Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
“Angel girl,” I tell her hoarsely, then narrowly jerk back in time to avoid a headbutt that would have busted my nose. “Stop this.”
“Then let me go!” she screams, then breaks into sobs, turning her face toward the ground and begging, “Just let me go. Just let me go. You don’t have to kill me, please please, just let me go.”
“Kill you?” It’s a gut punch. “Never in a million fucking years.”
“I heard you!” she cries out, struggling again. “I heard you.”
“What’d you hear?”
“That you’ll make me…disappear.” Her voice cracks on the word and she goes still, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Please don’t. Please. Just let me go.”
“Ah, angel. No.” Releasing her wrists, I slide my hands into her hair. I can barely get a word through my raw throat when I tell her, “You heard us talking about handing you over to the feds. Into witness protection.”
A wary gaze fixed on my face, she goes utterly motionless, then shudders beneath me. Again. And again, sobs still hitching through her chest. “The feds?”
“The FBI. Who’ve set up something with the Marshals. They’re all keeping it real quiet so it doesn’t leak to anyone in Papa’s pocket. It’ll be like you’ll just vanish, so he can’t find you.”
Her lips tremble, that wariness gradually transforming to hope. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Gently I wipe the tears from her cheeks. “Really.”
Her eyes close and she begins silently crying again, but her body softens beneath mine, and there’s no mistaking the relief in her now.
Seeing her happy is the only thing that keeps my heart from tearing out. Though it nearly goes when she whispers raggedly, “Soon?”
“I told Blowback to set up the meet. We’ll see if he has yet.” I sit back, holding out my hand. “He might be a little pissed. You stole the bike he spent a whole lot of time restoring.”
“Oh. Whoops,” she says as I pull her up.
“He’ll get over it.”
If it ever really bothered him to begin with. He shows up with Zoomie, riding behind her, and hardly glances at his bike—which is no longer lying on its side, thanks to Gunner, who’s got all the motorcycles out of the way and the gate open.
I tuck my girl in against my side as we walk back in that direction, then glance down. Double socks. “How are your feet?”
“Feeling like all those barefoot-running advocates are liars.”
Good. Because it gives me an excuse to swing her up against my chest and carry her. My throat nearly closes up when she links her arms trustingly around my neck. “Give me a list of what you need before you go. Shoes, clothes, sizes. Because fuck knows what the cops will give you to wear. I’ll have Bottlecap go pick it up.”
And because the only way I’m going to get through this is by getting shit done.
Getting shit done for her.
“Thank you.” She bites her lip, looking up at me. “I’m sorry that I stole some of your money.”
“Don’t you say sorry to me.”
“I’m sorry that I believed you would kill me.”
My voice is raw when I say, “I never gave you any reason to believe otherwise.”
“Yes, you did,” she says softly. “Everything you did said that you were a good man. I’m so glad that I wasn’t wrong.”
That fucks up my chest and ends the conversation there. With me carrying my girl, whose name I don’t even know, to find out when I have to let her go.
I reach the gate and set her down. Just Gunner, Zoomie, and Blowback here. “She heard us saying that she was going to disappear.”
“Ahh.” Zoomie nods in understanding as she looks to my girl. “If that meant what you thought, there wouldn’t be any conversation about it.”
“Okay,” she says. “Good to know. When people don’t talk about killing me, that’s when I run. I’m going to be in such good shape.”
This fucking girl and her mouth. She just doesn’t stop making me crazy about her. Even now. When it kills me to ask Blowback, “Did you already set up that meet?”
“But even if you did,” she interrupts quickly, “can we set it up with someone else? I only want to talk to either George Martinez or Luke Harris, both out of the Las Vegas branch.”
The fuck? Zoomie and Gunner exchange glances but Blowback doesn’t blink. “The meetup is with Harris.”
“You said Creek. I heard it.”
“That was Luke Harris’s road name when he was under. So it’s the name that we all know him by.”
“Oh. Okay.” All at once those happy tears are in her eyes again, and she turns and throws her arms around me hard, so hard, pressing her face into my chest. “Thank you. Thank you so much for this.”
“Yeah.” Voice thick, I hold her close. But I don’t know for how long. “Did you set the time yet?”