Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 123825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
The stupid motherfucker hadn’t been listening, because he swung the bat. Cummings’s whole upper body twisted around, the force of the swing throwing the guy off balance. Clearly, the douchebag had never been in an actual bar fight. Taking his chances, Keyes lunged at the asshole, easily manhandling the barbwire wrapped bat out of Cummings’s hands.
What Keyes had in height and strength, Cummings had in quick and wiry. The guy darted under Keyes’s arm while Keyes attempted a swing of his own, clipping Donald in the side as he fled across the living room. Keyes jerked around, taking long strides, pointing the bat at Donald as he spoke. “You can bet your ass your fuckin’ days with Havoc are numbered, but that’s not gonna fuckin’ stop me from fuckin’ your shit up if you go anywhere near your kid again.”
“I don’t take orders from fags,” Donald said and spit at him, challenging him.
Man, what the fuck was wrong with this guy? Logic screamed at him to toss the bat on the sofa and take off, let the threat resonate and do its job, but he just couldn’t get past the slurs. He’d put up with that shit his whole adult life. The same hate he’d found in his father’s eyes so many times stared back at him with malice. All of that contempt should have died with his old man.
As if in slow motion, Keyes watched the guy reach behind his back. Instinctively, he knew the scumbag was pulling a weapon. There was no hesitation on his part, Keyes charged forward and swung the bat with every bit of brute strength he had, knocking the pistol from Cummings’s hand before he was able to truly take aim. The gun exploded somewhere behind Keyes and he lost his shit.
Momentum from the swing pulled him forward as he brought the bat back around to catch Cummings in the ribs. Lucky for him the hit did the trick, stopping Cummings in his tracks, sending him staggering back. Shock flashed across his face right before Donald crumpled and dropped forward, clutching his side. Keyes released the bat, grabbing Cummings by his dirty wife beater, driving his fist straight in the guy’s startled face. “Call me a fag now, motherfucker!”
He saw nothing but red as his father’s abusive slurs echoed in his head. The pain of his past threatened to suffocate him, pull him down. He unleashed his pent-up aggression on Cummings, purging the demons of his past with every fall of his fist. No child deserved to grow up terrified or hated by their father. He had no idea how long he pounded the scumbag when the screaming seeped past his anger. Slowly, he came back to the here and now, to the crappy apartment with the disrespectful prospect battered and bleeding, trying his best to cower away from Keyes’s death grip-style hold.
Keyes released the little shit, and Cummings dropped to his knees doing a piss poor job at shielding his face and head. Whatever had snapped in Keyes’s head righted itself. He drew air into his burning lungs, his focus now drawn to the screaming woman who stood with several other people in the front doorway, one with a phone in his hand pointed straight at him.
Shit.
Keyes started to turn away then stopped. He lowered his face to Cummings who tried to scramble away. He took a moment to wipe his bloody knuckles across the tank top as he issued his last warning. “Don’t make me come back here.”
To make sure the scumbag understood, Keyes grabbed the nasty ass vest slung over a chair. Hell would freeze before he left that prospect patch behind.
“You’ll have to go through me to lay claim on this.” No way was this guy ever coming back to his club. All the bystanders but the female gave him a wide berth, quickly rushing out of his way as he left the apartment.
He was back on his bike, hitting the street within a minute of leaving the apartment.
Keyes raged at himself to calm his ass down as he broke seventy on a side road. This wasn’t the type of neighborhood where residents called the police when shit went wrong. The cops didn’t get in a hurry to answer a disturbance call in this part of town. That small bit of knowledge calmed him, and only then did he let himself take a good, long breath. That breath had him pulling off the road into a vacant parking lot. He left the bike running as he stared at the prospect vest he had hastily shoved inside his leather riding jacket. Every bit of pent-up anger hit him hard as he ripped the prospect patch off, tossing the blue-jean vest to the ground.
He had lost his shit in there, something he never allowed himself to do, but goddamn, he had made a promise to himself the day of his old man’s funeral. He would never let anyone disrespect him again. Not anyone, for any reason. Apparently, that was a vow he planned to take to his grave.