Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“I haven’t gotten over the fact that I was never married to Sasha, for one thing. And there’s my house. I have to decide what to do with it. I don’t like the idea of giving it up.”
“You can’t even walk into it. It isn’t good for a house to stand empty. Especially here.”
“You’re not going to railroad me, Joshua.”
He could see it on her face. That love. That softness. Sweetness. All for him. She was going to marry him. They both knew it, but first, they were going to have one hell of a night with her trying to hold out and him convincing her. Putting his mark on her. Claiming her his way. He couldn’t wait.
The wind blew off the sea as the three Harleys made their way through the last series of snaking turns and hit the straight stretch on Highway 1 running parallel to the ocean. The night was well under way, a fact that Savva “Reaper” Pajari was well aware of. He had to report to the president of his club, Czar, the moment they arrived back in Caspar, but time didn’t matter for that. Even if Czar was at his home in Sea Haven, tucked in close to his wife, Reaper would just hit the roof and climb in through the bedroom window. He’d done it more than once.
He lived for two things: riding free and fighting. He needed to feel solid muscle under his knuckles. He needed to feel fists hitting his body, tapping into that well of ice that covered every emotion. That swift explosion of violence and sweet pain as fists connected was his life, and had been his life since he was five. Now he needed to stay sharp somehow, in this new bullshit direction the club had taken.
He rode along the highway, aware of the others on either side of him. Brothers, some for over thirty years. Men he counted on. Men he called family. Still, he was apart from them and he knew it, even if they didn’t. He turned his head toward the ocean. Waves sprayed up into the air, rushing over rocks and battering at the cliffs. Sometimes he felt like he was those battered rocks, time wearing him away, little by little.
His soul had gone so long ago that he couldn’t remember having one. Now his heart was slowly disappearing. There wasn’t a place on his body without a scar. He had another to add from this last trip. He also would have to have Ink tat his back, three more skulls to add to the collection of those resting in the roots of the tree on his back.
Viktor Prakenskii, the man known as Czar, was the best man he knew. Reaper’s job was to stand in front of Czar, his self-appointed task from the time he was a little boy. He’d been doing it for so long now, he didn’t know any other way of life. He stood in front of all his brothers and sisters – in Torpedo Ink, his club. He was proud to wear the club colors. He’d die for those colors and still detested any mission he ran if he had to take them off.
They turned off the main highway onto Caspar Road leading to the town of Caspar, where they’d set up home. They’d designed their compound around the old paymaster’s building for the Caspar logging company. They had spent the first few months working on the building, turning it into their clubhouse. It housed multiple bedrooms, a bar, their meeting room – known as the chapel – and a kitchen. They shared bathrooms, whichever was closest to their assigned sleeping room. Czar had insisted each of them purchase a home nearby. He wanted those roots put down deep.
Reaper didn’t give a damn where they all slept. As long as he could defend his club and their president, he was fine. The compound had a bed, and right now, he needed one. He was going on forty-eight hours without sleep. He’d stitched up the wound in his side himself, making a piss-poor job of it too, but all he’d had was a little whiskey to disinfect it, and that had burned like hell. It still did.
They rode up to the compound and Storm and Keys parked their bikes while he scanned the lot. Either Czar was home or at the bar. Reaper was fairly certain he’d be at the bar waiting for a report. He didn’t like to disturb his wife, Blythe, or their four adopted children. Reaper didn’t shut his bike down as he waited for the others to turn to him.
“Goin’ to find Czar,” he said, unnecessarily, but they were looking at him like he should say something. He didn’t like stupid shit, like the formalities that seemed so important to others. He didn’t care if people liked him; in fact, he preferred they stay the hell away, except for his brothers, who understood him and made it clear they expected him to at least talk once in a while.