Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
I sweep the room, taking in all the happy, congratulating, celebrating faces, but my gaze invariably comes back to one face—the face of the woman sitting across from me. She’s still perfectly composed, but she has a small smile on her face that I can tell is entirely genuine, and suddenly, everything in the universe seems like it’s right. Just seeing the curl of Echo’s lips makes me believe. But believe in what? Well, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe believe in things working out and happening for a reason.
I know if Granny has her way, Echo will certainly join our family, and we might be so, so extra, but maybe we’re also everything she needs, especially if she doesn’t have anyone. Granny has a way of taking in the most feral of strays—my brothers and I being prime examples—and turning them into fine young men with a purpose.
Except Echo isn’t a man. She is so, so not a man. She probably also already has a purpose. I guess if she doesn’t have anyone, it’s the sense of belonging we could give her. I don’t know why, but that makes me feel like the room just became extra dusty again.
I’m not going to woo her. What happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas, and that’s okay if it brought her to us when she needed someone. We can do more good with more of us than if there aren’t so many of us. That’s just logic. I’m not intrigued or anything. It also certainly isn’t a problem that Echo is very attractive, breathtakingly beautiful, and highly desirable because she’s a total badass herself.
I won’t have any problem with her joining our family if that’s what she wants to do.
It won’t be awkward that we kind of got drunk-married. Not awkward at all.
I’m sure everything will work out.
Granny has a plan, and Granny’s plans are all very, very solid.
What could possibly, conceivably, ever go wrong?
CHAPTER 4
Echo
I must be crazy.
It’s times like these, standing outside a biker compound—like a real legit biker gang compound—after attending the wedding ceremony and dinner for a couple I don’t know who belongs to a family I don’t know, with a whole bunch of real-life bikers because apparently, the bride’s dad is the biker club prez, that I can’t even believe I’m considering what I’m considering. Also? The bride and the groom are most definitely in love. She was gorgeous and adorable at the same time in her fifties-style wedding dress, and the groom was certainly handsome, but what really made him glow was his love for his new wife and their little girl.
Witnessing their love for each other was enough to melt me inside a little, even if I had to sit sandwiched between Orion and his granny. Throughout the ceremony, I kept asking myself why I was still there.
I’m still asking myself what I’m doing here.
All I can say is that the granny of this family was quite convincing the other day. She made me want to break down and cry when she told me about how her husband had died in a very convenient accident orchestrated by the mafia after he mistakenly fell in with them when he needed work. Even though she was in what people would consider the later stages of her life, she went to college and got a degree in computer science, of all things, and since the internet was just becoming a thing, she and her fellow students and friends had a blast trying out their newly acquired skills. Over time, she got really good at hacking and wanted to use that to make a difference in the world and get her revenge that way. She also adopted the boys one after another because she never had any children, and even though they call her Granny, she’s more like both their mother and grandmother, as well as every good guiding influence they ever had in their lives.
Who wouldn’t be amazed when they hear a story like that?
Also? It’s not like I have very many other places to be and things I’d rather be doing. When I was old enough to raise myself, my own mom took off for LA to pursue her dreams of being an actress. I never heard from her again. My dad, on the other hand, was long gone before that. He kept popping in and out of my life when I was younger, and then when I was fourteen, he just stopped coming around. I’ve been literally on my own for eight years now.
Soft footsteps across the gravel alert me to the fact that I’m not alone. I spin around and barely resist dropping into a—I know what the fuck I’m doing when it comes to kicking ass, both on the computer and in real life—defensive crouch.