Total pages in book: 176
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
Roc froze at the same time I did, and we watched the contents spill out of the bag and scatter all over the floor. Purse, keys, lipgloss, headphones—everything.
Fuck.
“Look what you did!” Roc screamed like a bitch—like this wasn’t one-hundred-percent his fault.
I laughed as he rushed over and started frantically rescuing her stuff from the floor. I leaned against the desk to watch him throw it all into the bag with one eye while keeping the other on the bathroom door.
I was still debating storming in there after Atlas when Roc mumbled, “What the fuck?”
He lifted what looked like a photo from the ground, but he was too far away for me to see what was on it.
“What is it?” I demanded when he said nothing else. Roc continued to study the photo, his frown deepening as he slowly rose to his feet, forgetting all about Atlas’s purse.
It better not have been a picture of her ex or some shit.
Roc’s head turned toward me at my question, and the weird look on his face had me raising my brows. “Why does your girl have a picture of us from fucking forever ago?”
“What? What are you talking about? How do you know?”
“Because this was taken in high school. I remember this party.”
Before I could walk over and see for myself, the bathroom door opened, and Atlas walked out.
She took two steps before she noticed her purse on the floor. Before she noticed us.
Her brows dipped in confusion, and then anger reared its head until she realized what Roc was holding. I watched the color swiftly drain from her face. And then her gaze, filled with fear, darted toward the exit and lingered before reluctantly trailing to me.
“I can explain,” she whispered to me.
Those words were all it took for the blood in my veins to boil, for red to take over.
And then I reached behind my back and pulled my gun.
I’d been brought before the Kings.
The day had started off pretty ordinary, so never in a million years did I think it would end with me standing before all four Kings in the middle of their workshop.
The question was, would I walk out of here alive?
I met all four sets of glares and knew my chances didn’t look good.
A month ago, I would have been confident in the irrefutable fact that Rowdy would never let anyone hurt me.
That trust had died when I’d pleaded for a chance to explain, and he pulled his gun. Roc had taken a threatening step toward me at that exact moment, and I’d braced myself to die.
But the bullet never came, and it had taken me a moment longer to realize that Roc had backed off. A moment longer still to notice Rowdy’s gun trained on his friend instead of me.
“You got me fucked up,” Rowdy had barked at his boy.
At that moment, I hadn’t known what to think. And if it had been too much to hope that Rowdy had known Roc would try to hurt me and had protected me even in the face of my betrayal.
It was even harder to make sense of it when his murderous gaze had returned to me, and he’d ordered me inside the workshop while holding his best friend at gunpoint.
Even now, he looked at me like he’d gladly empty his clip into me, so I wasn’t foolish enough to think I was out of hot water yet.
After finding the photo in my purse, Roc and Rowdy called Golden and Joren back to the shop to hear what I had to say.
“All right,” Rowdy began once Roc had shown Golden and Joren the photo. The reason they’d been called back here. “I’m only going to ask you this once, Atlas. How did you get this photo?”
“Someone sent it to me,” I answered immediately. I knew Rowdy wasn’t fucking around.
“Who?”
I lifted my chin, refusing to cower. “I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure…” he repeated slowly.
“It’s the truth. The sender didn’t leave a name, only a letter telling me where to find you.”
“Why?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know that either.”
It was Roc’s turn to speak. “You mean to tell me someone you don’t know sent you a photo of more people you don’t know and told you to come here, and you just…listened?”
“I know how it sounds,” I said. “It was stupid and dangerous and irrational, but being inside my head was the last place I wanted to be. My father had just died, my mother basically told me to get lost, and my—” I stopped and inhaled, not wanting to go down that road again. “Look, I needed a change, an excuse to run, so when this letter came, I saw a way out and took it.” My gaze traveled to Rowdy, knowing he’d be the only one to understand. “I didn’t care about this person’s motives or what I might be walking into.”