Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 31414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 157(@200wpm)___ 126(@250wpm)___ 105(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 157(@200wpm)___ 126(@250wpm)___ 105(@300wpm)
My head snapped up, and my voice was cold as ice. “No. Hell fucking no.”
Tamara frowned as she chewed and swallowed. “But I’ll know what we’re looking for—”
“Doesn’t matter,” I interrupted, my voice sharp as I slashed a hand through the air. “Not takin’ you into a situation that could go sideways.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Protective,” I corrected.
“You mean caveman,” she volleyed back.
I leaned forward, eyes locked on hers, completely unapologetic. “I’ll stop being a caveman when I can breathe again without worrying about someone hurting you.”
That shut her up.
As she sat there staring at me, her expression softened. Then the moment passed, and she sighed. “You’re still gonna be a caveman when I’m safe. Aren’t you?”
I smirked. “Probably. You’ll get used to it.”
She rolled her eyes, but the smile tugging at her mouth gave her away.
Later that night, the ride out was quiet. Just engines, wind, and adrenaline humming under our skin. Two hours of tension. Of planning. Imagining every way this could go wrong.
The air was cold and sharp, slicing across our faces as we carved down backroads and dark stretches of rural highway. No one spoke. No one needed to. We were locked in, mentally running through the angles, ready to go feral if it came to that. The only sounds were the rumble of our Harleys and the occasional crunch of gravel under our tires when we peeled off the pavement for a breather.
Despite my focus on the situation ahead, I couldn’t stop thinking about Tamara. Every second I was away from her was a test of restraint I didn’t have. I couldn’t stop thinking about her soft skin under my hands, the sweet taste of her mouth, or the way her body gripped mine like she’d been made just for me.
I needed to get back to her. To touch her. Taste her. Bury myself so deep she never forgot who she belonged to. My chest ached with it…like the ghost of her body was still wrapped around mine.
9
SAVAGE
By the time we reached our destination, I managed to steer all of my concentration on the job. We parked our bikes four blocks up, behind an abandoned warehouse with rusted scaffolding and shattered windows. The place reeked of mold and piss, but it offered cover, and that was all we needed. Our boots hit the pavement with quiet purpose, the weight of our cuts and weapons like a second skin.
Racer was already in position, the van idling in a narrow alley behind the storage facility. The windows were blacked out, and the plates were pulled. The back doors were cracked just enough to start loading fast if it came to that.
Deviant was patched into the facility’s outdated camera system, feeding us real-time visuals. His voice came through our comms. “You’re clear. No movement on cameras. Motion sensors are cheap models, blind to anything under six feet. Move now. Stay fucking low.”
The building sat low and square—plain concrete and no signage. Just one flickering exterior light above the back door. It cast a dull yellow tint across everything, making it look as sick as the bastards who owned the place.
The back door had an electronic keypad—more secure than most storage joints in a town like this. Someone wanted to keep people out. That was reason enough to burn the place down.
I checked my phone for the code Midnight had texted, then keyed it in. “Showtime,” I muttered.
The door gave way with a soft click, but it seemed louder than a gunshot in the silence. My instincts were on high alert, and my hand itched to reach for my gun as I pushed the door open.
Inside, the air was stale and…just fucking wrong. Almost sterile, like someone tried too hard to erase what’d been done here. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed to life one by one, flickering like we were on the set of a horror movie. Rows of steel shelving stretched into the distance, each one stacked with neatly labeled boxes, plastic bins, and reinforced storage crates.
My lips curled in disgust. It smelled like bleach and paper. Secrets and rot.
We split up automatically, each of us clear on our mission. Midnight and I veered toward the far end where the computers were. It was the only room with an actual desk and climate control. Whiskey and Hawk peeled off to work the physical files.
Every few seconds, Racer would appear to grab whatever he could carry from the boxes they were stacking to be taken from the warehouse. Patient records. Sample kits sealed in biohazard bags. Ledger books full of handwritten entries with dates, dosages, and initials. Bribes.
I dropped to one knee in front of the main desktop unit and powered it up. The computer blinked awake, slow as molasses, so my patience was wearing thin by the time I tapped in the code Deviant had hacked to get me into their system. The files weren’t encrypted. Sloppy. Too confident. But since that worked in my favor, I felt an evil satisfaction at showing them just how vulnerable they really were. I plugged in a portable drive and started ripping everything—internal emails, spreadsheets tracking “compliance failures,” payrolls with suspicious gaps, and records of “postmortem processing.”