Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
This had nothing to do with Dallas.
This was about Everleigh.
And the fact that, despite nothing more than simple pleasantries ever transpiring between us, I had been… harboring some feelings. Some interest.
It was obvious enough that even Slash had teased me about it in the past.
But I never made a move.
I honestly didn’t think I ever would.
Still, the interest was there, for better or worse.
“Fuck,” I mumbled to myself, walking back across the street, getting in the SUV, and driving back to the clubhouse.
It was early as fuck, but Slash and Coach were in the kitchen, having coffee, and talking quietly, so as not to wake up Lani, who was still out cold under her blanket.
“You’re back early,” Slash said, but one look at me as I got closer had him tensing. “What happened?”
“My brother just arrested Everleigh for drug trafficking.”
“The fuck?” Slash asked, brows shooting up. “Everleigh? From the gym?”
“Yeah, her.”
“That woman wouldn’t know a brick of heroin if someone shoved her face in it,” he said.
“Exactly,” I agreed.
“The fuck is wrong with your brother?” he asked.
“I dunno. But I do know that Gav was scooped up too. So something fishy is going on.”
“You doing something about it?” Slash asked, seeming to already know the answer.
“Cillian gave me the number for Simon Evertz,” I told him.
Coach let out a whistle.
“Yeah,” Slash agreed with that sound. “Hope you’ve been saving up your pennies and hundred dollar bills,” he said.
“It’s not a concern,” I said, and got a nod from him.
Slash, more than anyone, knew exactly how much I made, and how low my living expenses were. The food for the kitchen that I cooked all the time, that came from a club fund, not my own pocket. So aside from my cell, insurance, gym membership, and occasional spending, I didn’t have a lot of use for all that money he’d been siphoning my way over the years.
I had enough to buy a house.
I had enough to build a damn house.
And then some.
This wasn’t going to financially break me.
“So if Gav was taken in too, what happens with the gym?” Coach asked.
“Gav’s brother was pulling up when I was coming back here,” I said, shrugging. He didn’t have any kind of stake in the company, but I guess he would keep the doors open. Gav was going to need the money for his own defense.
“Was Ev okay?” Slash asked.
“Ev?” Morgaine asked, coming in with her long hair half coming out of her braid. She and Delaney must have gotten knocked up at the same time, because both of them looked ready to push out a baby any day.
Despite myself, I felt a familiar stab of longing.
Out of all of us, I was the one who’d always been really clear about what I wanted in life. A wife, a house, and kids. The whole white-picket-fence thing.
And here they all were, settling down, building that future that I’d always wanted. While my life just stood still. It was hard not to be envious, even if I genuinely was happy for them all.
“Everleigh,” Coach explained, handing her a mug from the high shelf, knowing her belly was getting in the way these days.
“What’s wrong with Everleigh?” she asked, tensing.
The two of them weren’t exactly best friends, but they had a bond what with Everleigh paying Morgaine to poison her sister’s abusive ex and all.
“She was arrested for drug trafficking,” Slash supplied, then immediately regretted it when Morgaine’s face drained of color. “Shit,” he hissed to himself, reaching out like he was going to catch her if she passed out.
“What?” Morgaine yelled, making Lani on the couch jerk awake, sitting up and trying to orient herself for a minute before she was clutching the blanket to herself while finding her discarded clothes out of the scattered mess of them.
“Hey, why don’t you sit?” Slash asked as Coach pulled out a stool from the island and helped him push her onto it.
“She’s innocent,” I said with certainty.
“Of course she is,” Morgaine said with a little eye roll. “How did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “But we are going to figure it out. I hired her a lawyer. We are getting this sorted.”
“God, she should come here,” she declared, making the three of us guys look at each other. “If she’s somehow supposed to be the patsy for some drug traffickers, she’s in danger, isn’t she?” she asked.
Well, shit. Yeah, she was right.
I’d been thinking this was only about Gav. Who I didn’t think was capable of actually hurting Everleigh. But if he was wrapped up with someone else, then, yeah, that was true. She could be in danger.
My gaze slid to Slash. Old friends as we might be, club decisions went to him.
“Think that’s a good idea,” he agreed, and I found myself narrowing my gaze at the bemused glint in his eye.