Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 39540 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39540 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
“No,” he snapped. “You take her back to Bones or Kiss of Death if Torpedo and Bohannon are men you trust. But get her behind locked doors and do not let her out of your sight. If that means you take her as your old lady, then you do it. That’s the ask, Gunnar.”
It took a moment to comprehend what I’d just heard. “Me? You want me to make your daughter my old lady?”
“It’s the only way she’s safe, because you’re not the kind of man to let anyone harm someone who belongs to him. You rescue her, charm her, then claim her. And you will treat her with fucking respect and coddle her like the fuckin’ princess she is. Or, so help me and by God, I will bury you.”
“I’ll give her my property patch, Knuckles. I’ll protect her with my life, but that’s as far as I can promise. If she don’t want me, she don’t want me.”
“Take it as a challenge, then. Make her want you.” Oh, the man was good…
“One thing I’ve always said is my dad taught me you didn’t lie to people who meant something to you. So I’m not gonna lie to you. No matter how much you bully me. I will give her my property patch so she has my protection, but I’m not promisin’ anything beyond that.”
To my surprise, Knuckles grinned and clapped me on the shoulder. “This is why you’re the only man I trust with my baby girl. You don’t cave under pressure when it’s somethin’ you believe in.”
“My dad taught me you can’t trust a man who doesn’t respect his old lady. That means you don’t cheat on her. Any man who does can’t be trusted. I won’t make her my old lady until I know it’s what we both want. Even patchin’ her is splittin’ hairs, but I’ll go that far to give her all the protection I can and defend her with my life.”
“Your dad sounds like a smart man. I wish I could have met him.”
“Neither of you are dead. It could happen someday.”
Knuckles snorted. “Not on your life, kid. Ain’t meetin’ a man like Joe “Cain” Gill wearin’ what amounts to chains.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Name it, kid.”
“Why’d you kill those three guys?”
Instead of answering right away, Knuckles indicated for me to take a seat on the lower bunk, which was his. He pulled up a box with tattoo supplies. Once he’d taken out what he needed, he indicated I should put my right hand on top. He spread my thumb and forefinger apart and started working. The image was small and incomplete, looking like a Celtic knot with half of it missing. The ink extended from where the webbing at the corner of my thumb folded in when my fingers weren’t parted to the very edge of the webbing. Where the center of the knot would be if the image were complete was an what looked like an upside-down V with one side straight while the other was at an angle.
He wiped down the image and put some goop on the fresh ink, then extended his hand to me, wanting me to take it in a handshake. When I did he gripped hard. “Look at it.” I did. Where our hands locked, the knot was completed. In the center of it was a capital K. Mine completed the bottom part, his the top. The tattoos were basically identical, but his half of the K had a crown where mine didn’t. “Anyone loyal to me will have the same tattoo. Mine has a crown because I’m in charge.”
“I’m loyal to you, Knuckles. You know that. But I’m also loyal to my family and I have no intention of ever coming back to prison once I’m out. I’m not doing illegal shit for you or anyone else unless there’s a fuckin’ good reason.” I held my ground, grasping Knuckles’s hand as hard as he did mine. “I’ll do anything necessary to get your daughter out safe, includin’ killin’ a bunch of motherfuckers if they need it. But that’s as far as I go. I won’t deliberately go against you unless I feel it’s morally wrong.”
Knuckles was silent for a long time, holding my gaze. When he spoke, he gripped my hand even tighter. Given the way his eyes seemed to bore into my soul, he was probably looking for any sign of a reaction to whatever he was getting ready to say or do. “They raped and murdered my sister.” There was a slight flinch to the muscle under his eye when he spoke. Like the mere memory affected him viscerally. “The men I killed. When I learned Pippa had been kidnapped, it felt like fate intended for you to go after her. You protected your sister despite the cost to you. Not many men would commit to something that hard. So, if you tell me you’ll get my daughter back, I’m puttin’ my faith in the boy who chose to be a man to protect someone he loves. I’m hopin’ you’ve still got that determined kid inside you somewhere.”