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)
He took a long swig on that thought.
The Jack tasted like acid.
She was smart, so that’s why she wasn’t trying to escape—because she knew she couldn’t.
But there was something else. Something about that steely glint in her eye when she spoke with Hansen. The even tenor of her voice.
Her fucking voice.
Almost fifteen years he’d gone without it.
He’d imagined her soft whispers every night. Every moment.
There wasn’t anything soft about it now.
It was hard. Cold. Controlled. It was the voice of someone who’d stared death in the face before. Who’d sat at tables with murderers before.
That chilled him.
To the fucking bone.
That’s what kept him up all night. Long after the Jack had gone. That’s what kept him stone cold sober until Hansen’s hand settled on his shoulder.
His president glanced to the empty bottle, to the door and then back to him. “Take it you haven’t slept?”
“What the fuck do you think?”
“I think it’s time for church,” he said in response.
Jagger froze.
He knew what that meant. Hansen was a good friend. Which was why he had let Jagger take Caroline in the alley. Which was why he hadn’t killed her immediately when he found out that she was a journalist.
That she was a rat.
Yeah, he did that because he was a good friend and because he sensed what she was to him even before she spouted that rancid truth all over the table.
He was the friend who didn’t ask a single fucking question about that truth. The one he hadn’t told him in the twelve years he’d been patched. That they’d been friends.
He imagined bitches would have a lot of fucking questions for their friends, for their families if it came out they weren’t who they thought they were.
But this was different. Brothers in the club were different. Everyone had an ugly past. You didn’t come to the club if it was all sunshine and rainbows. It was unspoken that that past stayed buried, just like whatever bodies lived there.
Hansen got that.
He also got that Jagger wasn’t pretending to be someone else. He was exactly who they all thought he was. Which was why he was fucking here in the first place.
So yeah, Hansen was a good friend.
He was also a good fucking president.
Jagger knew what church meant.
It meant Hansen wasn’t keeping his club in the dark about who Caroline really was. The club, the members, it was fresh, new, built on blood, death. Hansen didn’t want lies in the foundation.
He got it.
Respected it.
But it scared the absolute fuck out of him.
Because Hansen was a good friend.
But that didn’t mean shit at the table.
That didn’t mean shit when the safety of the club was at stake.
And the table would call for blood.
Caroline’s.
Jagger took a harsh breath. The air cut his tongue. He swallowed blood.
Not his own.
Caroline’s.
But the patch on his back got him up.
And following his president into church.
Curses erupted around the table after Hansen told the club about last night. About Caroline. Who she was. What it meant for the club. And he hinted at what she meant to Jagger. What she had meant to him in the past.
He didn’t tell the full story.
Because in the midst of being a good president, he was being a good friend. Also part of being a president was keeping your brother’s secrets.
So he didn’t tell the whole ugly truth.
He told part of it.
Which was still ugly.
They had a rat in the club. Months after the club was almost destroyed. In the middle of a war that was only gonna get bloodier before it was over.
This was no time for mercy. It was time for action.
But this was Jagger’s woman. He’d declared as much. Hansen reiterated it. But she was also a traitor. It was one of the oldest rules that a member’s woman was protected. That if you put a hand on her, you’d not only lose your patch, you’d lose your life.
Another one of their oldest rules was that rats died. Immediately. Despite gender, age or affiliation.
“What do we do here?” Troy asked after a long silence. He was reasonable. Quiet to the point of mute most of the time. Didn’t drink much. Didn’t fuck bitches for all Jagger could see, and that was not for lack of opportunity. The fucker was a pretty boy. Pale as all fuck. Dark hair. All cheekbones. Strictly black and white tattoos covering his body.
He could have his pick of the bitches.
He didn’t.
Jagger had idly wondered if he was gay. It didn’t bother him. Who people fucked was none of his business. And though the Sons of Templar weren’t known to be particularly inclusive in their history, as younger presidents took over, more progressive ideas came with them. So no one was getting refused a chance to prospect over sexual orientation, race, religion.
Obviously women still couldn’t patch in.