Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
It was him.
All along he’d been playing me.
He wasn’t just really into plants. And he definitely hadn’t been just passing by when he found Ernest and brought him back to me.
He’d been spying on me, watching me, stalking me.
As if sensing the intensity of my gaze, Kylo’s head lifted.
I saw it all there. The guilt, regret, the apology.
But none of that was good enough.
Because not only had he been working me, but he’d made me trust him, like him. He’d slept with me. All the while knowing he and his friends were going to confront me.
He held my gaze, accepting all the betrayal, hurt, and anger my eyes had to be tossing in his direction.
My body tried to process all the sensations at once, each thought and feeling knocking into one another until it was impossible to tell one from the other.
All it came down to, though, was betrayal.
I’d trusted him.
He’d used that.
He’d misused that.
My jaw went to granite as my gaze cut away.
I looked at Velle instead.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“We’re… a club.”
Club.
Wasn’t that what Kylo had called this place? His clubhouse. But what kind of club involved a bunch of men who rode… oh.
Oh.
They were a biker club.
I wouldn’t claim to know a whole heck of a lot about biker clubs. But I’d seen a documentary or two about some of the outlaw biker clubs that dealt in drugs, prostitution, enforcement, and extortion.
That wasn’t what this so-called ‘club’ was into, though.
Oh, no.
Because they were asking about Marco.
Which meant they were into weapons too.
“You’re arms dealers,” I said, glaring at Kylo.
“Yeah,” Huck said, drawing my attention back to him. “And Marco is operating on our turf. Which was how we came across you.”
“So you, what, sent someone in to schmooze me? Learn about me?”
“Something like that, yeah. We needed to know if you were in bed with Marco or not.”
My hand slipped to my wrist, rolling my chunky bracelet around, knowing the bruise was still vivid blue and purple beneath from Marco’s hand.
“I don’t willingly do business with men who drag me around and let their men threaten to rape me.”
“What?” Kylo barked, outrage clear in his voice.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, though. Him and his fake concern, his manufactured kindness.
“Yeah, Marco is scum,” Huck agreed. “But we needed to be sure. After the last delivery, we became that.”
“Great. So now you know. Can I go?”
“Actually, that’s not all we need from you.”
My arms crossed over my chest as I stared down Huck, surprised by how defiant I felt.
I knew it was all bluster; that once I was alone, the anger would fall away to reveal all the mushy, more uncomfortable feelings that would take over.
I could deal with them when they came. I hoped. For the moment, I was going to cling to my rage. It prevented me from coming apart at the seams. The last thing I wanted was for Kylo to get the satisfaction of seeing that.
“What do you want then?” I asked, proud of how strong my voice sounded.
“We’ll start with information.”
“Fine.”
Huck’s gaze slid to Kylo but I refused to let mine follow.
“How did you get tangled up with Marco?”
That part was easy.
The shop’s old supplier in South America went suddenly out of business. I’d needed to scramble to find someone new, not knowing that when I signed a contract, I also somehow signed up for a lifetime of dealing with Marco and his crew.
Everything had worked as usual.
Until the truck showed up.
Then a caravan of men.
And then there was Marco, a gun in his hand, looming over me and telling me exactly how things were going to go from that moment on.
The threats that would happen if I didn’t do what he wanted felt a bit grandiose at first. Until I went to visit my grandmother and found Marco sitting in the lobby.
Then I knew. I knew down to my bones that he was completely capable of killing my grandmother to make me do what he wanted.
It wouldn’t stop there, either.
Traeger was at risk.
And, of course, my own life.
“Is it just the one delivery a month?”
“Yes. Though I did hear murmurs last time that they might need to ship more.”
“Did you get a date for that?”
“No.”
“I heard you unloaded the goods this last time,” Huck said.
My jaw tightened enough that my damn teeth ached and the pain shot up to my temples.
“Yep.”
“That wasn’t usual?”
“No.”
“Babe, fucking work with me here.”
There was a growling sound coming from Kylo’s general direction. But I stayed focused on the man who was clearly the boss around here.
“I’m answering your questions.”
“Why was it different this last time?”
“Because my anxiety was out of control,” I admitted, the words snarling out of me, angry that I had to talk about something so private with practical strangers. “I couldn’t seem to make myself go outside to meet the truck to get my plants out. Marco didn’t like that. He dragged me out. Then he made me do it.”