Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“We’re going to get out of here, Lidia. We are.”
“Stop saying that. You and I both know it’s not true. This is what happens. We die.”
Aria couldn’t stop the tears.
“Do you remember when we were kids?” Aria said. “Your dad had just built you that tree house.”
“We spent a lot of time in that tree house.”
“We did. Well, imagine we’re back there right now. This is part of our game.”
“Aria, we always got out alive,” Lidia said.
“I know. We will.”
Aria stared at the smoke. She breathed in and tried to control the cough, but it wouldn’t stay inside. She let out a cough. As she did, so did Lidia.
“Cover your face.”
The coughing got uncontrollable and Aria was certain she heard the fire crackling. Was the room getting warmer? She was going to die tonight. Die without seeing Grant again. Without telling him that she loved him and forgave him.
Do you forgive him?
What was there to forgive?
Yes, he had sex with her sister. Yes, he lied about it. Well, did he lie? He just didn’t tell her the truth. Why did he do that? He didn’t want to hurt her.
The smoke was coming thick and fast.
She felt the room getting warm.
Collapsing to the bed, she tried to preserve her strength. Curling up in a ball, she felt like she was choking.
This was how her story would end.
Chapter Nineteen
Grant looked through the hospital room window at Aria. She was hooked up to several machines. He’d gotten to her before the fire had been able to touch her, but he’d not been able to control the smoke.
She had smoke inhalation and was currently in a coma. Lidia was also the same. Both friends were in the hospital, in the same room. He’d insisted. Lidia’s parents had hugged him tightly, thanking him and the club for saving them.
He’d nearly failed. Dylan had gotten the call from a couple of drunken kids about a fire at one of the old abandoned hotels.
“You made it,” Bull said, slapping him on the back. Miguel was currently at the Chaos and Carnage MC clubhouse chained in the basement with the men taking turns to watch him. The club was on guard. They knew his men would come for him.
“He was going to kill her. Burn her,” Grant said.
By the time he got to Aria, she had already been passed out on that filthy-looking bed. Pat had been the one to suggest taking the metal clippers. It had been a hunch of his to take them and it was a good thing he had. Chained to a cemented bed. Miguel had planned it. The chains had been cemented on and given time to set. All he’d needed was the bodies of Aria and Lidia.
He put Aria’s life at risk. Him, no one else. He should have kept her at the clubhouse, protected her.
“You had no way of knowing.”
“I should have known. My plan was fucked up from the start.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“I nearly got us all killed.”
“Grant, your plan didn’t get us killed. Did it have a few hiccups, yes, but what plan doesn’t? Nothing always goes the way we hope it will. We got Miguel. Six of his guards are now gone. We’re bringing an end to his control on the club. This is a win. Your plan worked.”
“And what if she doesn’t wake up?” Grant asked. “What if I failed her?”
“You didn’t.”
“It’s my job to protect her. She’s my woman.”
Bull put his hand on his shoulder. “We can’t be everywhere all the time. I know this. If that was Maddie, I know I’d be feeling exactly the same way right now, but you cannot allow this to swallow you up. You won today. This is a win.”
He shook his head. It didn’t feel like a win.
A win was when nothing went wrong.
“I bet our old man is laughing at me right now.”
“No, I bet our old man, the one before he got hooked on the dope, would be fucking proud of you. Dad wasn’t always an asshole, Grant. Money, drugs, power, it got to him, turned him into the monster that he is.”
Grant could rarely remember the man he was before those vices gripped him. The bad in his world far outweighed any of the good in the early years.
“She’s gotta live,” he said.
“She will, but you know our job isn’t finished, don’t you?” Bull asked.
“I know.”
“Are you coming?”
Grant was tempted to say no, that he’d stay here with his woman.
“We’re here. How is she?”
Isabella and her husband Michael rushed toward them.
He glanced at them both then turned back to look through to his woman. “She’s in a coma.” Staring at Aria, she looked so lifeless and he hated how thin she looked. It had only been a couple of weeks, but already her extreme dieting had taken a toll.