Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
She looks up at me, those emerald eyes dark. “I assume you’ll be trying to find Papa.”
The one thing I needed to do for her. The one thing I didn’t get done. The whole fucking reason I left her alone for so long. “I won’t stop looking, angel. But until we get some kind of—”
“No, I mean…” She trails off uncertainly for a moment before continuing, “I think I know how to find him. Or at least figure out who he is.”
I stop swaying. “How?”
“Well, while I was watching the ceremony, I remembered something about Papa. Something that I didn’t think to tell Creek, because it was when Papa was in the farmhouse and sending me to be bait, and we were more focused on describing his security team and talking about the Iron Blood. But Papa has a daughter.”
“You told him that.” I saw those interviews she did with Creek…while she was still barely able to sit up in bed. Hours of fucking interviews. “You said that you thought Papa arranged her marriage to one of his business associates.”
“Because he said all that creepy shit about her being a virgin and taking to her new role as a woman. Her new role,” she emphasizes, “because her marriage had taken place in the past month.”
She says that like it means something, but I’m pretty sure she mentioned it being a recent marriage to Creek, too. “And?”
“Well…look at all this.” She gestures around us, at the big heated tent set up in Jenny’s backyard, where everything’s dripping with fairy lights and flowers. “Jenny put a lot of work into it herself, but still there’s so much preparation. And so much money spent. That’s got to leave a trail. But we’re not talking about a small town wedding. I met Papa. And that man did not marry off his virgin daughter to his business associate in a tiny ceremony in a Vegas chapel. No, I bet anything that it was a big church wedding, because he was so focused on her being pure. And there was something about him that was just…old world and old money and steeped in tradition. So I bet it wasn’t even a church, but more like a cathedral of some kind. And there have to be records. A big wedding, last October…and a fuckton of money spent on a reception afterwards. All paid for by the father of the bride, because that’s traditional, too.”
I bring her in tight against me and start swaying again, my heart thumping. Because she might be right. She’s probably right. And she’s not talking about finding one marriage out of the hundred thousand that happen in Las Vegas each year. The way she’s talking about Papa would narrow that down to a real small number.
“All right, angel,” I tell her gruffly. “This will be your choice. We pass on all of what you just said to Creek…or we give it to Blowback.”
“Blowback,” she whispers, and I clench my fist in celebration behind her back.
Fuck yes.
“But I want to come, too.”
“Hold up—”
“Not to fight. I’ll stay in a car or wherever is safe.” She pulls back to look up at me, her gaze steady on mine and shadowed with remembered pain. “But…I can’t bear to wait here again while you’re so far away. And we’ll be with your club. I know you will all protect me.”
“Yeah, we will.” With our lives if we have to. But she won’t be getting that close to any action when it goes down. “All right. I’ll get Blowback started. It might take a while, because that’s still a shitload of information for him to wade through…and that’ll give time for Gunner to come back from his honeymoon.”
Suddenly she laughs. “Yes, please. Or your sister might kill me.”
“Nah, it’d be me that she went after.” But it won’t be an issue, because we aren’t rushing into this. “And until then?”
Her smile turns impish. “We’ve still got ten months to make up for. And Jenny’s house has a whole lot of rooms.”
I fucking love the way my wife thinks.
45
Stone
When Blowback finally nails down Papa’s name and location, Gunner and Anna are still on their honeymoon and won’t return for another week yet. Which means I’ve got time to do something that needs to be done.
Maxine insists on coming with me. I ain’t real sure about that at first, especially since she doesn’t know all of why I’m going. But I can’t leave her behind again.
And we’re a team, she reminds me. But so were Handlebar and Crash, which is partly what’ll make this so fucking hard. And partly it’s because I’ve never begged a man for a reprieve before. As far as Maxine knows, we’re just riding to New Mexico to give Handlebar the heads-up about Papa and to invite him along. But I owe Handlebar. And after we take down Papa, the time will come for us to settle up.