Total pages in book: 174
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
“A car came up the drive. We surrounded it, but Daisy came running out and said she knew her and to let her through.”
“Who?”
“Her sister.”
My entire being blew back.
Her sister?
Daisy’s sister was dead.
Because I killed her.
Killed her in that rage.
The shame glomming onto me so devastating that it was the one thing I hadn’t yet had the courage to confess to Daisy. I was going to. I had to. I couldn’t go on without her knowing.
Was I losing it because of this? Was I in some kind of sick dream?
“What does she look like?” I forced out around the ball of barbed wire that rolled my throat.
Trevan huffed out an uncertain sound. “Like your wife, I guess, but a little older and worn around the edges. She seemed freaked out that we were here. Daisy was just hugging the hell out of her, asking her what she was doing here, before she dragged her inside.”
Hadley was alive.
Was alive and I was a fool who didn’t pick up on it.
Didn’t know.
It felt like a boulder rolled off the mountain and crushed me. Every faculty gone for a blink as I tried to wrap my head around it before a slick of awareness pitched me to the side.
“Get inside that house and make sure they’re good.”
Had she been in hiding? I thought she was dead, so I’d never gone back and looked for a trail.
Then there was Ethan…
I choked as a torrent of violence was dumped directly into my bloodstream. Rage brimming to the surface and spilling over.
They were connected somehow. They had to be.
“Right fuckin’ now,” I shouted. “I think she’s dirty.”
“Oh shit, man,” Trevan wheezed before he was shouting to the rest, “Move, move, move. Cash thinks the sister might be crooked. Get her the fuck out of there until Cash gets here.”
A pummel of commotion echoed on the other end of the line, and I was shoving my phone back into my pocket as I pointed two fingers at Silas and two of his men, gesturing for them to continue in the direction we’d been traveling, then made a circle over the top of my head, telling the rest of us to regroup and head the other direction.
A horde of bikes took to the road, our throttles capped as we flew back down the main drag of Moonlit Ridge. Blips of light and desperation blinked at the edges of my sight, the buildings whizzing by in flashes of terror and panic as I took the road as fast as I could.
The pavement became liquid below me. A black blur of sludge that fought to hold me back.
But there would be nothing that would stop me from getting to her.
I promised her.
I promised her I would keep her safe.
That I would bring this to its end.
I just had no idea it would implicate Hadley. That she was involved.
I gulped as my mind whirled through the possibilities.
How the fuck was she related to Ethan? How didn’t I know?
A babel of confusion and hate spiraled through my being, and my entire body shook like a fuckin’ beast as I barreled up the road at warp speed.
Moonlit Ridge disappearing behind us in a beat.
The tires ate up the road, and my knee nearly scraped the pavement as I angled into the sharp, tortuous curves that led up the mountain. The wind blasted my face and made it nearly impossible to see.
Or maybe it was just the chaos that blinded.
This overpowering hunger that raged inside.
Only this time it wasn’t the thirst for blood.
It was simple.
Real.
True.
Save her.
It felt like a fucking eternity, but ten minutes couldn’t have passed by the time the lane that led to my cabin came into view. I braked hard, the back tire skidding to the left as I took the right at fifty, my right boot hitting the squishy, damp earth to keep myself steady before I pinned the throttle again.
My bike jostled, a frenzied reverberation as I flew over the potholes and mounds, my brain scrambled inside my head.
I flew down the ridge, the engine loud and echoing off the impenetrable swath of trees, as I gunned it and flew up the other side.
That’s when I smelled it.
Smoke.
Spindly fingers of fear gripped me by the throat. By the soul. Held me at the very core of who I was.
All five of our women were in that house.
I could feel the shockwave of panic surge through the atmosphere at the same time as mine.
Every one of my brothers coming to the quick realization of what was happening.
We’d all lost so much.
So many pieces of our hearts had been sheared away by greed and stupidity.
By trauma and abuse.
By broken dreams and envy.
Dumped into the nothingness that had nearly destroyed us all.
Then we’d all found our hearts.
Our meaning.
I’d been terrified of it. Terrified of loving again, sure that I would lose it.