Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
This man would burn the world down for me, but he was also willing to wade into my complicated family mess because he knew it mattered to me.
12
CENTURY
Ipicked up my phone to call Kane, but my eyes stayed locked on Saylor, where she’d drifted toward the window overlooking The Pit’s parking lot. She stood with her arms wrapped around herself, staring through the glass, her brow furrowed like she was still trying to stack Sutton’s confession into something that made sense.
It wouldn’t.
Her twin had taken a bad decision, wrapped it in a worse one, and handed the consequences to my woman like that was a family tradition worth preserving. Saylor felt too much to dismiss her sister completely, but she’d still come straight to me and put the truth in my hands, and fuck if that didn’t make something heavy lock tighter in my chest.
As if she felt my stare, she turned her head. The smile she gave me was small, a little tired, and still carrying the shadow of everything she’d just told me, but the trust in her eyes hit like a wrench to the ribs. There was something softer and deeper there too that I was almost sure was love, and it made my hand tighten around the phone hard enough that the case creaked.
I wanted the smile she gave me when she forgot to worry. The Diesel Serpents had put that shadow in her eyes, Sutton had dragged it there, and I was going to wipe the whole problem off the map so completely that Saylor could breathe without waiting for her sister’s chaos to find her again.
I hit Kane’s number.
He answered on the third ring, and a baby whimpered in the background. Kane murmured something too soft for me to catch. The sound should’ve been strange coming from an MC prez who could stare down a roomful of armed men without blinking, but it wasn’t. Kane handled fatherhood the same way he did everything else—with absolute certainty.
“Sutton showed up.”
The baby fussed again, and Kane exhaled. “At The Pit?”
“No. School parking lot. Saylor came straight here after.”
The baby still made little restless sounds in the background, but Kane’s attention snapped fully to me in the way it always did when a line had been crossed. “She good?”
“She’s pissed, worried, and trying hard not to ask me to save a sister who keeps fucking her over.”
“Sounds like she’s smarter than Sutton.”
“Low bar, prez.”
A faint breath that might’ve been amusement came through the line. “Meet in Edge’s office. I’ll call the others and get there once Elianna decides my shoulder is an acceptable place to sleep.”
I glanced back at Saylor, who had turned toward the window again, her profile soft in the glass reflection. “You sound like shit.”
“I have a three-month-old who believes sleep is a negotiation tactic and a wife who keeps trying to do too much because she thinks I don’t notice.” His voice stayed flat, but the contentment beneath it was easy to hear if you knew him. “I’ve been better.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, watching Saylor shift her weight, the movement pulling my eyes down over her curves before I could stop myself. “You sound real fucking miserable.”
“Jealous, Century?”
I didn’t answer right away because my head had already gone somewhere. My gaze caught on her full hips, the breasts I’d had my mouth on so many times I could still taste her skin when I thought too hard, and the still-flat belly I’d been imagining rounded with my kid. I’d come inside her bare enough times already that the thought of a head start settled in my blood like a victory lap.
Kane clocked the reason for my silence because he was too damn perceptive. “Just tell me which safe house you’re taking out of rotation.”
My mouth curved despite the situation. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit, brother. You got quiet after I mentioned Elianna, which means you’re either contemplating fatherhood or planning violence. With you right now, probably both.”
“Efficient.”
“Get the property patch on her back first. The old ladies will pitch a fucking fit if their newest friend is kidnapped without one.”
I looked at Saylor again, picturing my name across her back, so every man in the room knew exactly who she belonged to before I ever had to open my mouth. My cock gave a heavy pulse behind my jeans, because apparently my body liked property patches, pregnancy, and safe houses almost as much as it liked Saylor. “Noted.”
“Good. Edge’s office.”
The call ended, and I stood there for a moment with the phone in my hand, watching Saylor’s reflection in the window. She turned when I crossed the room, her eyes searching my face before she lifted her chin like she was bracing for whatever came next. I hated that.
“We’re heading to the clubhouse.” I slid my phone into my pocket. “You ride with me. One of the prospects will bring your car back to the compound. I don’t want you away from me right now.”