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)
He glances over when I rap my knuckles on the door. He’s a good-sized man, about an inch taller than me and thirty pounds heavier—every bit of it muscle—and a tough motherfucker. A few months back, he caught a shotgun blast in his shoulder and chest. Wasn’t even healed up before he was out at the Eighty-Eight Henchmen’s compound and taking out some skinhead trash. That injury’s got to twinge hard now and then, but you’d never think it to look at him.
But then, he’s always hard to read. Even right now, when he’s staring right at me with those eyes made of pure fucking steel. He’s not the smartest man in the Hellfire Riders—that’s probably Gunner or Widowmaker. And he’s not the deadliest—that’s Blowback, no question. Not the most stubborn, either—that’s likely Zoomie. But Saxon’s right up there in every single category, and he’s got something the others don’t: the way he can look at a man and see everything that makes him up. Sees everything weak and everything worthy.
My chest tightens as Saxon steps forward. And he must see a sliver of something still worth having in the club, because he reaches out, locks his big hand with mine. A welcome back.
But he didn’t miss the rot. Quietly he says, “Crash served in the same Force Recon platoon as you, yeah?”
Fuck. Throat too raw to say it aloud, I nod.
“Is killing these Cage fuckers going to help?’
This time I can speak. “Might be the only thing that does.”
“All right, then.” He sits back on the edge of his desk, folds his arms over his chest. “Where are we at?”
That’s to Blowback, the Riders’ warlord and Saxon’s right hand man. There’s a pretty good chance that he sees the rot in me, too…but just doesn’t care. In a battle of ‘who’s the most fucked up,’ Blowback might still win. Because I’ve got a big jagged hole in me, but I don’t know if Blowback ever had anything inside him to start with. If maybe he was just born empty.
Empty, and deadly. In the Cage, I might have lasted a minute against him. If he was going easy.
All of which makes him real fucking scary, except he’s got lines he won’t cross. So the only people who need to fear him are those who threaten Saxon or the club.
I used to have lines, too. Until I threw Crash’s body right over them.
Blowback lays it out for the prez. “I’ve got Spiral and Picasso keeping eyes on the Iron Blood. Hashtag’s running down a lead that the Butchers dug up on some girls who were being moved the same way their two men were moved up to the Cage. Might be another stable owner, might just be a money trail. But he’s following it.”
Since I’ve spent the past few days with Blowback, there’s nothing he says that’s a surprise. “In other words, a big fucking nothing.”
“Until it’s something,” the prez says. “What about the girl? What’d she give you?”
I shake my head. “Another fucking nothing.”
So far.
My stomach curdles when Blowback says, “Says her name is Christina Anne Miller. Twenty-five years old, born in Santa Fe. Doesn’t know who her parents were, was raised in the foster system. Gave me the name of her nursing school, all the foster parents that she can remember, and her last address—which she says is probably rented out to someone else now that she’s been missing so long. And says she doesn’t know anything about Papa.”
Christina Miller. “When the fuck did you talk to her?”
No one was supposed to talk to her. Or touch her.
“Saxon sent me in a couple of hours ago.” Blowback shrugs, maybe knowing that going in pissed me off but there’s not a damn thing to say when the prez tells him to. “Not a word was true.”
Hold up. “What?”
“There’s no Christina Miller. No one with the birthdate she gave me registered at that school or in the New Mexico foster system. Every other piece of information that I checked also fell through. But it was a good story. Might have held up if someone didn’t know how to dig under the first layer. Consistent, too. I bet if you ask her, she’ll give the same details.”
Like something she practiced over and over. Maybe for three months.
Saxon’s eyes narrow. “Why’s she still hiding?”
“She’s afraid of Papa,” I say. “And not afraid of us.”
“I led by saying we’d protect her,” Blowback tells us, lips quirking. “Might be she didn’t believe me.”
Didn’t believe the scary fucker with dead flat eyes. “I might get more headway in that direction.”
The prez nods. “Try that. But I don’t give a fuck who she is. Just what she knows, even if it’s not about Papa. Because every string we pull might lead to him. So how did she get picked up? These assholes snatch a girl, usually the girl ends up being sold. So how’d the nursing angle come into play? Was that even legit?”