Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
My entire family could have been wiped out. Again.
I squeezed my eyes tight and beat back the urge to weep. I didn’t have time for that. I didn’t have time to mourn.
Not yet.
We had people still fighting. We still had things that needed to be done, police reports to give, revenge to mete out. I couldn’t let myself think of the people we’d lost.
“Better go give Farrah the news,” Casper finally said, reaching over to pat my knee. “You’re a good boy.”
“I’m fuckin’ twice your size,” I scoffed, shaking my head.
His red eyes met mine and he gave me a small smile as he reached up and dragged his hand over my head. “You might be a fuckin’ giant, but you’ll always be my boy.” He nodded twice and climbed to his feet as I tried to keep my shit together.
I may have had a shitty start in life, but I’d gotten really fucking lucky with Casper and Farrah.
My eyes went to Trix and I watched as Dragon looked at his phone and then said something quietly to her, making her nod her head. I climbed to my feet as they started walking down the hall.
“Hey,” I said quietly, getting their attention.
“Gonna go down and see Leo,” Dragon said gruffly. “Bren says he’s awake.”
I looked to Trix and met her nervous eyes. “You want me to go with you?” I asked her gently.
It was killing me to watch her from a distance. She looked so fucking fragile, so different from the girl I’d watched grow up. I wanted to pick her up and carry her out of that goddamn hospital. Take her away from all of it so I could find out what was going on in that head of hers.
“That’s okay,” she replied softly. “I’ll be back in a little while, alright?”
I clenched my jaw against the need to argue.
Dragon snapped his head to the side, cracking his neck. Then he wrapped an arm around Trix’s shoulder and gave me a pitying look.
It pissed me off.
“Yeah, alright,” I mumbled, taking a step back so they could pass me.
I watched them walk down the hall until they reached the elevator doors.
“You were young when she and Brenna showed up,” Grease said, coming up behind me.
“Yeah.” I scratched a hand over my jaw, where my five o’clock shadow was bugging the shit out of me.
“She was quiet then,” he said, nodding toward the elevator Trix and Dragon were stepping into. “Scary quiet.”
I sighed, my stomach twisting.
“Seen a lot of shit. Been around a lotta kids with shitty backgrounds. But that little girl was a fuckin’ mystery, man. Took to Dragon straight off, knew who he was, trusted him from the first. The rest of us? Hell, we may as well have been the monsters hiding under her bed.”
“You got a point?” I snapped, instantly regretting it. He didn’t deserve my shit. Not then.
“Yeah, I got a point.” He shook his head. “You know what happened with my Callie?”
“A bit.”
“Let’s sit,” he said, gesturing to a couple of chairs away from the rest of the group. We sat down and Grease leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, picking at the blood around his fingernails.
I looked at my hands. They weren’t much better. Shit.
“Callie’s parents were killed, fuckin’ gunned down in their house.” He looked at me to make sure I was following. “My woman was there, hidin’ in a damn storage space. Heard everything.” He swallowed hard. “She was like a fuckin’ wild animal when I found her, sweaty, covered in piss.”
He went silent for a long time, his eyes vacant on the floor in front of him.
“She seemed to get better, though. Had to move her north, set her up in a place, visited when I could. Took a while, but she started livin,’ makin’ friends with Farrah, goin’ to school. Hell, she had Will up there while I was locked up. Kept shit straight and waited for me.”
“Didn’t know that,” I murmured, rubbing at my hands.
“Yeah. Wasn’t until somethin’ happened that it all came up to fuck us.” He looked at me. “She got attacked, had to kill my brother—blood, not club—and when I found her that time?” He shook his head. “She was gone, brother. Nothin’ there. Found her beat to shit, holding one of Farrah’s pistols in one hand and Will in the other. Couldn’t reach her. She’d been okay, far as I knew, might’ve been okay forever, but that attack brought everything back for her. Spent weeks in the hospital, spent about a year after that gettin’ her head on straight before she’d even see me.”
“Musta been hard,” I said softly.
“You tell me, brother. How you feelin’ right now?”
His words knocked me back in my chair.
“Trix ain’t Callie. Personalities couldn’t be more different, but fuck me if she ain’t got that same look in her eyes.”