Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
“So what’d you say, Spec?” Lock barked. “We’re playing too much when this shit is serious.”
“Okay, drill sergeant,” Jinx said, rolling his eyes, which Lock responded to with a one-fingered salute. “You heard the man, Spec, what’d you say to Ollie-boy?”
Lock snorted. Ollie-boy. It was a nickname for a dog, not a man who could give a woman like Brenna anything she needed.
“I told Ollie-boy we’d meet on his timeline the day flowers sprouted out of my ass,” Spec replied.
Brenna tried and failed to hide a laugh behind a snort. Even the strangled noise had Lock wanting to go to her. To be near her. To touch her.
“We’re meeting tomorrow morning. Five a.m. Right here. I want him on our turf, shaking in his fucking loafers and shitting his Calvins.”
“I like it,” Jinx said. “He needs to see the full power of our club and know how hard we’ll come down on his ass if he ever tries to pull shit like this again.”
“You know,” Spec said as he held a hand out for Olivia, who’d just walked back into the room. “That won’t be a worry at all if I kill the fucker.”
“No!” Brenna said with a gasp. At the same time, Lock said, “Works for me.”
She whipped in his direction, eyes wide with panic. “What? No. There will be no killing. Oh my God,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead.
“He’s kidding,” Liv said in a soothing tone.
“I’m not.”
“Spec!” Liv whacked her ol’ man’s stomach. “You’re freaking her out. Tell her this is just your sick sense of humor.”
“I’m not kidding,” Lock said. And he wasn’t. If Spec didn’t want to take the asshole out, he’d be more than happy to end his miserable life. He deserved no less for what he did to Brenna, and Lock would gladly die on that hill.
“Lock,” Brenna whispered. “I can’t have that on my conscience. Even if he deserves it.”
He ground his teeth so hard his molars creaked, but one pleading look was all it took for him to fold. “Fine, but he better be in serious pain when he leaves here.”
“Well, that I can promise you,” Spec said with a sinister grin.
“I want to be there.” Brenna stood, spine straight, and spoke the words with ultimate conviction.
Lock staggered back as though he’d been socked in the gut by a man Jinx’s size. “Hell no,” he said at the same time Spec said, “Fair enough.”
He whirled around on his brother and club enforcer. “The fuck is with everyone talking over me? There’s no fucking way she can be there.”
“Lock,” Brenna said in that same soft voice she’d used a moment ago. Instead of falling for it, this time, he held his ground.
“No,” he said, facing her. Despite everything that had happened in the past few days, Brenna was an innocent. Sure, she was fired up now, but watching Spec torture her former fiancé wasn’t an image she needed to fall asleep to at night. “Two days ago, you were terrified of us. You didn’t want to come here earlier today because you were all worried about going into an MC clubhouse. Now, you think you’re ready to see how we do our dirty work? You think you can handle watching Spec beat the shit out of your fiancé?”
“Ex.”
“What?” A sharp pain behind his eyes had him pinching the bridge of his nose. Fuck, he could use a damn drink.
“Ex-fiancé.” Brenna clenched her fists at her side and glared at him.
Damn her for making him admire her willingness to go toe-to-toe with him.
“Ex-fiancé who thought nothing of throwing me to the wolves and who literally set me up to be assaulted. I need to see this through, Lock. You’ve gotta be able to appreciate that.” She uncurled her hands and placed them on his chest.
The gentle touch was his damn undoing.
“Fuck.” He spun and paced the room. It hadn’t registered until that moment that everyone had left again, giving them privacy as though they were a team who made decisions together when, in reality, his reasons for keeping Brenna away tomorrow were eighty percent selfish.
Of course, he didn’t want her to have to live with the weight of seeing someone she once loved be hurt, but the deeper reason had to do with the way she saw him. Last night, she’d looked at him in a way that had his heart pumping and his shattered ego piecing back together a fraction. That would disappear if she knew the real him and saw the side of his club she’d feared all along. They might never hurt her, but they spent plenty of time on the wrong side of the law, and while he wouldn’t apologize for it, it was a world she didn’t know or need to learn about. It was the same reason he didn’t want to talk about Deanna or for her to know how bad things had gotten since her death.