warm, and the sharp lines of his face, that straight nose, firm jaw, and soft mouth, made Scar’s gaze snag and stay there.