Total pages in book: 331
Estimated words: 315585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1578(@200wpm)___ 1262(@250wpm)___ 1052(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 315585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1578(@200wpm)___ 1262(@250wpm)___ 1052(@300wpm)
“It wasn’t personal,” Saint offers.
“It was to me,” she growls at him. “How dare you come into my house? Two of you know what it’s like to lose your wives, so have some Goddamn respect for my marriage.”
“Elli.” Sin grabs her hands. There’s a smile tugging at his lips. He’s proud of his wife for finding her voice, but he’s also trying to convince her this is a good thing. “It won’t be like last time,” he assures her.
“Yeah. We’ll sedate him for the brand,” Haidyn tells her.
She glares at him while Sin snorts. “I can handle it,” he tells Haidyn.
“Easton,” she snaps, “you can’t be serious.”
“Look—”
“He’s doing this for you. Your future,” I interrupt Sin. He’s not going to win with her, so I’ll explain it.
“Our future is fine,” she assures me. “We don’t need any of you.”
“If Sin dies tomorrow, you’re regifted,” I tell her.
She swallows, looking away from me.
“We didn’t come here to frighten you. We’re here to help you,” I go on at her silence. “If Sin becomes a Spade brother, he appoints one of us as your guardian.” I hold up my hand when she opens her mouth. “It’s nothing more than someone who takes care of you and the kids. There are no strings attached to it. It guarantees your safety and the children’s. The Lords can’t hand you over to another Lord.”
Ellington nibbles on her bottom lip for a second. “What about Carnage?”
“What about it?” Haidyn asks.
“We have to live there?”
“No,” I answer her. “We don’t have to live there. We just choose to.” But that’s changing soon. “You guys can stay here. Hell, you can move across the country if you want. Nothing will change.”
“But…” She falls down onto the couch, and Sin sits next to her. “Tyson told me that the Lords couldn’t find out that he was at Carnage. That’s why they had to replace his Lords crest with the original size that you guys removed when I offered to give him mine.”
“Being a Spade brother and being a prisoner at Carnage are two very different things,” I inform her.
Ellington looks at her husband. “This is what you want?”
He takes her hands in his. “I want you and the kids safe. That’s what matters.”
EIGHTY-EIGHT
KASHTON
The guys and I are all sitting at our desks in the office when the door opens and Devin enters.
Haidyn looks up and stops what he’s doing when he sees who it is. “I was about to come join you and Charlotte.” He frowns and asks, “How was she?”
“Good.” Devin nods. “She wasn’t as dehydrated today, so it took her longer to finish her IV.”
“Well, that’s good.” Haidyn nods to himself.
Charlotte has had one hell of a hard time, and she’s not far along. The three babies are going to take it out of her for sure, and they’re not even here yet.
“Here’s that file you asked for, Kashton.” He drops it onto my desk, and I stare at the folder. “It took a lot of digging, but it was there.”
“What’s in the file?” Haidyn asks.
I open it up and scan the document. Running a hand down my face, I sigh. “My father was a founder.”
“A founder?” Saint asks.
I shut the file and sit back in my seat. “I started taking the enhancement after I found out Everett was one. It took me until after Eve returned to realize I wasn’t having hallucinations.”
“Because you already had the enhancement,” Haidyn adds, and I nod.
“What about Eve?” he asks Devin. “Adam said she had a blood transfusion. Did that affect her founder gene?”
“No. She was given blood that was from a founder,” Devin answers. “But she already had it, so there shouldn’t have been any side effects.”
“Whose?” I growl, knowing she hasn’t hallucinated other than the one time the Lords forced it on her for her initiation.
Devin sighs and answers. “Adam’s.”
“Fuck.” I want to kill that motherfucker. He gave my wife blood? I know I’m supposed to be thankful, but it pisses me off. I could have given her mine. I hate any connection that my wife has to him. Which is crazy because there was a time I would have done anything for Adam. Times have changed.
“I would have killed him,” Haidyn says, reading my mind.
“Here’s this one as well.” He drops another file onto my desk, and I rip it open.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask, now pissy.
“These are Everett’s medical records from when she was seeing the fertility doctor.”
“What about the eggs?” I ask Devin, not understanding the words on the paper. I didn’t want to ask this in front of my wife, but it didn’t make much sense to me why Garrett had it done.
“From what I’ve read on her files, Eve was having a hard time getting pregnant.”
They raped me for years, she said to me. It was because they weren’t getting the results they wanted. Babies.