Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“Put up a good fight, though,” Hulk murmured. He was sporting a gnarly black eye.
“Didn’t take them long to start talkin’,” Dragon continued. “We were right about the list Rock gave to the DEA. They wanted that shit, needed to know who Rock had outed.” He paused for a long moment. “Made sure they hurt for a bit,” he said to me. “And knew why they were hurtin’.”
I nodded my head in thanks.
“That’s the good news,” Dragon said tiredly, pulling the ponytail out of his long hair and scraping it back up again almost in the same movement.
“What’s the fuckin’ bad news?” Casper grunted.
“Kozlov’s low level,” my dad said quietly.
“What? Fucker’s been runnin’ shit for years,” Samson argued.
“All a front,” Dragon murmured, slamming his fist down on the table. “Real head is named Pajari. Fucker was at the weddin’ and Rock had no fuckin’ clue who he was.”
“But now the DEA does,” my dad butt in.
“Right.”
“That’s the bad news?” I asked. That fucking sucked, but it just meant we hadn’t cut the head off the snake yet. We would. Eventually.
“No,” Dragon answered. “Bad news is, on top of everythin’ else, they’ve been dealin’ ’roids for the past five years.”
Everything inside me froze.
“Had some boys out here, checkin’ out the competition. Rattlin’ some cages.”
My vision went cloudy for a second.
“Sent some up to Montana for a while, too.”
No. Fuck, no.
“William,” my dad growled in warning as my hands tightened into fists at the end of the table.
“Wasn’t you, wasn’t Trix,” Dragon said quietly, making Samson curse. “Those kids were sent for one purpose. Disposable soldiers.”
“Calm, William,” my dad warned again, pushing his seat back from the table. They were all watching me closely and it took everything I had not to fly out of my chair.
“That was just the beginning,” Dragon continued. “Kozlov and his boys were round two.”
“That was over three fuckin’ years ago,” I ground out.
“Long game,” he replied. “Had to see where we were at. Try and assess weaknesses.”
“What about Rocky?” I asked. I had to know. He’d come from there, had ties to the Russians that we’d known about when we let him prospect.
“He didn’t know,” my dad said, raising his voice so everyone could hear his answer. “He was with the club long before that shit started up.”
“So what now?” Casper asked quietly.
The silence in the room was like static crackling in the air. No one moved. No one even breathed.
“We go to war,” Dragon finally replied.
I stumbled to my feet and braced myself against the edge of the table as I struggled to breathe. Everything I’d believed for the past few years had been wrong.
In flashes, I saw the day that our world had been upended. The way Mick had wrapped his arms around Tommy’s chest and tackled him to the ground as bullets sprayed across the yard. My mom, her eyes wide and afraid as we’d tried to stop her from bleeding out. Slider’s lifeless body resting less than three feet from Vera’s.
I gasped, but I couldn’t seem to get enough air.
“Everybody out!” Dragon ordered.
People moved around, but I didn’t see them. I stared at the table, my neck straining as I tried to inhale.
“Breathe, son,” my dad said firmly, thumping my back. “Come on, take a breath.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes tight, trying to snap myself out of whatever the fuck was happening. I opened my eyes as I started to feel dizzy, only to find that my vision was going hazy at the edges.
Oh, hell no.
I gasped again, finally bringing a little air into my lungs.
“Motherfuck,” I wheezed as my dad’s hand gripped my shoulder. “Jesus.”
“Thought I was gonna puke when I heard that shit,” my dad said quietly. “If we woulda questioned that kid longer . . .”
I remembered the night we’d killed him. The little psycho had been tied to a chair, beat to shit, and he’d still been running his mouth. I wasn’t sure if Dad or I had fired the first shot, but in the end, we’d filled his body with bullets. I’d never regretted it before that moment.
“I walked right into that shit,” I said, still trying to catch my breath.
“Hell, boy,” Dad said, leaning against the table. “None of us had any fuckin’ clue.”
“What now?” I asked, repeating Casper’s earlier question. “How the fuck do I keep my family safe?”
My dad sighed, staring at the door between us and the rest of the clubhouse. “Lockdown for now,” he said. “We’ll know more in the next few weeks and we’ll make plans. This ain’t our first rodeo, son. We’ll get it handled.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly, pushing off the table.
He squeezed my shoulder again as I moved toward the door. My head was still reeling. All that time, we’d thought that we’d finished those kids off. Thought we were relatively safe. And all that time, there had been a bigger threat waiting.