Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“Fuck,” Alarick breathes. “No.”
“Yeah,” Cohen mutters. “Yeah, you’re seein’ it correctly. We just found our fuckin’ rat.”
“No,” Alarick goes on. “No this can’t be fuckin’ real. It ain’t real, Cohen.”
“It’s as real as you and I standin’ here. There is no doubt about it. There is no denying who that picture is of.”
“Who?” I bark.
Both of them look at me. It’s Alarick who speaks.
“It’s Samson.”
No.
Fuck.
No.
ALARICK IS WALKING out of the house before any of us can stop him. He's got his hands bundled into tight fists, and he's panting with rage. We're all in shock. There is absolutely no doubt about it. I've known Samson for a long time, and I never, not ever, thought he had something to do with this. It's as though my heart is bein' ripped out of my fuckin' chest. The betrayal is real.
But right now, Samson is the only thing we have that can lead us to Zariah.
Alarick wants to kill him; I get that.
His club is his life, and you do not fuckin' betray your club.
If we kill him, though.
This is over.
That's why Cohen and I charge after him, both of us knowin' that we have to stop this before it goes too far.
Before he does something we really can't come back from.
"Alarick, stop," Cohen yells, his voice bellowing down the halls.
Alarick doesn't stop.
He charges out the front door and towards his bike.
We've got seconds if we're lucky.
"Pres," I bark, "you can't hurt him."
Alarick doesn't pause.
He doesn't even flinch.
Fuck.
Cohen and I charge at him, knowin' the only way to stop him is to do something drastic. Cohen catches him around the waist, and I step in front of him. He lets out an agonized roar. "Let me fuckin' go, you cunts."
Alarick rarely loses it.
He certainly doesn't say that word a lot.
He's wild, but mostly, he's hurt.
Achin' in a way we can't even begin to understand.
"You kill him," I growl, getting up close. "They win."
He pauses, panting with a rage I've never seen from him.
It's terrifying.
Samson will go down for this, but it'll break every single piece of Alarick open to have to be the one to take him down.
That's horrible.
So fuckin' horrible.
"Let. Me. Fuckin'. Go." Alarick seethes, baring his teeth.
"Listen to me," I roar. "You kill him, and this will never be over. I'll get locked away. Zariah will die. Is that what you fuckin' want? I know you're not that stupid, Pres. You gotta think. I know you're angry, but you gotta fuckin' pull your head in and switch your brain on. Samson is the only fuckin' person who can give us our answers. Who can lead us to Zariah, to Dax, to all of them."
Alarick makes a low, almost pained sound in his throat. "He betrayed me."
"I know."
"He fuckin' ripped my heart out."
"I. Know."
Alarick closes his eyes, the pain in his expression real.
This is killing him.
"We've got to be smart about this," Cohen murmurs, slowly releasing him. "We have to be fuckin' careful about what we do here. You know we do. You go, ride it off, take whatever time you need to fuckin' get your head around this, but I can't let you go to Samson and bust this all wide open. Can't, boss."
Alarick opens his eyes. "I know."
"Get on your bike, find your girl, go break somethin' apart. Do whatever you gotta do. Then you find us, and we're goin' to finish this the way it should have been finished months ago. You can deal with Samson after that."
Alarick studies both of us, and then without a word, gets on his bike and disappears.
I glance at Cohen, and his expression is no doubt the same as mine. Shock. Pain. Rage. A brother, someone we would have trusted with our lives, has betrayed us. Let us down. He has broken us into a thousand tiny pieces. You don't come back from that. Samson will die because of his actions, and that thought alone makes me want to fuckin' bellow with agony and rage.
"Why?" Cohen mutters, his voice low.
"I don't know, brother."
"He has been with us for-fuckin'-ever. Never let us down. Never put a foot wrong. Why the fuck would he help these people? Who are they to him?"
"I don't know."
Cohen tips his head back and roars, "Fuck!" into the air as loudly as possible.
I clasp him on the shoulder. "We gotta keep it together, for Alarick's sake. He ain't goin' to deal with this, you know he ain't. We gotta hold him up."
"Yeah," Cohen growls. "Yeah, I know."
"Let's get back to the club, get eyes on Samson. We need to find out what he knows and how he's passin' on the information. It's the only way we're goin' to end this. Zariah doesn't deserve to go down for this."
"No, she fuckin' doesn't. Let's ride."
We get on our bikes.
And we ride.
Both of us feeling the same pain deep in our chests.