Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 134057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Or maybe he was a sick son of a bitch who wanted to imprint her smell onto everything of his so he could torture himself for another fourteen years. And then some.
Because he may have been tortured before, knowing he left behind a sweet, innocent, kind girl. But having to let go of this, hardened, bitter, strong and fucking magnificent woman.
Fuck.
Which was why he left the clubhouse after church a week ago.
He wouldn’t have left if he hadn’t had Hansen’s word no harm would come to her. Because his brothers weren’t happy. They wouldn’t disobey their president, though. So no harm would come from them. But Jagger couldn’t be certain that the harm wouldn’t come from him.
He came back to the room empty, her nowhere on the property. Only one place she could’ve been by process of elimination.
He’d damn near ripped the locks off with his bare hands thinking of her in a chair, bleeding after one of his brothers decided to disobey Hansen. He guessed it would’ve been Swiss. Fucker was cold and lived by a specific code. Just so happened that code aligned with the Sons of Templar. He was not one to bend rules or dole out mercy.
So he imagined Swiss, with his cold eyes and merciless brutality working away the last of Caroline’s soft edges.
What he walked in on wasn’t worse, or even the same as that, but it was close. Because he saw that she had no soft edges left, confronted with it in that room. The room that some prospects and brothers alike had been unable to handle. That haunted even him.
She was jaded to some of the most brutal acts humans could commit. Unblinking. That was like seeing her bleeding and bound up in a chair. It was evidence that she’d already been torn apart, vital parts stolen from her in a life he didn’t know anything about.
And that’s what had him snapping. Had him killing a man right in front of her, adding to the cold brutality they were immersing her in. That he was sure Swiss had been intent on drowning her in. Not knowing that she could swim. Or that she could breathe in that polluted and blood filled water.
Swiss walked down the hall, wiping his hands on his jeans with nonchalance. He eyed Jagger, then the door with a raised brow. “She needed to know what she’d gotten herself into, brother.”
That got him. There was only so much of him he could lock down.
His fist flew through his brother’s face without hesitation. The crunch of flesh against bone wasn’t loud enough to silence his demons.
So he punched him again.
And again.
Caroline
I heard the fight after the click of the locks.
I don’t know what was louder.
I wasn’t surprised hearing the violence. I shouldn’t be. This was Liam’s life now. This was Jagger’s life. He spoke in torture. In pain. Violence.
There were no reasonable, diplomatic conversations. There were thuds of flesh hitting flesh, grunts of pain, muttered curses. Pictures smashed off walls, bodies thumping against the floor.
There were dead bodies strung up in the basement. A man tied to a chair, missing all his fingers with a bullet in his brain.
Peaches.
I miss you.
I’m writing this when I can still see you wavin’ at the fuckin’ bus. You’re not crying.
I am.
Would be embarrassed as all fuck about doing so in front of all these men, were half of them not bawling too.
Not one woman saying goodbye shed a tear.
What does that tell you?
That it should be all of you on this bus instead. You’re much tougher.
Though I guess if you were in charge of things to begin with, we might not need to be on this bus.
It’s better not to work in maybes.
There is no maybe about the way I feel for you.
That will not change.
I promise you that, Peaches.
Over oceans, battlefields, tears (on my end, obviously), months, years, decades. It’s not ever gonna change.
I know you don’t understand why I’m doing this. I know you’re mad as all hell at me for doing it in the first place. I also know you love me too damn much to do anything but stand beside me. Because that’s the kind of woman you are. I know you’ll wait for me. For us. I’m a bastard for even asking you to do that. But I’ll do it anyway.
I love you.
I memorized the letter.
I didn’t want to remember it, especially not now, with the background noise being all too loud of a reminder of what I’d lost.
But my memories never complied with what I wanted.
So I replayed the letter.
Until there was a painful and violent silence on the other side of the door.
Jagger
Hansen eyed him, unblinking at the blood he guessed was covering his face, his skinned knuckles, ripped shirt. It wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence for brothers to work out their shit with their fists.