Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“Glad to know she didn’t share that information,” he said. “She came highly recommended.
“She got beat to shit on this job,” I said. It wasn’t an accusation. But it was close.
“I noticed.” My confusion must have shown, because I hadn’t seen a hint of bruising under her makeup when she left. “She doesn’t wear makeup like that,” he said, shrugging. Seemingly unbothered by what had happened to her.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Jai Xú,” he supplied.
It took a second to register before his name finally clicked.
An old story from before mine and Levee’s time at the club. Involving Che and Che’s girl. Who’d gotten herself mixed up between The Yakuza and The Triad.
Jai Xú was the leader of the latter.
A man who’d shot his own brother in front of Che and Saskia when he’d found out he’d fucked up.
Coldblooded, was one word Che had used to describe him. A man who shot his brother dead, then told Sass and Che to leave, so he could plan his brother’s funeral after his “tragic” death from an “brain aneurysm.”
“And you are another of those bikers,” he said, gaze moving over me.
“Yes. To be fair, Jai, I had no idea this had anything to do with The Triad. I was just here—“
“For revenge,” Jai supplied.
“Yeah.”
To that, he nodded, grabbing a napkin to wipe his mouth and hands, then standing.
“Come,” he demanded, turning his back on me, clearly not worried about me trying to act out.
And, yeah, if this was The Triad, there was no way I was shooting my way out of this situation, even if they wanted to try to kill me.
I followed Jai down a long hallway, past the restrooms, and then into the open space of a loading dock.
Where more of Jai’s men were standing there with another man on his knees between them.
One with a nasty hole in his face.
“I figured this was your kill, yes?” Jai asked, waving casually toward him.
“That was what I was here for,” I agreed.
“Be my guest,” Jai said, shrugging. “Don’t worry about the mess,” he added, turning and walking away. “I hear the building is going to suffer a disastrous fire. Such a shame this building was supposed to be abandoned. The sprinkler system just never turned on…”
With that, he was gone.
A moment later, so were his men.
Leaving me alone with the fuckhead who had beaten Rynn, who would have done more, who may have killed her, taken her away from me. If she hadn’t been so determined to fight, to get away, to come back to me.
I’d killed before.
I would kill again.
But there has always been something detached about it.
This?
This was personal.
I won’t repeat the litany of racist-ass shit this dickhead had to say about Jai and the rest of The Triad.
“Your ass would be here with me with or without The Triad,” I said as he finally decided to get up on his feet.
“Don’t even fucking know you.”
“No. But you know my girl. You put your hands on my girl.”
“Fucking sluts, y’know?” he said, shrugging and shaking his head.
“No, asshole,” I growled. “You beat the shit out of my girl,” I told him, tossing my bike cut toward the side, hoping not to get any evidence on it.
I saw the realization dawn on him just a second before my fist collided with his face.
He was a big guy.
We were well-matched in a fight.
And, normally, his will to live should have given him an advantage.
But in this case, it was my fucking rage that won out.
I was only partially present in the fight.
I was mostly imagining Rynn’s beautiful, battered face, the look of fear in her eyes when I first woke her up, the way she winced when she moved or tried to talk.
But I was also in this warehouse, seeing Rynn trying to rush out, only to have a grown-ass man grab her, choke her, and punch his fist into her face over and over.
I did the same, knuckles hitting the bastard’s granite jaw, his nose, his eye, his stomach, ribs, then, finally, spleen.
The pain doubled him over, making him drop down to his knees.
I didn’t give him mercy.
He wouldn’t have given it to Rynn.
I kicked him hard in the side, sending him flying.
Then I dropped down on him, knee on chest, then pressing my hands around his throat like he had done to Rynn.
His body thrashed.
His eyes bulged.
But then, slowly, he went limp.
I didn’t let go.
Limp didn’t mean dead.
In the end, he was a bloodied pulp, and my knuckles were aching as I rose up to the sound of slow, deliberate applause.
And there was Jai Xú.
“Very eye-for-an-eye of you,” he said as I approached my cut, and slipped it back on. When I looked again, he had a cigarette between his lips, and was holding an ornate silver lighter flicked open in his hand as a few of his men moved into the room carrying something in little red and yellow bottles.