Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 148704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 744(@200wpm)___ 595(@250wpm)___ 496(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 744(@200wpm)___ 595(@250wpm)___ 496(@300wpm)
“Crew, please.” He darts toward me, and in my peripheral, Drew slips closer. I’d almost forgotten he was here. “These guys aren’t like the last ones.”
“That’s your problem, Memphis. Not mine.”
“How can you just say no? What about Davis?!”
I’m in his face so fast, he loses his balance and falls into the chair. “I sacrificed everything, let dirtbags control my life for three fucking years because of you with a fraction of that number owed, and you have the nerve to come back here and ask for my help?! After you brought them to your sister’s front fucking door, the one person I did all that for, that I let go of to protect?!” I jerk forward, gripping him around the collar and yanking him off his feet, speaking through clenched teeth. “I could have lost the only fucking thing that has ever mattered to me because of you! If I died, she never would have known what she meant to me!”
“They’ll kill me, Crew!”
“I should fucking kill you!” My body shakes in rage. This is Davis. No one hurts her. No one.
Davis wraps her hand around my arm, gently tugging.
It takes a moment, but I let him go, his eyes shining with tears, but I’d bet they’re for himself. He looks to his sister, his throat bobbing with his swallow.
Something in the pit of my stomach stirs, and when he opens his mouth, but closes it a moment later, I realize, like a fucking fool, the churning sensation was hope.
Despite knowing better, I hoped for a single fucking second, he’d speak up, say something, anything to the girl hurting at my side.
I know her mind must be reeling, and as her brother, as a fucking decent man, he should be driven by a need to settle her some. To ease the pain, I don’t have to look at her to know what is written all over her face. I sense it in the air, feel it in her weighted touch.
But he isn’t a decent man.
He’s a weak and selfish one.
It’s one thing to be a slave to the disease that owns you, but it’s another to stand here silent when sober enough to have the conversation, staring at your little sister, who was once your whole world, and she was. Memphis loved her, protected her to no end. I’m sure he still does to some extent, but the years and distance between them have affected him differently than they did her.
She spent the time missing and worrying about him, waiting for him to come home.
He spent it so lost in his own demons, that if he ever did think of her, he likely drowned out the memories in a bottle of booze. I don’t fault him for that, but I do for this.
For right now.
Davis gently steers me toward the door, releasing me as she steps out onto the porch, Drew places a hand on her lower back in support as he guides her out, a bag he must have packed for us hanging from his hands.
With heavy steps, I follow, but Memphis snaps out of the internal war his mind is likely waging.
“Crew, I wasn’t lying. These guys, they’re dangerous,” he rushes out desperately, his voice growing closer, letting me know he’s taken several steps toward me. “They’ll kill me, man.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you chose to fuck them over.” My words are low and tired, and I glance back, my gaze connecting with his. “Fix your own fucking problems, Memphis. I’m done doing it for you.”
With that, I walk out, hoping like hell the shitstorm surrounding him won’t follow.
Knowing in the back of my mind, it will.
It always fucking does.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Davis
We haven’t spoken much since arriving back at the hotel yesterday afternoon, a nice place only blocks from the bar and Willie and Layla’s house—the only way Willie was willing to go home the night he had to drag Crew—literally from what I heard—from my apartment and off the man he had brutally beaten, if the shredding of his knuckles tells me anything.
They must be sore, but every time I try to inspect them further, he kisses me, his way of attempting to clear my mind. It’s sweet, but it doesn’t quite work, and he knows it.
We came back here, showered, even though we took a bath before leaving, and after having lain there for hours, simply holding one another, his eyes finally closed, mine following.
I’ve been awake for a little over an hour now, the red-lit alarm clock reading two-fifteen in the afternoon. We slept nearly twelve hours, and still, I’m exhausted. I’m in that state where you can’t tell if you slept too long and now your entire day is ruined, or you didn’t sleep enough.
Snuggling into Crew, his arms tighten around me, his nose burying in my hair.