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)
Colter!
The horrified look in her eyes was oddly comforting even as my head started to feel light.
There was only one member of Roach’s club large enough to drag me backward.
His name was Liam.
He was massive.
And, like me, he’d served.
We would be equally matched once I got out of the choke.
And I could.
I would.
Only right then, two men closed in on Dylan, grabbing at her.
And all my self-preservation evaporated as all I could think of was getting to her, saving her.
She kicked, punched, scratched.
But she was outnumbered.
They were stronger.
She knew she was going to be taken.
But she had the split second of brilliance to grab for my bloody-ass knife.
I watched as she shoved it into the waistband of her jeans, then down the side of her leg, likely cutting herself in the process, but she was too panicked to show pain.
Then I watched in fucking horror as she was dragged away.
Into the clubhouse.
Away from me.
My vision was going spotty.
The strength left my legs.
I was going to pass out.
And this bastard wasn’t stupid enough to let me go as soon as I did.
He’d choke me out until I died.
Two more minutes, give or take.
The spots got darker, taking over almost all of my vision.
Then the belt loosened.
The primal need for survival had me gasping hard. Once. Twice.
I wasn’t even aware of what was happening around me as my heart banged against my ribcage, as dizziness overtook me.
Then, through the rush of oxygen filling my body with adrenaline, I heard him.
Saint.
“Fucking fight!” he yelled from somewhere behind me.
I whirled around, seeing him take on two of Roach’s men.
His brother was a few yards off with his own assailant.
And for just a second, I appreciated his surprising speed, his utter lack of acknowledgment of pain as the man landed blow after blow. He just kept going, kept fighting.
Fighting.
Like I needed to do.
So I could get to Dylan.
I flew to my feet, noticing Liam on the ground, a plug to his temple.
I’d been so close to unconsciousness that I hadn’t even heard the gunshot.
Saint’s gun was right there on the ground, knocked by one of the guys, I assumed.
I went for it, aimed, and caught the guy closest to me in the gut.
He went down hard, screaming, clutching his stomach.
Maybe the shot itself wouldn’t be fatal.
But the infection he was gonna get from it?
He was a goner.
He just didn’t know that yet.
Saint abandoned the guy he was fighting, leaving him to me as he went toward his brother.
I saw the flash as the guy I was approaching reached for his gun.
He was fast.
But he had shit aim.
The white-hot pain ripped through the side of my arm.
Blinding.
But motivating at the same time.
My aim?
It was a hell of a lot better.
He was dead before he hit the ground beside his yowling buddy.
I didn’t spare them another glance.
And as a gunshot rang out at the side, I knew Saint and Syn had won their fight too.
I ran toward the clubhouse door.
“They have Dylan,” I roared back to the brothers.
Then I kicked the fucking door in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dylan
He wasn’t dead.
He couldn’t be dead.
Not like this.
Not before I got to tell him that the shivery feeling I was getting around him—I was pretty sure that was something a lot like love.
I could barely even focus on the hands grabbing me, bruising into me, as I was dragged into the clubhouse.
All I could see was Colter with a belt around his throat, the way his face had gone red, how his eyes were huge and bloodshot. How he (the giant, hulking, strong-as-fuck man he was) got dragged backward by someone else.
He couldn’t be dead.
I wouldn’t accept that possible reality.
I was so focused on him that I barely even clocked the clubhouse as I was dragged through it.
It was the same as I remembered.
Dark.
Furnished in leather.
It had that same funk I remembered from my childhood: old liquor, unwashed bodies, the stink of a garbage pail that was several days past needing to be taken out.
But there wasn’t much time to take it in as I was pulled through.
Not to a basement.
The building was slab-on-grade because, I imagined, costs and the worries about the risk of basements with earthquakes.
But there was a small room attached to the back.
Small.
Windowless.
Reinforced with cinderblock walls.
A prison of sorts.
I knew from hearing the screams of men locked inside and desperate for escape that there was no way out of it but through the door.
So as I was pulled through, my fight came back with a fury.
Because I wasn’t one of those men.
Who were beaten, sure. Killed eventually.
I was a woman.
And there were far worse things these men would do to me before they killed me.
If that door closed with me inside it, even with the knife scratching down my leg, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was begging for death.