Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 134654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Funny, it does to me. Always knowing this was my fate had given me structure and guidelines I needed.
I chuckled. “You’ll be fine. You’re more than capable.” Closing my eyes, I visualized my upcoming future. I’d been both dreading and looking forward to this, but now all I felt was freedom. Complete freedom—a fresh start. “I’ll be fine, too. It’s the best thing … for all of us.”
“Go head, Killian.”
I looked up, squinting in the high noon Florida sunshine at the sprawling highway before me.
The concrete shimmered with heat waves, slick with tire tracks and gasoline. Out here was our Church. The roads were our sermons. The wind our vespers. There was no better resting place for one of our brothers.
Nodding at Grasshopper and the row of Pure Corruption behind me, I took the urn and tucked the remains of Mo into my chest.
The past three weeks had been a marathon of healing, saying goodbye, and attending funerals.
Beetle had been first. His send-off was a heart-tugging affair as we all paid our respects and laid to rest a loyal member. He’d chosen to be buried out of state with his twin sister who’d died when she was young. Together, we drove in a snaking entourage to say goodbye to the youngest and most promising prospect. He had no family left to compensate or to speak his praises, so we donated his income from serving the Pures to a local research fund dealing with infant deaths.
The last and absolute hardest was Mo.
The only surviving relative was his father who’d been estranged from his son for decades. He refused to come to the funeral.
Tristan “Mo” Morgan, the man who’d put me through my paces when I first arrived, who kept his secrets close, and never truly lost the bastard veneer, was sent off with our engines roaring and plumes of smoke sending his soul to heaven.
It hurt to think of him gone. I didn’t realize what he meant to me until the moment he’d died in Grasshopper’s arms. I wished I could do more for him. A bigger send-off. A more soul-healing goodbye.
But this was what he’d wanted.
No fuss. No tears.
Along with being a secretive prick, he’d also been organized. A will had been lodged with our in-house lawyer, along with instructions for his cremation, and his businesses had been divided between the members he bequeathed them to.
He didn’t want to be eaten by fucking worms in a dark pit beneath the ground.
He wanted to ride the roads for eternity.
After dedicating his life to the MC, the least I could do was honor his last request. My own needs didn’t matter.
I’ll always have your back, man.
I’ll see you on the other side.
The urn was heavy in my grip. With the cast still on my left arm, I couldn’t open the lid. Glancing at Cleo who stood beside me looking fucking gorgeous in jeans and her jacket, I raised an eyebrow in request.
The past few weeks had brought us closer together. We were never apart. Never angry. The pain in my head had gone—replaced by incessant itching from the stitches in my skull as I healed from surgery.
Every day I completed the tasks set by doctors to ensure my healing continued uninterrupted. And every day I improved.
The doctors said I’d been a miracle. My IQ was on the rise, my intelligence returning at a rapid pace. I didn’t believe in miracles, but I did believe in Cleo. It was all thanks to her.
I’d found her again. I’d had no intention of dying.
The endless compulsion I’d lived with all my life finally tempered. I still needed more. I still needed to fix and improve and create but for now … I was content. Happy.
Her small fingers latched around the lid, unscrewing it, and she took a step back. With a smile of gratitude, I held up the urn and faced my brothers.
“Mo was one of us. He’ll always be one of us. His motorbike is now the wind. The road is now his home. God speed.”
The members murmured their final goodbyes. Other eulogies had already been said at the local watering hole where Mo had wanted his brothers to have one last drink in his honor—he’d even picked up the tab, the crazy bastard.
“Happy trails, brother.” I turned downwind and dumped the contents of Mo’s earthly remains. The cloud of grey dust took flight, weightless and translucent, spreading quickly with the breeze.
No one spoke as Mo disappeared into the air.
He would become a legend. He would forever be a Pure.
Cleo came closer, wrapping an arm around my waist. “The end of an era.”
I smiled; her words couldn’t have been more perfect. “The end of war.”
With the breeze in my hair and my woman in my arms, I was finally able to let go and just be.