Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77505 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77505 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
I tossed her the toy from earlier. But it was a testament to how much I’d tired her out that she took it, put it on her bed, then just curled up and rested her head on it instead of playing.
Satisfied with that, I switched into a pair of combat boots and a leather jacket. I pulled back my hair.
Then I went into my nightstand, reached into the top drawer, took out, and slid the gun into my shoulder holster.
The binoculars were next, sliding into a handy-dandy little belt holder.
I left my normal phone.
But I took a burner.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I cooed at Sugar, who tried to follow me to the door. “I know you think you need to come, but I have to do this by myself.”
First, because there was no room.
But more importantly, because it wouldn’t be safe.
I was okay with putting my own life at risk. But not hers.
I was so paranoid about this little mission of mine that I had an app set up to send an emergency text to one of my neighbors who also had a lab if I didn’t check in by five in the morning. Because if I didn’t get back by five, chances were, I was never coming back. And the text would tell her where a spare key was hidden and that Sugar needed someone to look after her for a few days because of a family emergency that took me out of town.
Would those ‘few days’ turn into a lifetime? Yep. But the text would also tell her where to find some spare cash as a thank-you. And that spare cash was several grand to help cover the costs when I never came home.
“I love you, you know that, right?” I asked as I lowered down to rub her wide head between both my hands. “No matter what, I love you, okay?” Shockingly, tears sprang to my eyes. I was not someone who cried. Ever. “And if I don’t come home, I hope you have a super happy life with Diana and Artemis. I know you want to come,” I said when she whined. “But you have to settle,” I told her, feeling like a bitch when she whined again, but went to her bed like her training taught her to do.
With that, I grabbed my helmet and left the apartment before I lost my nerve.
“Hey, girl,” I cooed to my bike as I rolled her out of my minuscule storage unit the apartment complex provided.
I hadn’t been on my bike in weeks.
And the way my belly fluttered made me realize I was actually nervous.
Nervous.
To ride my bike.
Something I’d been doing almost daily since I was eighteen.
Until those bastards ruined that for me.
On top of everything else.
Well, I told myself as I strapped on my helmet and sat down on my seat, they were going to start paying for that.
Starting that night.
CHAPTER THREE
Colter
“This is how you travel all the way down to Florida and back?” I asked, shining the reading flashlight onto the map spread open on my lap.
“Can’t use phone apps if you don’t want to get caught,” Raff said from the driver’s seat. “But after a while, you only need the maps if you get yourself turned around. I could do the straight run from us to the Golden Glades chapter in my sleep. It’s the little stops to all the gun shows and shops that can get me lost.”
“Still not sick of it?” I asked.
It was different, but I’d really enjoyed all the traveling involved when I was deployed. But even all that got old fast.
Raff had been driving the route from Florida to California and back every few weeks for years. He used to do the trek with his twin, but since Riff settled down, he cut way back on his traveling, only going a few times a year. Even then, begrudgingly.
Since then, the rest of us took turns doing the trips with him.
I liked a road trip as much as the next guy, but after the third trip, I was sick of it.
With Raff, though, he didn’t seem to tire of it. Sometimes, he even seemed eager to get back on the road if he’d been parked in Shady Valley for an extended period of time.
When I’d asked about it once, he’d brushed me off, saying some shit about how he loved visiting Florida and partying with the Golden Glades crew. They were connected to an insanely rich international arms dealer who would bring them out on his yacht or fly them places on his private jet. And, more recently, Raff also got a chance to stop in at the new sister chapter in Texas and “pretend to be a cowboy” for a few days.
I couldn’t help but imagine there was some deeper reason behind it all. But it wasn’t really my place to demand he dig and uncover what it was.