Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 142728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Heat rolls over us. Someone’s been cooking and baking.
“Wow,” I mutter, staring at the industrial appliances in the large space.
“Lots of bikers to feed,” Trinity laughs.
“I guess so.”
Trinity introduces me to a few girls I don’t recognize and I’m so overloaded, I immediately forget their names.
“Heidi,” Trinity says. “You remember Emily?”
Heidi turns away from one of the ovens and waves. “Hey!”
“Grab whatever you want and relax,” Trinity says, gesturing to a long kitchen table. The window above it seems to look out on the front parking area, giving me a view of the garage. Lilly’s at the table, so I take a chair next to her.
“Morning.” She yawns.
Trinity sets a mug of hot water and a handful of random tea packets in front of me, then sits at the other end of the table.
“Am I wrong, or is this earlier than usual?” Lilly says to Trinity.
“Definitely earlier,” Shelby says, dragging a chair in between Lilly and me.
Trinity shrugs and sips her coffee.
“I just hope they’re not riding out after church,” Heidi says, dropping into the chair next to me. “Swan and I baked like a billion muffins.”
“A billion and one!” a tall, lithe woman shouts from the other side of the kitchen.
“Is that possible?” I ask. I rode here with Dex. Now I’m anxious about being stranded here all day long. “They just take off?”
“Sometimes,” Lilly says.
“Dex said they had, like, emergency church or something the other night. Can there really be another emergency already?” I try to make a joke out of it but snap my mouth shut when I realize Lilly’s staring at me.
“Did they have church during the week?” Lilly asks.
Shelby shrugs. “Rooster didn’t say anything about it.”
A cloud of dread drifts over me. Like I’m almost certain I just stepped in a pile of dog poop but I’m afraid to look down and discover I ruined my shiny new shoes.
Heidi picks at the label on the bottle of juice in her hands.
Trinity stares at me like she’d like to superglue my mouth shut. Then shifts her gaze to Lilly.
“I think it was something concerning one of Upstate’s businesses.” Trinity twirls a finger in the air. “Not something they’d bother Downstate with.”
Oh, fuck.
Lilly’s husband is the president of the downstate charter. Shelby’s man is the downstate VP, right? Everyone seems so close, I didn’t think the distinction mattered.
Someone should’ve handed me an organizational chart or maybe even a family tree when I walked in.
Lilly accepts Trinity’s answer with a casual shrug.
No big deal, right?
I sip my tea and try to study Trinity from the corner of my eye.
The enforcer’s wife. Dex’s friend. Oh, shit. Is she going to tell the guys about my blunder?
CHAPTER FIFTY
Dex
Even though we were all called into church earlier than expected, my head’s still upstairs with Emily. Letting her leave with Shelby hadn’t been easy. I’m confident she can hold her own with the other women but the abrupt shift in our morning leaves me unsettled.
I fucking told her I love her. My heart jumps, reliving the moment. I never expected to feel this way again.
Christ, I’m acting like a teenage girl about to flip open her diary and doodle a bunch of hearts around Emily’s name.
Now’s not the time.
Focus.
Did Loco agree to a meeting time? Most of Downstate was here anyway, so it’d make sense if we were meeting with Loco today. Not sure that called for all of us to sit at the table earlier than normal, though.
My brothers are more boisterous than usual as we wait outside of the war room. I scan the living room several times. Except for Rock and Murphy, every Upstate brother is here. Z seems to be the only missing member from Downstate.
I elbow Jigsaw’s side. “You get a hint about why we’re here so early?” Jigsaw’s so far up Rooster’s, his VP’s, ass, that he must know something. My VP doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight.
He glances at Rooster, then leans in close enough to hit me in the face with a minty wash of whatever the fuck toothpaste he used this morning. “Digger went to the big highway in the sky. Priest’s calling all the charters to talk about arrangements.”
Holy fuck. “Shiiiit.”
“Yeah.”
Wrath opens the war room doors and shouts for us to get our asses to the table. Brothers are rowdy, loud, and don’t seem to be aware of what happened.
While everyone’s taking their seats, Wrath hands Rooster an older, triangular-shaped speaker, something you’d expect to find in a boardroom, not a biker clubhouse, and Rooster places it in the middle of the table, checking underneath for wires. Wrath checks a burner phone and sets it in front of Rock’s chair.
The volume in the room drops a notch. Behind me, Wrath and Rock’s low voices seem to be working out something. Z slaps my shoulder on his way to his chair.