Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 28170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 141(@200wpm)___ 113(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 141(@200wpm)___ 113(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
“I do. That’s why I thought it was true.” The fucker was ruthless. Killed without thought. The brother killed like he had no fucking heart. I had too . . . but he was on another level. Best Klan member they’d ever had. Raised with it. Tanner Ayers was the Ku Klux Klan. The two went hand in hand.
His lip curved. “Not you. You might be the only person on this planet I’d never kill.” He sipped his beer and ran his hand down his face. “I tracked you down to this house. It wasn’t hard.” He flicked his chin in the direction of the bedroom. “Saw you got yourself a woman now.” He smirked. “Clearly still have Aryan tastes even though you can’t bear to be around us.”
I ignored the last part. “I’m not trying to disappear, to live in secret. I’m here. I’m with the Hangmen. No point in fucking hiding. We share the same city. Live in the same fucked-up world away from the ‘normal’ people.”
“Tank, you’re white power. One of the fucking elite!” He pointed at me. “That’s who you are inside. Who made you. We bleed the fucking same red, white, and blue, pure WASP blood. You can’t just turn your back on us for the motherfucking Hangmen!” He laughed, no humor. “You think we’re bad? Do you know who you’re in with now? The Hangmen? They kill worse than we ever do. Reaper Nash murders for fucking fun, but we’re the wrong ones? Your family, who has a real cause, a real fucking war we’re gearing up for? You think the Hangmen are a better for fit you?” His lip curled in disgust. “You think I don’t know you’ve been hanging with a Samoan? Really, Tank?”
I let the comment about Bull go. Tanner would never understand how I could befriend him. He gave no one outside the white race his time. “I don’t bleed the white and red no more. My blood is as fucking black as Hades now, brother.” I paused. “We’re no longer the same.”
The room was thick with tension. Tanner’s face lost any expression, and I knew I was now sitting with Tanner Ayers, the cold Klan bastard his daddy had groomed him into. The White Prince who thought of nothing or no one outside the Klan.
“I should kill you.” The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end at the threat and the tone of Tann’s deep voice. But that went away. Because despite the way he was looking at me now, he was right. He wouldn’t touch me.
And there was no more to be said between us.
Tanner glared at me, and I could see the war he was fighting in his mind in his narrowed eyes. “You know too much . . . about me, about my old man . . .” Tense minutes followed.
Suddenly, Tanner finished his beer and got to his feet. He walked to the door. “Some shit’s going down at the brotherhood. I need to be there. I gotta go.”
My first instinct was to ask what was happening. To tell him I had his back, that we’d figure it out together . . . but I no longer did. And that part of all this clusterfuck of a situation was what hurt the most.
“We done?” I asked, my voice cutting out near the end of the question. Not done right now. Not done with this conversation. Tanner knew I meant in life. The end of our friendship. Were we done for good.
Tanner’s head dropped forward. He put his hand in his pocket. A burner cell came flying straight at me. “Seems fucking not.”
“You’ll be in charge one day,” I said. He got what I was really saying. There’d come a day when the brotherhoods we belonged to would matter.
Tanner’s shoulders tensed. “Yeah. And the Klan’ll be the greatest fucking power in the States. I’ll make fucking sure of it.” I sighed. He had to know that all the Klan ideology was bullshit. But Tanner had been raised in Klan life. He was white power. And I knew when he was in charge, he would make them the greatest power.
Fuck knew what we’d do then.
Tanner turned the doorknob.
“You’ll realize it one day, Tann. Something will happen one day to make you forget all this white power shit. That all the ‘color making us different’ crap isn’t real. You’ll know one day that you need to walk the fuck away.”
Tann stayed silent on those fucking words, but then said, “You know where I am if you need me.” Then he was out the door. I heard his Fat Boy pull away down the street.
I sat on my chair for a fucking age, staring at the bottle of beer and the cell. I knew I should destroy it. Cut all ties. Or I should keep it, tell the club and use Tanner for intel. Use him to protect the Hangmen. But when I got to my feet and walked to the safe, locking the cell away, I knew I couldn’t and wouldn’t do that. Though that would be my secret. Reaper would kill me stone dead if he knew I was best friends with the future White Prince.