Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
“I…I came to…”
I couldn’t force out the words. Silas would be dead if I did, that was if I hadn’t already condemned them.
If I hadn’t already exposed them and what they had set out to do.
Because this was Kent Ellison. The man who had killed Silas’s mother had also nearly killed me.
They were one and the same.
How?
Regret and confusion spiraled through my senses.
Oh, God. What did I do? What did I do?
Kent Ellison smirked. Dark and foreboding. The grossest kind of wickedness.
“Always the little rescuer, aren’t you? But don’t worry your pretty face,” he tsked softly. “You didn’t disclose anything I didn’t already know.”
He suddenly whipped out a gun and put it to Dereck’s head.
I nearly bolted for my brother. Threw myself between him and the gun.
But I was frozen by terror.
“I already knew what your rat brother was up to, thinking he was going to get revenge on me for you when I had only rightfully taken payment for what he owed,” Kent sneered.
The blood drained from Dereck’s face, the same as it did from mine.
As I realized what my brother had gotten himself involved in.
More so, the why.
This was revenge. His current involvement with this monster was to avenge me.
And his intention had been discovered.
“He should have been grateful that I didn’t come back for you later and instead gave mercy and let you live,” Kent continued.
Horror and confusion spun.
A whirlwind.
“Did he really think I’d just accept him back? Give him the second chance he’d come begging for? I knew the whole fucking time what he was up to. I’m just very good at being patient.”
His demonic grin widened. “But I guess I should thank him for doing me the favor of bringing Silas and his MC to my door.”
The knot in my throat closed off oxygen.
Asphyxiating.
Oh God, no.
He knew that Silas was coming here.
And it didn’t matter what those documents said, I knew Silas would never betray me.
I was the one who’d betrayed him.
Pain sheared through me, and torment dragged me in every direction.
“Run!” Dereck suddenly shouted.
The last thing I wanted to do was leave him behind, but I knew it was the only thing I could do.
I had to somehow get to Silas. Warn him. Save him.
And I knew he was the only one who could save my brother.
Only the second I turned, five men appeared like vapor from the mist.
Surrounding me.
I attempted to dart to the left, but one was behind me in a flash. I screamed as I was shoved to the ground.
My hands bound behind my back as my soul was sundered.
A cry ripped out of me, his name on my tongue as my face was pressed into the dirt. “Silas.”
Silas. Silas. Silas. I’m so horribly sorry.
SIXTY-ONE
SILAS
“She wasn’t supposed to fuckin’ see it.” Phoenix’s jaw clenched and ticked through the hostility that suffocated the office.
“But she fucking did, didn’t she? And now she’s—” My teeth snapped shut, not able to say it. Terror fisting my spirit, not sure where she was.
If she was in danger.
All while my head spun with what Phoenix had revealed. The hate I’d held for a man for years multiplying exponentially. Knowing that she was the one broken on that floor.
Fuck.
I couldn’t even process that she was the one who’d changed everything.
Set my life on a different trajectory.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that she kept doing it. That somehow, she’d end up here and become mine.
The moment in time inscribed in me as deep as the ink on my flesh. As deep as the wounds on my heart.
And she was the only one who could heal them.
“She thinks I ordered it. Thinks I betrayed her the way you betrayed me.” My words were shredded.
Accusations and pleas.
Phoenix’s tatted throat bobbed. “Would never knowingly hurt you. I was trying to protect you and this entire club. I kept thinking that she was familiar, and after you claimed her last night, I realized where I knew her from. I hacked into some old police records in San Jose. Found her picture and verified it was her. I thought…”
He scrubbed a tattooed hand over his mouth. “I thought there was no chance it was random. One way or another, Dereck has to be up to something. I had to stop him.”
“You should have come to me. It wasn’t your choice to make,” I growled, leaning in his direction. “And because of it, she’s out there. Unprotected.”
My chest felt like it would cave, all while my thoughts ricocheted in my mind, trying to calculate where she could have gone. How she got out of the compound without anyone knowing.
“I’ll personally find her,” Phoenix grated. “Bring her back to you. She couldn’t have gotten far. But you know Dereck needs to die.”
My head shook. It didn’t sit right. None of it. “No, Phoenix…”
I turned to pace, roughing an agitated hand through my hair as I clomped across the floor.