Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
"This bitch?" Danny asked, leaning back into the room, giving Fallon a hard look. "Oh, I'd like to see someone try," she said, the words landing like a threat before she walked away, for good this time.
"The fuck is the matter with you?" Reign asked Fallon, sighing. "We don't have enough problems? You need to keep stirring up shit with her?"
"If she keeps butting her head in our business, yeah."
"Christ," Reign said, sighing at some of the older men in the group. "Were we this fucking stupid once too?"
"Pretty much," one of them agreed, smiling.
"It's gonna be a rough couple of years while you morons get your crazy out, I guess," Reign decided, following Danny's path out.
"Spread out and see if there is anything useful to go on," Fallon declared. "Then we will head out and try to figure out where to go from here back at the clubhouse."
We spent an hour there, picking through trash, looking in bedrooms and the basement, finding nothing but a forgotten pocket knife and a well-worn copy of The Art of War and even after a lot of back and forth, no one could decide if it was a coincidence of sorts, or a veiled threat.
In the end, we all went back to the clubhouse with our adrenaline still buzzing, having no outlet for it.
"Tell her we are going to have someone here tomorrow to do a sketch of the fuckers," Fallon told me on his way through the clubhouse to the backyard.
"I tried!" Andi insisted, shooting up in bed, eyes wide open. "Okay, well, I didn't try that hard," she admitted as I moved into the room, kicking out of my shoes, and remembering to lock the door this time. "Are you okay? Is everyone okay?"
"They weren't there."
"What? No, they were!"
"Were, yeah," I agreed, tossing my cut on the top of my dresser, putting my gun down next to it. "But they'd cleared out."
"Well... that's a good thing, right?"
"We won't know until we see them again. Or we don't," I told her, shrugging.
"So, everyone has to stay on lockdown here?"
"Got somewhere better to be?" I asked, giving her a smile as I got to the side of the bed, reaching up to pull off my shirt.
"Well, when you put it like that..." she said, pulling the comforter up for me to join her. "Absolutely not."
Chapter Sixteen
Andi
I tiptoed out of the bed, not wanting to wake up Niro or Nugget who was nestled up behind his back, his little feet twitching in his sleep.
I'd been up for almost an hour, shutting off my alarm before it could ring, then slowly untangling my limbs from Niro. Head off his shoulder, body off his chest, and so on and so on, doing it in such slow increments that my muscles were burning by the time I was done. But he was a light sleeper, and I didn't want to wake him up.
It was ridiculous, but by the time I got to the bathroom, I missed him already.
I was a sap. I'd always been a sap. But it seemed intensified with Niro. Maybe because my love for him was already so deep, so rooted in shared experiences and trust and loyalty.
And I was being even more clingy than usual, likely because of the long separation we'd had. I felt like there were a million things to catch up on, a thousand stories to tell. I just needed more time with him.
But regardless of that, I had to get ready and go to work.
The morning before there had been no time to untangle from him, to miss his warmth. The sleepiness and then staying up late exploring each other's bodies had made me sleep through two of my alarms before I finally woke up, barely having time to jump into my scrubs and get to work for my early shift on surgery day.
Niro and my father had been on guard duty—one at the front, one at the back of the building—while I spayed and neutered and removed foreign bodies lodged in stomachs and even did one c-section on an expectant French Bulldog.
Then Niro had brought me back to the clubhouse for a nap, some food, and then a long night of exploring each other's bodies.
I was still lacking sleep, but I was too happy to care.
"Trying to sneak out without me?" Niro asked, making me jump, ramming my arm into the shower spout. Turning, I found him standing there, holding the shower curtain open.
"You're not on-guard today," I reminded him, knowing they were subbing out his father and Finn. "You have to watch our baby," I reminded him as I heard Nugget's nails tap across the tile in the bathroom.
"Mmhmm," he agreed, stepping into the shower, pulling the curtain closed as he reached for my bar of soap. "But I just need to make sure you cleaned up properly," he suggested, reaching for me, turning me, and pulling me back against his chest, his hand slipping the bar across my belly. "Like here," he said, his hand sliding up, the smooth bar sudsing over my breast. "I think you missed here."