Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 35974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 180(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 180(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
“OK, now that I believe.” I took a sip of coffee, never taking my eyes from Wild Bill.
“How’d you get out of a life sentence anyway?” Wild Bill took a healthy pull of his beer before signaling the bartender for another.
“Friends in high places.” I continued to study the other man. “I’d’ve been out years ago except I had to help a guy out.”
Wild Bill snorted. “Right. You went in on a triple murder the way I heard it. That ain’t somethin’ you get out of that easy.”
“I did confess to a triple murder. Yes.” The smile I gave him wasn’t genuine.
Wild Bill looked like he wasn’t sure whether or not to believe me. “Must have been some long, hard dick you sucked to get out of that kind of rap.”
“All you need to know is it’s none of your Goddamned business.” This was getting tiresome. “You can spread the word to anyone you want to live that I’m back.”
“Hear things are different around the club.” The little bastard just didn’t know when to shut up. He also knew how to stroke someone’s ego with all this shit about how he respected me. He was trying to get out of the shit he stepped in with his big fucking mouth. Except his big fucking mouth kept moving.
“They are.” He was fishing for news about the new president of Kiss of Death, and I wasn’t biting.
We stared at each other a long time. Wild Bill probably expected me to expound, spill all my secrets, or bitch and moan about my club being under new rule, but I meant it when I told him it wasn’t any of his Goddamned business.
Finally, Wild Bill raised his hands in surrender. “All right. Keep your secrets.”
“No secrets to keep.”
“Your club goes rogue while you’re in prison, traffickin’ women and children. They piss off the wrong people in Kentucky and Florida and get themselves annihilated. Then you come back, but not as president?” He snorted. “Right. Nothin’ to see here.”
With a low growl, I darted my hand out and grabbed Wild Bill by the throat, squeezing enough he got the message. His hands went immediately to my wrist. No doubt if I hadn’t had two of my men search him before he approached me he’d have gutted me. Betting he was playing my death over in his head a hundred different ways while I held his gaze with a steely one of my own.
“Kiss of Death is my club. Nothing happens there unless I allow it. Prison or not. True, Dart got things in a bad way before Slash forced his way to the top, but I made sure the kids were either returned to their families or placed with people who would protect them. I made sure as many of the women as I could had someplace safe to go.” I turned and spat; the disgust of those tasks still left a bad taste in my mouth. “I’d love to say Slash and Gremlin were necessary collateral damage, but they were both dead the moment they laid their hands on innocents and used my club to hurt them.”
“Man, you ain’t gotta explain yourself to me.” Wild Bill’s voice was tight where I was a hair’s breadth from cutting off his air.
“Yet, you made a point to question me.”
“No offense, man. I get it. I get it.”
I squeezed a little bit more. My men stood between us and everyone else in the club, and the employees here wouldn’t interfere in my business. The only thing the owner requested of me was that we not kill anyone inside her club. Wild Bill didn’t know that, though.
“You get to live because I promised Medusa no killin’ in her club. If the information you gave me regarding Beth proves accurate, I’ll forget you were tryin’ to nose in my fuckin’ business. If you’re playin’ me, I’ll make an example of you for the whole fuckin’ city underground. I don’t do subtle.” I gave Wild Bill a hard shove.
The younger man stumbled back but kept his feet. He raised his hands again and took another step backward before he stopped. “It’s accurate, Knuckles. I ain’t no diplomat. Don’t believe in sugar coatin’ anythin’. So even though I wasn’t tryin’ to give you shit, I ain’t the only one wonderin’ if you let the reins slip, or if you were behind the shit Kiss of Death got into. Either way, you look bad.”
“I make no secret things went to shit when I went to prison. I didn’t have measures in place to control the police and the DA, but I wasn’t lettin’ the men who raped and murdered my sister live even one more day. Took me a while to get things in play, but I managed. I’ll be back in charge soon enough. It’s already been worked out.”