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)
Another Rider would know both. But no fucking way did one of my brothers betray me. That I’m sure of. I have no clue who it was, though.
There’s someone who might know. I glance to my right, where Cherry’s checking in with Crash, who isn’t fighting tonight either. That tumor’s got his balance fucked but somehow he and Cherry spun it as an ear infection. She did right by him on that. But it’s the very fucking least she can do after using her pussy as bait to capture him and Handlebar.
Now she’s going to do right by me. “Cherry.”
Surprise rounds her red lips as she glances over. Probably because I haven’t said a word to her in days. Now the expression tightens into a bright, wary smile when she makes her way to me.
“How are you feeling, Stone?”
The cheery note in her voice grates right over my teeth. “Sit the fuck down.”
They left a few feet of room between each fighter—maybe to prevent us from killing each other before we get into the Cage. Cherry hesitates a moment before sitting gingerly on the bench between me and Crash.
Not because she’s following the order, I realize. But because they’re getting started. A big, bearded asshole wearing an Iron Blood kutte and a president’s patch steps into the Cage, begins walking the perimeter while calling out the rules to the fighters chained to the benches.
The rules are simple. Get into the Cage when your name is called, or they put a bullet in your head. If one fighter isn’t dead by the end of the fifteen-minute time limit, both fighters get bullets in their heads.
So I can’t look forward to a Hunger Games ending. Defiantly refusing to fight won’t end in victory.
You fight and you kill, or you die. That’s it.
This part must not be broadcast, because the Iron Blood’s prez is showing his face. I appreciate that. Gives me a good look at one of the bastards I need to kill as soon as I’m out of here. Rattler. But I don’t know yet if he’s the one I really want.
As Rattler leaves the Cage, I ask Cherry in a low voice, “Who went after Anna?”
She steals a glance at my face before returning her gaze to the ring. The guards aren’t paying much attention to any of us on the benches—they’re focused on the Cage. Probably will stay focused on it unless we cause some kind of commotion.
Still, her pleasant expression never wavers and her response is as quiet as mine. “The Iron Blood.”
I figured that. “Which one?”
“What did he look like?”
“Never saw his face.” Just my sister’s.
In the Cage, some fucker in a fancy tuxedo and wearing a green nylon mask starts talking into a microphone. A goddamn emcee, as if we’re in a real fighting ring—and that mask is probably so they can digitally overlay his face with any image they want. He’s not talking to us but to the bastards out there tuning in and placing their wagers on the fighters’ lives, so I ignore him and focus on Cherry again.
“Did you recognize the voice?” Threatening to rape Anna. Threatening to kill her.
That rot in my gut spreads.
Cherry bites her lip before whispering, “He sounded like Chef…maybe? He’s the enforcer.”
Same as what I am for the Hellfire Riders. The man who gets shit done. But I sure as fuck don’t rape and kill women.
“How’d they know who I was?”
Her hands are folded on her lap—fingertips picking at that short hem of her dress. The only tense, nervous gesture I’ve seen her make amid all her pleasant blandness. Now she spreads those hands in a faint “I don’t know” gesture.
Maybe that’s true. “Who picked me out as your target?”
She goes still, her gaze darting to my face. “I already told you.”
The hell she did. “When?”
“When we were leaving the bar.”
Fucking memory gaps. “Tell me again.”
She shakes her head. Her gaze blindly returns to the Cage. “You didn’t believe me. And you were…angry.”
I remember that. Being pissed off at her. And that flash of her looking up at me, fear darkening her emerald eyes. “Tell me again.”
Her fingers begin worrying her hem again. “It was that guy you were with. You said he was your brother.”
Gunner? She’s going to try to tell me Gunner did this?
No surprise I was pissed at her that night. I’m pissed off now.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me.”
“I’m not,” she whispers fiercely. “He was at a house with us earlier that same day—”
“Bullshit. Gunner was with me all fucking day.”
“Then what do you want me to say? I saw him. And I couldn’t exactly mistake his face for someone else’s!”
Oh…fuck. Oh holy fuck.
Not Gunner, but one of his brothers. They’re all as pretty as he is. They’re also hard to tell apart. And the poor bastard grew up in a motorcycle club that was more like a cult. His family’s been trying to get him to come home for a while.