Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Can’t sleep,” I admitted.
“Thought you were gonna start taking medication for that?” he asked. “Didn’t I hear Dad suggesting it to you?”
“Yeah, but you must’ve not heard the part where he doesn’t take it anymore because he can’t get it up in the morning when he’s taking it. And sometimes it takes him an hour to come,” I drawled.
I have had sleeping problems since I was a kid.
I’d never slept well, and nothing had helped me.
I’d been on every medication alive—at least I’d thought I’d been.
But I wasn’t really willing to take a medication that made my dick not work like I wanted it to.
Sleep wasn’t worth that to me.
We crossed the road to the house catty corner to Quinn’s, and Quinn laid on the doorbell.
The same words came out of this brother’s mouth, too, when he was woken.
“What the fuck do you want?” an angry male voice said.
“Atlas, you dumb fuck,” Quinn said, sounding amused. “Your kid’s out roamin’ the neighborhood at two in the morning again.”
“Goddammit.” Atlas was at the door in a flash, looking slightly frantic. “I’ve done absolutely everything that I can think of, short of tying him to his bed, to keep him inside.”
“Pressure alarm,” I suggested. “Put it outside his door. That way if he crosses it, he wakes up the entire house.”
Both men looked at me curiously.
“Used to have a friend that liked to scare the shit out of me when I slept,” I lied. “Worked pretty well.”
“Might need to add that to our list.” He sighed. “I think I need to fence around the entire property at this point. I don’t think he’s aware enough to get out of a six-foot-high fence.”
“He was able to get out of a locked house with multiple alarms on it,” Quinn pointed out the obvious.
“True,” Atlas narrowed his eyes at me. “What are you doing here?”
“Walking. Can’t sleep. Found your kid in that lot over there.” I pointed to the lot beside Quinn’s place.
“Fuck,” Atlas sighed. “Thanks, man, appreciate it.”
I jerked up my chin and headed back the way I’d come.
I took the faster route back to my place, and as I did, I thought about all the things I had to do tomorrow, first of which was meeting my brother for lunch with a few of the men he called “The Seven.”
Personally, I didn’t like any of them, not even the one Shasha considered his closest friend, Cayden McCloud.
All of them struck me as arrogant pricks who thought they controlled the world.
Truthfully, my brother struck me as that sometimes.
But that was quite possibly because I didn’t like anyone, not even my own family at times.
My social battery was finite.
My family, however, didn’t care if my social battery was full or not. They’d bug the absolute shit out of me if I didn’t participate in the family the way they wanted—which was all the fuckin’ time.
There were days, however, that I craved living in a place that was far, far away from anyone and everyone. A place in the middle of the woods where the closest neighbor was twenty miles away.
I craved being able to live in a place that didn’t have the ability to have my sister in my house at three o’clock in the morning when I came home.
“Where have you been?” Nastya asked, yawning widely.
“Walking,” I said as I stared at my nephew in her arms. “What are y’all doing up?”
Nastya yawned again. “Nate has a little cold, and he needs to be vertical to sleep.” She yawned again.
I walked over and took Nate from her arms, turning the little guy to face me.
Nate had eye crusties over his eyes, and his nose had dried snot on it.
“I’ve wiped those down so much that his little nose is raw,” Nastya admitted. “I’m at the point where I’m wondering if it’d be better for him to leave them there.”
“I’ll get them cleaned,” I said. “Go home.”
Nastya raised a brow at me. “What?”
“Go home,” I repeated.
She bit her lip.
“Now,” I grumbled. “We’re gonna try to catch a couple of hours of sleep.”
“How…”
“Go,” I repeated.
I walked her out and watched as she crossed the lawns to her place.
I glanced at the other house that was between Nastya’s and mine and saw that Cutter, Milena’s new husband, was there getting ready to go for a run.
“What time are y’all leaving?” I asked.
“Dropping her off as soon as I finish this run.” His eyes gleamed. “Then I’m riding out.”
I jerked my chin up at him and he gave me one back, and I disappeared back inside.
Milena, my sister, was headed to Montana to run a marathon on a trail.
Cutter, however, was headed to the prison where his brother was located to kill the man that’d raped Milena.
I was wholly, one hundred percent on board with this morning’s activities.
I’d actually wanted to do this myself for years, but Milena had made all of us swear that we wouldn’t retaliate anymore against Lyle Pettigrew.