Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I turned back to Ross, finding him watching me look around.
Catching my gaze, he spread his arms out.
"Welcome to Hex," he said. "You fight tomorrow night."
And I did.
ONE
Lazarus
"I'm not defending myself any more about it," Cyrus said, clearly a mix of frustrated and embarrassed. The blond-haired and bearded biker had just come in from a gig at She's Bean Around, doing his guitar thing because, apparently, it got him up to his ears in tail.
But his brother, Reeve, wasn't exactly in a 'letting it go' mood. He rarely was when it came to ribbing his little brother. "Michael Bublé, bro. Fucking Michael Bublé. You're lucky I didn't fucking disown you right then and there."
"I got her number, didn't I?" Cyrus asked, meaning the number of a very stacked, very hot woman who had requested the song.
"Yeah, but you had to trade your balls in for it so I think it was sort-of a wash," Reeve went on, grabbing another round of beers.
It didn't bother me.
The drinking.
I was used to it.
Reign had a strict 'no drugs' rule for members, so the booze was the only test to my sobriety.
The only part that nagged at me was the being able to share a drink with your brothers, the custom of it all. That being said, all my brothers knew I was clean and never made a big deal out of it.
So I kicked back with my coffee I got to go, knowing they would be throwing back a few, and enjoyed their company.
Most of the older members were gone. Reign was at home with Summer and their kids as was Repo. Cash was with Lo at his place. Duke and Penny were at their place. Renny was the one who was around the most along with Wolf who was stuck at the compound because Janie didn't trust him back at their house in the woods where he might get it in his mind to chop down a tree or some shit.
He was mostly recovered, it being a good four months since he left the hospital. But since he put the fear of a lifetime into his woman by being unconscious for so long, he had decided to oblige her on the small concession. He was off in the glass room, keeping an eye on things since Malc was asleep and Janie was off at the gym teaching a class.
"Come on, I got to have an ally here," Cyrus said, looking around. "Edison, be real. You do what it takes."
Edison's smirk moved up slow, giving him an almost sinister look, something that seemed to fit him, yet not. I still couldn't quite get a clear read on him. I knew Wolf had a deep respect for him though since we were all still lowly probates, we weren't privy to knowing why and Edison was closed-lipped about his past.
Aside from knowing he was Romani and really hated pimps, we didn't know much about the deep-voiced new addition.
"Not if what it takes is turning you into a woman yourself," he said in that gravel-tone of his that almost made him hard to understand. It was less of a voice and more of a rumble of sounds.
"Oh, fuck off," Cyrus declared, smiling, not offended. "Let's just see what Addison thinks of my performance," he said, reaching for his phone and scrolling through his contacts- something that took a long fucking time since he got numbers the way most people got junk emails. There was something boyishly charming about him to women- a lightness that none of the rest of us had. So when we hit the town, he was usually the first to pick up a woman.
That being said, I had learned as we started getting tested by the patched members that where me and Edison were trained fighters of the street variety, fucking Cyrus was trained. Of all people. Apparently, his mother had tried to pour his child and adolescent over-abundance of energy into martial arts classes. It was a skill set Reign was happy to have in the clubhouse.
It was no secret in Navesink Bank that Reign had been picky about members since he took his father's place. In his time in power, he had only fully patched in a small handful of people and only them because they had something to offer the club- not just numbers and testosterone, but a skill.
Repo was the best shot in the club.
Duke was a powerhouse.
Renny could just... read you.
I had my fighting.
Edison has his fighting and whatever else he had that made Wolf like him so much.
Cyrus had his martial arts and much needed extrovert personality.
Reeve had something. Again, I didn't know what. But there was darkness there, the kind that got under the skin and sank into the bones. He had seen some shit. He had done some shit. And he had somehow done it under the radar because when I looked into him, I couldn't find a record.