Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
“I’ll see you at eight tomorrow morning.”
I snapped the door shut one second before the book she’d been holding crashed against the wood.
“Fucking wildfire,” I grumbled as I shoved out the main door and into the approaching twilight.
FOUR
BRINLEY
My heart beat violently in my chest, a thunderclap of blood thumping so hard I thought I could taste it on my tongue as I tried to keep my footsteps quiet.
Breaths shallow and jutted as I slipped along the outside of the building in the dark of night.
Trying to convince myself that the lightheadedness I was experiencing was due to the adrenaline and not the fact that I was shaking in my literal boots from fear.
But I promised myself a long time ago I wouldn’t allow the fear to hold me back.
Okay, fine. This wasn’t exactly correlated to the promise I had made to myself. It wasn’t like I’d sworn to go looking after trouble for the sake of proving that I hadn’t been broken.
But I couldn’t stay put for a second longer.
I tried, but by nine o’clock, I was crawling the walls and feeling like I was going to come out of my skin.
Locked in that room that looked like a girl’s dream retreat, complete with little designer shampoos and soaps in the bathroom.
Someone seriously had to be playing mind games with me.
That and the sounds of the clubhouse reverberating through the floorboards and the hatred for a man I had just met seemed to drive me to madness.
That’s what this had to be.
Madness.
The fact that I was here.
Held in some sort of weird hostage situation where I had the code to enter my cell and was sentenced to work in a freaking autobody shop.
I didn’t buy it.
I didn’t buy any of it.
Not Dereck’s lame explanation or the bizarre threats Silas Mercer had made.
There was just something about them that made me think he was bluffing.
Or…hiding something.
Lying about something I couldn’t clearly see.
Either way, I couldn’t sit idle. Not when my texts to Dereck had remained unanswered after two hours.
Me
I need to know what’s really going on here.
Should I be afraid of this guy?
Am I a prisoner?
Please, Dereck. This whole thing is freaking me out.
Just tell me this. Are you in danger?
He’d seen them. I knew he had. I’d seen those little bubbles dancing on and off for about five minutes before they’d been completely silenced.
I loved my brother, but God, he could be such a coward. Always hiding when he got himself into hot water. Allowing me to step in front of his accusers.
Throwing him lifeline after lifeline.
And yes, my therapist had encouraged me to recognize that I was one hundred percent enabling it, but time and again, I always seemed to be right back doing the same thing.
I guess I’d reached my tipping point.
Because this?
After what I’d been through?
What he was asking of me was too much, and I was going to get to the bottom of what the hell was happening.
I wasn’t going to be some pathetic wilting flower who bent to the will of a psychopath.
I kept creeping along the edge of the building. My Docs I’d ditched my heels for were quiet on the soft earth, not that my footsteps could have been heard over the blare of music coming from within the clubhouse, anyway.
But still…
I kept low as I crouched at the corner and peered out into the shadows in front of the club.
The number of motorcycles must have tripled since I’d followed Silas up to my room a few hours earlier.
Bikers mingled about. Sitting at picnic tables or standing around the bonfire that raged in the clearing.
Laughter and voices rolled as they drank beers and probably bragged about their latest kill.
Half the men wore jeans and black leather vests with a morbid emblem on the back.
A gathering of three crows sitting on a headstone with blood dripping from their talons. Another prancing on the grave.
Crimson Crows was stitched in red and arched over the scene.
It was no shocker that a group of crows was called a murder.
For these guys, it was undoubtedly fitting.
My stomach tightened, and a little of that fear flashed up my spine.
This was seriously fucked up.
Fiction that I shouldn’t be living. The type of fiction it seemed only Dereck could drag me into.
I glanced around, trying to decide on my next move. Discern exactly what I hoped to achieve by slinking around here, having no idea what I was even looking for.
Shrill laughter rang from a woman who was being tossed over a man’s shoulder, the brute carrying her away as he pawed at her ass.
I nearly rolled my eyes.
How cliché.
Is this how they really lived? At least from where I was standing, no one was having sex right out in the open.
I started to edge around the corner when my skin prickled in awareness.