Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Christ, he needed sex, and he needed it fast. It’d been too damn long since he’d gotten laid and even longer since he’d done it sober enough to remember it. It should be easy enough to hook up with someone other than his hand at the MC’s party this weekend. Of course, if he could find someone to sit for Caleb first.
Who knew fatherhood would end up being the ultimate cockblock? That wasn’t entirely true. Sobriety was more of a cockblock for him. He’d fucked around plenty when he’d been high and neglecting Caleb.
Guilt tried to worm its way past his skin.
You’re not that guy anymore.
If only that were true. Lock spent ninety-nine percent of his waking hours fighting that guy. He was there, lurking just below the surface, waiting for a chance to fuck things up again.
“Yo, Lock, you okay, brother?” Jinx’s meaty hand landed on his shoulder.
Fuck. He’d drifted during a damn crisis.
“All good.”
Lies.
“All right.” Spec paced away, then walked back. He rubbed a hand across the stubble on his chin. “First thing’s first. What’s your name?”
“Uh…” The woman’s eyes shifted between the three of them.
Little did she know, she was probably the safest woman in Florida, surrounded by the three of them. None of them would hurt her, and they’d castrate anyone else who tried, including Oliver.
“It… it’s Brenna.”
“Okay, Brenna, first thing I want to do is promise you that nothing bad will happen to you here today or anytime you are with us,” Spec said. “We will not lay a hand on you now or ever.”
“Oookay…” She glanced at Lock, and he nodded. Only then did she seem to accept Spec’s words, and he refused to dive into why that made him feel ten feet tall.
“But we have three problems here.” Spec lifted a finger. “One is that old boy, Ollie, is very late paying my club back a huge sum of money.” Another finger popped up. “Two is that I now need to find Ollie and get the money back the hard way… or the fun way, depending on how you look at it.”
Lock rolled his eyes as Brenna gasped. The man enjoyed a good beatdown without an ounce of concern for his more violent tendencies.
“And three, you’re smack dab in the middle of this shit whether you want to be or not.”
Fuck. It was true.
“Wha-uh, what do you mean?”
With a sigh, Lock stepped forward and spoke before Spec could, “He means that if you go home and everything is normal, it’ll be a huge red flag to your ex.”
Brenna frowned. “I’m not following.”
“He sent you here knowingly short on cash and thinking we’d do something about that. If we let you walk out of here, he’ll know you’re in on it.”
“So, what? You’re gonna kidnap me?”
When none of them answered her, she took a step back. “Look, I’ll say anything you want to Oliver. I’ll tell him you beat the crap outta me or that you threatened to kill me. Anything, but I need to go home.”
“Fuck.” Spec ran a hand through his hair and paced away. “She’s gotta come to the clubhouse.”
What a clusterfuck. His first task back with the club, and it ended up being a giant disaster. At least he couldn’t be held responsible for this goat fuck.
He froze as an idea popped into his head. Before he could second-guess it or talk himself out of it, he walked over to Spec, leaving Jinx to keep an eye on their semi-captive. “Hey, brother, I had a thought.”
Spec stopped pacing and stared at him. That searing skepticism sliced through the padding he’d tried to cushion around his emotions and pierced down to the mushy mess beneath. He felt every stab of uncertainty and mistrust like the tip of a knife repeatedly sinking into his flesh. The same skin that crawled with the need to down a bottle of Jack or, better yet, find something more substantial to numb the self-hatred.
But as his therapist reminded him over and over, he’d gone that route, and it hadn’t worked. The alcohol and drugs only created more self-loathing and opened the door to the loss of his job, his club, and his son—the only things in the world he gave a shit about.
Though he deserved it, the suspicion in Spec’s eyes gutted him. The responsibility of cleaning up more than one of his messes had fallen on Spec’s shoulders. It would take time, probably significant time, before his brothers trusted him again. He expected that, but it still sucked to have the men he considered family looking at him as though he was a fuck-up.
Instead of giving in to the instinct to leave and drown his sorrows, he straightened his shoulders and gave Spec the respect of eye contact.
After a long moment of charged silence where Lock imagined Spec searching for a way to say no that didn’t make him sound like a dick, Spec finally said, “Let’s hear it.”