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)
Handlebar. If he’s out, then they must have freed the men in those stables, too. Relief fills my chest even as my throat tightens unbearably. I did try to get Crash out. Tried to get all of them out.
But that plan was too little, too late.
Abruptly Stone halts. The world spins again, the blood rushing from my head. Freezing cold metal bites into my bare skin as Stone sets me down in the bed of a pickup.
He leans in and grits out, “Don’t fucking move or I’ll round up every single man you caged up and bring them over here to use your pussy.”
So…all one of them. Stone’s the only one I lured in. Because that plan went wrong, too. And he thinks that I was just saving my own skin.
But until Matt is free, I’ll go on letting him think it.
Defiantly I stare back. Daring him to follow through on that threat. Even though he told me once that he doesn’t share. His jaw clenches, then he draws back and orders someone to make sure I don’t move before stalking away.
I don’t watch him go. Instead I watch the stables and farmhouse burn, while a riot of emotions storms through my chest.
Matt said my plans aren’t shit; instead, the world is. And although tonight’s plan went to shit…so much went right. I didn’t kill a guard and free the fighters. But the guards are dead and the fighters are free, and it doesn’t matter who did it. All that matters now is keeping Matt’s identity safe until he’s free, too.
Which is the same thing I’ve done for months. So everything has changed…but also nothing has.
Because Matt’s life still depends on my silence. Because I’ve still got so much to hide.
And because with my luck, the world will keep on turning to shit.
19
Stone
“Maybe not the best time, brother,” Gunner says, his voice wary.
As if there will ever be a good time for this. A time when my chest isn’t a rotted and ragged hole, a time when I don’t feel Crash’s body going limp against me and his spine popping apart with a twist of my hands, a time when I’ll be a brother worthy of the name again.
There’s no good time or bad time now. There’s just a time to get shit done.
And this needs to get done.
It wasn’t only the Hellfire Riders who made up the rescue cavalry. The Bedlam Butchers joined them. Handlebar’s with a group of them now. No one’s wearing a vest—won’t give anyone a chance to point fingers later—but I know them. All of them dangerous fuckers, slapping Handlebar’s back and laughing and celebrating his return.
Yet all that laughter stops when they see me heading their direction. Because I killed one of theirs. But I don’t owe them a damn thing.
Handlebar, though. I owe him a hell of a lot more.
“I’m so fucking sorry, man,” I tell him hoarsely. The heat of the fire’s burning in my eyes, scorching down my throat as I spread my arms wide, welcoming what’s coming. “I’ll take whatever you got. Fists. Bullets.”
I want the fists. I want the bullets. Either one is better than the agony ripping through my chest as Handlebar closes in on me, the grief in his eyes exposing a hole as dark and ragged as mine.
If he wants to fill that up with my blood, I’ll let him. But I owe him something else, too.
“He gave me some last words for you.” Though I don’t know how I’ll choke them out when I can barely speak past the raw ache in my throat. “If you want to hear them first.”
His jaw clenches, the flames from the barn glinting in his eyes. Then he nods, his big hand clasping the back of my neck, pulling me in to rest his forehead to mine.
Just like Crash did when he told me this. “He loves you. You’re the best ride partner he ever had.” Fuck, I can’t breathe again. “And you have to take care of his mangy cat.”
A choked sound breaks from him. Then nothing for a long damn time.
His voice is real thick when he finally says, “I kill you now, we start a war between our brothers. But this ain’t about them.”
“No, it’s not.” And I’m not worth dying for. “When?”
“I’ve got shit to take care of first. I need to pull Crash out of the ground, lay him to rest where he ought to be laid. Then there’s this fucking Cage. Because that killed him, too.”
“We need to burn the whole fucking thing to the ground.” Not just these barns. The whole goddamn operation. Because I’ve still got shit left to do, too. And I still need something to fill me up. Something that isn’t soft and sweet, but as raw and as bloody as I am.