Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 40484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 202(@200wpm)___ 162(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 202(@200wpm)___ 162(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
El. Punk. Bag of trouble. Trig’s first love.
Trig. Outlaw biker. Killer. El’s only hope.
El has reached the end of the line. Indebted to a cartel and unable to pay, he’d sooner die than be tortured. There’s no one he can ask for help. He’s burned all bridges and trusts nobody. His life is a well of regrets and he can spot the biggest one just as he’s about to die, because it has a face and a name.
His old flame appears out of nowhere and saves him.
His old flame who left him to join a biker gang.
His old flame who shouldn’t even know where El lives.
But Trig knows exactly where El lives and what he’s been up to, because Trig never gave up on him. He was told to stay away, so he respected El’s wishes. Kind of. Almost. Not exactly.
Trig’s been keeping watch from the shadows, but he’s done with that.
This time, he’s not letting El go.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS:
Themes: outlaw biker gang, protector, found family, second chances
Genre: Scorching hot M/M romance, romantic suspense
Length: ~38,000 words (Standalone)
WARNING: This story contains scenes of violence, mentions of past abuse, offensive language and morally ambiguous characters.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter 1 - El
If El’s parents could have seen him now, they would have turned away in disgust. Though to be fair, they wouldn’t have been proud of who he’d become last week or last month either. Hell, he didn’t even use his real name Elwood Astor anymore, and went by El, so they couldn’t complain about his behavior reflecting on them badly. When he’d still been a minor, he used to take tons of other precautions to avoid being found, yet now that danger was making him bristle with its ice-cold breath, a childish part of him wished for the protection of the family he’d turned his back on.
But El was a man of twenty-five now and would have to bear the consequences of his actions, whether he liked it or not.
He hated consequences.
The car shook on the uneven asphalt, making his teeth chatter. He’d hoped that if he made the turn down the narrow, insignificant road through a potato field, the predators at his heels might speed past it. But their noses were too sensitive to miss the scent of their sweating prey to make such mistakes. Though with the crop growing so low to the ground, and the late afternoon sun still in the reddish sky, El was a sitting duck anyway.
Their truck roared behind him like a grizzly bear about to charge, but he couldn’t press on the gas pedal any harder if he didn’t want the damn piece of junk to break into pieces before he reached home.
He’d half expected them to pack his vehicle full of bullets, and the fact that they hadn’t shot a single round at him was like an alarm ringing inside El’s skull. It meant they wanted him alive. He should have never gotten involved with a cartel, not even as a messenger boy, but no—he had to borrow money from the most dangerous people he could find. The business meant to take him out of poverty had gone south. He had no means to repay the debt, and what the cartel couldn’t collect in cash, they’d take in flesh.
El had heard terrible stories about people who’d made the same mistake, but for no reason at all assumed he’d be one of the lucky ones, come out on top, pay back the loan, and drive off into the sunset.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
He wasn’t some criminal mastermind. Even now, out of all the places he could have fled to, he’d chosen his home.
A place that had nothing in terms of defences.
It was just this old cabin with dirty siding, broken shutters, and ceilings that often creaked at night, as if the ghosts of the previous residents enjoyed watching him sleep. Before he’d moved in, the owner of the vast fields around it had used it for storage, but after some extensive DIY, El had managed to turn it into a liveable space. Too bad it wouldn’t protect him now.
He should have sped straight to the nearest town. Stopped in front of the police station and revealed the truth about the things he’d done. It might have landed him in prison, but maybe he’d get to live a bit longer, because regardless of his frantic attempts to flee, a part of El knew he was already dead.
Worse yet, he’d be tortured.
He liked to think of himself as a badass who never shied away from a fight, and had some scars to prove it. His whole look, from the red combat boots to the toxic green Mohawk, was a deterrent to anyone who thought they could fuck with him. He had more tats and piercings than a leopard had spots, but in truth, he was just a skinny house cat with sharp claws, and the studs on his leather jacket wouldn’t save him from being skinned alive.
With his mind racing, he jumped out of the car as soon as it stopped and didn’t bother to close the door, making a run for the house.
Bright white light shone straight at him from the approaching truck, which roared as if it were about to ram into the old cabin and raze it to the ground along with El. The scare tactic was working, because keys fell from El’s trembling hands, and he had to frantically pick them up from the wooden porch as the vehicle carrying his pursuers slowed down. Everyone present knew his fate had already been sealed.
Still, he wouldn’t go out without a bang. With blood pulsing in his skull as if it were about to drizzle from his ears, El managed to open his door and burst in. He didn’t own anything worth stealing and therefore never bothered much with security especially with the cabin being so remote, but faced with the men who were after him, the thin door seemed shockingly inadequate.