Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
For the first time since his mother had left, a melancholy blanketed his heart.
Fuck knew they weren’t much of a family. Life held very little other than disappointment for all of them. To know both his parents had lost their lives, his father literally and his mother figuratively, due to greed felt like a life lesson he needed to learn.
With a heavy heart, he turned into the storage unit complex and looked at the security box with a sticker stating it was monitored by CCTV, like that was some real threat. Then looked absently over at the locked gate in front of him. Regardless of what his mother said, he had no idea of the code.
He reached out and typed in his birthdate. Nothing happened.
Well, goddammit. It could be anything in any order.
He typed Abi’s then Mae’s birthdays and got nowhere. Then he typed in his mother’s birthdate. Got nothing.
What number would he automatically know?
Why was she so goddamn cryptic? She fucking said so much to him inside that horribly decorated hospital room. Flowers? Who fucking liked flowers on the wall?
He jabbed out his fist, punching the dashboard of the truck out of nothing more than the aggression he used when having to deal with his family’s bullshit.
The old plastic of the dash cracked under his assault. His knuckles didn’t fare well either. They came back bloody and battered. And they fucking hurt.
The hate in his heart made him try his self-proclaimed calling card since he was a boy. 666#. The number Mack and Ace had given him when they claimed he was meaner than the devil himself.
The gate suddenly unlatched and churned open.
He raised a brow. Huh. No doubt Carly Fox knew him well.
Dev drove forward, doing his best to follow the number sequence above the doors.
This storage facility did back directly into the club’s Red Bird lumberyard property. It even arced onto the back where the piles of lumber were stacked high enough to be seen over the storage facility.
Did the club own the storage facility?
What else did they own that he didn’t know about?
Dev found the proper number and came to a stop directly in front of the unit. He lifted the gearshift into park and cut the engine. Leaving the ball cap and jacket inside the cab, he focused on the locking system that secured the large cargo door in place.
There was no way the keys his mother gave him fit into that lock. He went to the door, fishing out the keys from his pocket, eyeing both closer. It wasn’t going to happen.
He stepped back, looking up and down the rows of storage units then took another step backward.
What was he missing?
Chapter 31
Dev dropped his head between his shoulder blades and closed his eyes. He never realized how much he hated puzzles.
“What the fuck, Mom?” he said to the sky.
He had to remind himself that he loved his mother. For his entire upbringing, she was his person. The only light in a dark, grim, shitty world. But right here, in this moment, he was loving her a little less than he did before.
The ache in his neck made him stretch, twist, and turn his head to loosen the tension. His shoulder muscles hurt too. He carried a low-level headache most of the time these days, and now he was standing in the middle of a storage complex, trying to understand how these keys opened that door.
Clearly, his mom gave him the wrong keys.
So how then did he break in?
Maybe his mother didn’t know as much as she thought she did.
Maybe his old man had lied to her.
How did she even know about the storage unit?
What was he gonna do with Dixie? He never liked that bitch one single minute.
His stomach grumbled, and he thought about the Dairy Queen on Main Street. He loved that old place. He’d get a double patty burger, no cheese, lots of mustard, pickles, and lettuce. Tomatoes were iffy. Crinkle cut french fries and a Coke. They used that small cubed ice that was good to crunch on once the drink was gone.
An extra-large Coke to help swallow the bullshit being fed to him right now.
He came up empty with any further ideas.
Cash probably knew he was missing by now.
Goddamn, he wasted a sneaking off moment. Now his pretty-boy agent was going to be pissed off for no reason. He’d have days of begging forgiveness. Diesel or Shanna would have to follow him everywhere he went again. He’d get all those fucking bad looks again. Trace and Mitch… Fucking Mitch was a damn dog with a bone. He had a way of yelling at a person without raising his voice while wearing those fucking T-shirts that made him look easygoing. Which he wasn’t in the least. What a skill…
His gaze landed on a standard side door—like a door, door—in the middle of the six-unit row. He headed that way. One of the keys looked like it fit a standard door lock. He shoved the key in and twisted. The lock released. He was able to twist the knob to open the door. It led down a darkened hallway.