Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Smart.
I guess they weren’t having any luck tracking down the guys who were targeting them.
Out in the hallway, a sudden conversation had my head swiveling, ready to retreat toward the door if I heard Milo or Matteo.
But the voice disappeared behind the click of an office door.
When I turned back, my fucking blood ran cold.
“No.”
I took a step closer.
Then another.
The closer I got, the clearer the image became.
I knew the shape of those eyes. I’d blackened them once. That bend in his nose? That was me too.
That scar down by his neck?
Yeah, that was me too.
And that gunshot… that was fatal.
But if that was fatal, then I was looking at a fucking ghost.
“There you are,” Milo said, tone light.
Until I turned.
I could feel how wide my eyes were, how tight my jaw was. I knew I looked fucking crazed. I was.
“What?”
“What is this?” My tone came out as a snarl as I gestured back toward the board.
“Whoa,” Mattie said, coming in behind his cousin. “Watch the volume. What’s going on?”
“Where did you get this?” I asked, trying to calm down, to bring some calm to my chaotic body.
“From the police,” Matteo said, holding a hand up, making it clear I was nowhere near as calm as I was aiming for.
“Where did they get it from? I thought no cameras caught the fucker.”
“They didn’t. But they used an eyewitness account.”
“What eyewitness? There was no one here but me.”
“Gracie,” Matteo said. His tone was full of exaggerated calm. Like he was trying to soothe a feral dog. “Gracie saw the shooter.”
My fucking blood went cold.
Gracie.
Gracie saw the shooter?
How did I not know that?
Why hadn’t anyone mentioned that?
When had she gone to the station?
Did the club know?
How the fuck didn’t I know?
Maybe if I hadn’t been so busy thinking about undressing her, going down on her, and making out with her, I would have thought to ask.
Maybe I would have found out about this days ago.
“What is it?” Matteo asked.
It was my past.
My supposedly long-dead past.
This had nothing to do with the mafia.
It had nothing to do with the damn club either.
It was me.
But…
But if this fuck was back from the dead, he was here to scorch the earth. To put me in it.
If he couldn’t get right to me, though, he would go through those around me.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fallon had it all wrong.
We needed to be on lockdown.
The women had to be brought in, protected.
Gracie needed to be protected.
I ripped the paper off the board, turned, and strode through the space between the two men.
Maybe they came after me.
I had no idea.
I wasn’t paying attention.
I couldn’t hear shit over the whooshing of my pulse in my ears.
By the time I was in the hall, I was at a dead run.
All I could think was Gracie.
Gracie, who I’d thrown myself over to protect.
Gracie, who I could have been seen walking home one night. Who I could have been seen talking to outside of the clubhouse.
Gracie, who, for better or worse, was now connected to me.
Who was in danger because of me.
I fumbled for my phone, dialing blindly as I rushed to the parking lot.
“Yo?” Fallon answered, laughing at something.
“Put the club in lockdown.”
“What?” he asked, tone deadly serious.
“Lockdown. Now.”
I ended the call, shoved my phone back in my pocket, and hopped on my bike.
I had to get to her apartment. I had to get her safe.
I peeled out of the parking lot and onto the road, ignoring the sound as someone laid on their horn.
I weaved in and out of traffic, trying to cut down the length of the drive.
It still felt impossibly long.
My heartbeat thundered in my chest as it constricted. My stomach churned, acid burning my esophagus as I cursed the traffic lights and flipped off the speed limit signs.
But then finally—finally—I saw her apartment building coming into view.
I was barely aware of cutting the engine, of putting down the kickstand, of climbing off the seat.
All I was aware of was running toward the building, running my fingers down the doorbells until someone buzzed me in, tearing up the stairs two at a time as a cold, slick feeling coursed down my spine.
“Gracie! Open up!” I yelled, pounding my fist into the door over and over. “Gracie!”
One beat.
Two.
More.
I didn’t stop to think.
I stepped back, then rushed forward, slamming my shoulder into the door until it burst open with a slight cracking sound.
It didn’t matter.
I could fix it some other time.
“Gracie!” I yelled, rushing into the space, looking for her, looking for proof that she was around. Or, worse yet, that she’d been taken.
But there were no upturned tables, no strewn knickknacks, no splashes of blood.
No Gracie.
And while I’d never seen her in action myself, I knew from stories that Gracie was very well-trained in self-defense. If someone had come in here, if they’d tried to take her, she would have put up a fight. She would have left evidence of the attack.