Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 105803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
I stare at a photo of me in the doorway of Julian and Dani’s home. Then another of me glancing over my shoulder as I walk down the street.
And that’s the moment it clicks.
I turn around to face him. So I can see his eyes if he is telling the truth. “The night Gaston stopped us in the street, you were following us.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Do you really not remember?”
I frown. I’m so tired of feeling like I live in a riddle. “Remember what?”
“This place. Us. Me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were born into the club, Belle. Until your mom and dad died, you used to live here. Your father was a Knight. Your mom was an old lady. You were a club brat.”
My heart begins to pound rapidly. “No,” I whisper.
Out of nowhere, a fractured image flashes across my mind’s eye. The flight of a car going over the edge of a cliff. The glitter of a shattered windscreen. The feeling of falling. The rush of the sea coming for me.
No, that’s just a nightmare.
A stupid nightmare that’s haunted me for years. Except this time I see the moment before the shattering of the windscreen. A motorcycle swerves on the road in front of us, and my father yanks the steering wheel to avoid him, sending us over the edge of the cliff.
“How could I know that? I wasn’t there.” I say it more to myself than Beast, because it doesn’t make sense. My whole life I was told I was at my uncle’s house the night my parents died. It was date night, so Uncle Maurice was babysitting me.
“You were in the car, Belle.”
A cold dread trickles through me. “No, I was with my uncle.”
“No, you were with your parents.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Dodger told me.”
My eyes snap to his. “Dodger…how would he know?”
“Because he was there.”
“Dodger…why?” Another piece of the puzzle tumbles into my head and I pause to watch it play out in front of me. “A motorcycle swerved in front of the car.”
Beast swallows. He’s very still. “Yes. It was Dodger.”
“He caused the accident?”
“Yes.”
“On purpose?”
“Yes.”
My chest feels tight. “He admitted it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I’m struggling to make sense of everything while my head churns with all the information. “What could possess someone to want to annihilate an entire family?”
“Because your father became a threat to the club.”
“Why, what was so bad about him?” I ask, an edge to my voice.
“Your father was a Knight. His name was Hangman.”
I shake my head. “My father wasn’t a biker.”
“He was, Belle, and you used to play on the clubhouse playground and come to cookouts. But then there was the car accident and I never saw you again.”
Frowning, I try to remember something from my early childhood. Anything. But it’s no use. My earliest memory is a random day at school when I was five or six years old. Not playing at a clubhouse or hanging around men on motorcycles. “I don’t remember.”
“You were just a kid.”
“Oh boy,” I say shakily. My mind scrambles to make sense of what he’s telling me. But there is no sense in it.
“If what you are saying is true, then explain it to me, from the beginning.”
“Hangman—that was your father’s road name—he was our records keeper. He liked genealogy and tracing things back to their roots. He didn’t realize it until he started to poke around, but he was a descendant of one of the landowners who sold the land to the club. He discovered it by accident but dug deeper into it. It’s how he discovered a flaw in the original contract between the Knights and the landowners back when the land was purchased in 1918. It was unsigned by his great, great grandfather, meaning the rightful ownership was compromised. He spoke to a lawyer. Found out he had a claim for ownership. He approached Dodger, said he wanted compensation from the club or he was going to sell the land.”
“Dodger told you this?”
“Yes, he admitted everything.”
“About running us off the road?”
“Yes, Belle. It was a hit.”
The shattering windscreen. The feeling of falling. The rush of the ocean toward me.
A cold lump forms in my throat. Beast’s father murdered my parents and tried to murder me as well.
It’s a lot to try and make sense of.
Beast points to one of the many newspaper articles pinned to the wall next to the photographs. It’s a news headline, and I lean in to read it.
Family Killed in Tragic Car Accident. Search continues for missing five-year-old daughter whose body the police believe was swept out to sea.
That’s me. I’m the five-year-old daughter who they thought was lost at sea.
How is this even possible?
My stomach churns, and my hands begin to shake.
“How am I still alive?” I don’t understand.
Beast points to another smaller article. Missing child found two days after fatal road wreck.