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 kept my eyes straight forward. Didn’t wanna see the face of my best friend as he took me out. The minute hand of the clock on the dashboard ticked by five times before he quietly asked, “Is it true?” My jaw clenched as his words hit my ears. When I didn’t answer, Tanner slammed his hand on the steering wheel and spat, “Is it fucking true?”
I stared hard at the dying tree at the side of the barren dirt road. The branches, dry and cracked, slowly falling to the ground. “Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. My gaze fell to my hands . . . to the fucking white-pride tattoo that stared back. The St. George shield that took up most of my right arm.
Tanner said fuck all after that. It was a few minutes before I looked over at him. His face was blank, staring through the windshield.
“You’re my fucking brother, Tank.” His voice was quiet, raw as all hell. His head finally turned to me. Brother was still without tattoos. He was in the army, doing his American duty. In communications or some shit. Tanner was never just gonna be on the front line, shooting at whichever fucker threatened our lands. They’d seen he was a fucking genius and put that brain of his to work. Of course, all that communications shit would only benefit the Klan. The heir knowing how to hack computers? A fucking gift in Landry’s hands.
Tanner was nothing like the kid I’d met that day years ago on the Spicewood land. Tanner Ayers was finally the white prince his family had groomed him to be. Savage, smart as fuck, and didn’t bat an eye about slitting an enemy fucker’s throat.
That now included mine.
“You fucked up. Landry expected you to be with him on that kill.” He shook his head, and a flush of rage climbed up his neck. “He fucking counted on his second in command in that place, and you bailed!” His breath was coming quick now. “Why? Why the fuck do you care about a fucking nothing spic?” He looked at me like he didn’t know me. Like we hadn’t shed blood side by side for the cause.
But that spic he spoke of, he weren’t nothing. I’d gotten to know him. Shared a room with him for a while before Landry pulled some strings and got me with a fellow Aryan brother. I thought back to the day I’d met him . . .
The minute he entered the cell, I smashed his back against the wall. “You listen to me, you fucking dirty spic. You even breathe wrong in my direction and I’ll slit your throat and let you choke on your own blood.”
The spic met my eyes, then fucking laughed. “Sure you will.”
My hands fisted his shirt as rage surged through me. I shoved him back, then spat, “I ain’t going back into solitary again, so just stay the fuck outta my way and don’t make me kill you.”
The kid, because no way was he older than eighteen, pushed past me and lay on his bed. “Chill the fuck out. I don’t intend on getting in anyone’s way.” He moved to the bed and picked up a book. He looked at me over the pages. “This is a book. You should read one.” He paused. “And not the shit that’s been doctored for your ‘people.’” He waved it in my face. “Real books. By real people with real problems. Ideas about how to resolve those problems . . . no matter what their skin color or religion.” My lip curled as he turned and started reading. Landry would get me to another cell. I just had to try not to kill this prick before that happened.
Turned out Carlos was a good kid. But a kid that had fucked up and made an enemy of the wrong guy—Johnny Landry. Hadn’t known to keep his mouth shut, spouting from his books and making us KKK brothers look like idiots. Landry was just out of isolation when it all went down. I got the message, but I took as much damn time as I could getting there. I knew I couldn’t save Carlos if Landry wanted him dead, but I knew I couldn’t help kill him either. Turned up to see Carlos bleeding out on the floor, that fucking book he loved so much on the floor beside him, the shiv I’d given him sticking out of Brant’s neck—one of our soldiers, fucking dead too. Staring down at the pool of blood, at his eyes frozen over with death, something in me cracked. The kid was just a mouthy kid. But to Landry, he was standing in the way of making us a pure race. He’d had to be taken out. Carlos’s mouth had had to be shut for good. I’d warned the kid. But he hadn’t listened.