Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Getting a good grip around his hair, I pull his head back, forcing him to look me right in the fucking eyes. “This can go one of two ways. One way, you walk out of here on your own two legs with no bones broken. The other way, you don’t. All up to you.”
He tries to shake his head but doesn’t get far with my grip on him. “C’mon,” he whines.
“Begging only works if you’re a fuck lot prettier.” I give his head a shake for emphasis. “So how about you start talking.”
There’s a slight chance that he doesn’t actually know anything, but he was acting real suspicious, and my gut’s never steered me wrong. So when he takes too long to decide, I give his face a little love tap, snapping his head back with my fist. Are we the bad guys? Sometimes, but when the cops start looking our way, a lot of lives are on the line.
Blood drips from his nose. He’s lucky I didn’t fucking break it. “Wait, wait! He’ll kill me.”
Jackal comes closer, and his voice is icy and hard. “I hope you’re not under any illusions of what we’ll do to you if you don’t cooperate. Jay’s not here now, but we are.”
“Okay, okay! Just… don’t. Jay came by a few days ago. He said he needed to get into the apartment to get some of his shit. I didn’t see the problem, since it was his fucking place, too, right? When he came back down he was pissed as fuck. I don’t know shit about anything, but he said your club was on his ass for no reason, and he told me what to send to the cops and I did it. That’s it, I swear.”
“Why the fuck would you do that? Seems like a lot of risk for you, and not much to gain.”
“I owed him, okay?” Tony lets out a panicked gasp. “He settled some debt for me in exchange for a favor.”
“Where is he?” Jackal asks, pissed.
“I swear, I don’t fucking know. We aren’t exactly friends.”
I turn to Sergei. “You know anything about this? Think real hard.”
“No. Fuck no.” He looks furious enough that I actually believe him. “You can have this little fucker if you want.”
“Boss!”
“No. Get the hell out and if I see you around again I won’t be as forgiving,” Sergei growls.
I give Tony a shake. “Here’s the deal. We’re gonna leave you breathing, for now. But if I were you, I’d be thinking long and hard about relocating, because you’re burning bridges real fucking fast. That clear? Anything you wanna add?”
“Yes! No! I mean, I get it.” He might just die of a fucking heart attack right there.
“Good. Remember that.”
The door slams behind us, and we’re only a couple steps away before the shouting starts from inside.
“We’re taking Jay out either way, right?” Lash asks outta nowhere, just as I’ve straddled my wheels.
“Clearly.” I’d be more than willing to rid the world of him just based on the damage he’s caused for Dakota, but he stepped over a line by putting the cops on our trail. “The biggest question is just how deep he’s into this. He’s acting like a low level grunt, but everything doesn’t add up.”
“Unless he’s working for Chen’s dirty cop,” Jackal suggests. “It would fit.”
I nod. “You think it’s the one that’s been giving Dakota a hard time?”
“Or someone giving him orders.”
I’m real fucking glad Dakota and Logan are safe inside the club. I want her there for my own selfish reasons, but it’s the safest place for both of them right now. The trick is going to be figuring out how to keep them there for good.
25
DAKOTA
Logan seems to think we’re on the best vacation ever. He doesn’t really know what happened with our apartment other than it needed the handyman to come fix some things, so he’s just happy to be living in the middle of motorcycle man headquarters. I think he could happily live here the rest of his life now that we’ve moved a lot of our things here, and Lash got him a couple of actual toy motorcycles. They’re the only things that get played with. He’s used all his wooden train tracks to create a whole driving course around the living room.
Right now, Mr. Larson is on the couch watching, with his helmet resting on the dog’s head as Logan gets the motorcycles lined up for a demolition derby versus his big pile of blocks, almost guaranteed to come out victorious. It’s not like motorcycle men can lose, after all.
The doorbell rings, and since I now live in the middle of a biker compound, I’m not even afraid to open it. How many people can say that?
“Mommy, someone’s at the door!”
“I know, Honey. They’re here to meet us, remember? There’s a lady named Bonnie, and her daughter Anne might babysit you sometimes if that’s okay.”