Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 56628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Pain momentarily flashed in Tristan’s eyes, but honestly, I didn’t care. “I’m here to make a deal with Joey.” He turned his gaze to Joey, ignoring me. “In exchange for us leaving your crew and your territory alone, I want Adelaide. You deny me this and I’ll fucking wipe your goddamn club off the face of the earth.”
Joey’s face lit up with an almost uncontrollable fury, as did my own. This was my home. My family. My fucking crew just as much as it was Joey’s. “Over my fucking dead body, Grim,” Joey snarled. “Adelaide is mine.”
I swallowed thickly. Why the fuck did Tristan want me? He’d tossed me aside three years ago as if I had never meant shit to him.
Tristan’s eyes darkened with rage. “Let me make this clear, Joey,” Tristan said with chilling softness. My heart pounded hard in my chest, my eyes nervously flickering to Joey. This wasn’t the Tristan I remembered. This was a monster. “I will be leaving with Adelaide tonight with or without your consent.” I narrowed my eyes at Joey in a silent warning. He better fucking protect me. I would not be fucking leaving with Tristan.
An understanding passed between us as Joey flicked his eyes to me. Joey would do what he could to keep me with him. And that was all that I could ask for.
“We can do this civilly, or I can start dropping bodies until you give in,” Tristan snapped, not missing our silent exchange. “Which is it?”
“Hold on!” I shouted, holding up a hand. “Don’t I get a fucking say in this?” I snarled up at Tristan, my eyes blazing with rage.
Tristan shook his head at me. I sneered at him, and his lips twitched up into a smirk at my rage. I couldn’t fucking believe his audacity. I didn’t want him, and I sure as fuck didn’t want to be with him.
He had fucking ruined me. Because of him, I was a mess of a fucking woman.
He turned his attention back to Joey. “Well, which is it?”
Suddenly, something hit me hard in my temple, and I let out a cry of pain, my vision quickly darkening as I began to crumple to the floor.
“Adelaide!” Joey roared.
The last thing I remembered was gun shots and Tristan’s muscular arms wrapping around my body before I could completely drop to the ground.
Chapter Two
Adelaide
My head was throbbing, and the taste of stale vomit lingered on my tongue, not to mention it felt like I’d chewed on fucking cotton balls all night.
Fuck, I had partied way too hard.
I slowly ripped my eyes open and cursed softly as I quickly took in my surroundings.
This certainly wasn’t the fucking clubhouse.
Normally, I woke up with Joey’s arm thrown over my waist as he snored next to me, even if we were on the outs because he didn’t like leaving me alone when I was wasted. But Joey wasn’t anywhere to be found.
He never left me alone after a night of partying.
So, where the fuck was I?
The bedroom door opened as I began to push myself up into a sitting position, my head spinning at the movement, nausea rising fast in my throat. I swallowed it back down, a master at keeping myself from getting sick after so many nights of losing myself at the bottom of a liquor bottle.
Tristan strode into the room, a disgruntled scowl settled on his features. Rage rose hot and fast in my veins. Why the fuck was I here? Hell, why the fuck was he here?
Fucking hell, I hadn’t seen him in three years, not since he had ripped my heart out and stomped all over it in his steel-toed, black boots on my eighteenth birthday at my birthday party that he had organized for me.
I hadn’t even seen him at my best friend’s funeral—his twin’s funeral.
“Morning, Addy,” he roughly greeted, shooting a devilish smirk my way that still had my stomach twisting into knots. Fury laced through my veins at myself.
Christ, he couldn’t really still be able to affect me like this, could he? It was unfair. Life was fucking unfair. And half the time, I felt like it was laughing at me right in my face.
I didn’t want to feel anything for Tristan but anger and hatred. Why did he still have the power to affect me so deeply?
“Why am I here?” I demanded to know, wincing when the sound of my voice just made my head hurt so much worse than it already did.
Tristan silently strode over to me and grabbed a bottle of medicine off the nightstand and a bottle of water. Different emotions swirled in my gut—fear, hatred, wariness.
Confusion.
He had thought about how I would feel when I woke up, enough to set medicine and water near me so I would have quick access to it when I was finally awake.