Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“With Kai?” Natasha asks softly.
“Y-yeah.”
“Don’t think about that now. One step at a time.”
“You’re right. Thank you.”
“I’m here if you need me.”
“Thank you.”
I hang up and walk through the prairie, back onto the side of the deserted road. Kai is pacing, looking like a different man from the one I was with recently. He’s got an extra fierce aura as he hangs his cell up, stuffing it in his pocket.
“The Bribones hit them on fucking Main Street,” Kai roars, pulling his hand back like he’s about to throw his phone. Then he remembers he might need it and hammers his hand against his chest instead. “Those fucking mongrels.”
“What about Ryan?”
When I touch Kai’s hands, he pulls them away. I try not to let myself look wounded and try not to think about what it says about me as a sister, still willing to touch Kai now. Then Kai softens and takes my hands. He squeezes gently. “He was shot in the stomach. They’re taking him to the hospital. They might have to operate. Two Bribones are dead, and the police are questioning a couple of our men. Fuck.”
I stumble away, shaking all over, thinking of Ryan in a hospital bed with a gun wound where his belly should be. It doesn’t seem like it fits. I was arguing with him recently, but nothing crazy, nothing life-changing.
“Kay.”
Kai walks over to me, his hands raised. He takes my shoulders and pulls me into an embrace, holding me there as the sobs start shuddering and erupting. There are so many of them. Wave upon wave of agony smashes through me.
“We have to go back,” I weep. “I have to be with him. The hospital will be guarded, right?”
“Of course it will.”
“Then take me there. Let me be with my brother. Please.”
“He’d want me to keep you as far away from there as possible,” Kai says. “Especially now.”
I grab Kai’s chest and push away to look into his eyes. He needs to see how serious I am. I’m as serious as every sentence I ever wrote in my notebook, as every declaration of belonging. I’ve never been more serious about anything.
“If you don’t take us back, I’ll do it myself. I’ll escape. I’ll get a car. I’m going home, Kai. The only question is, are we going together, or am I making my own way?”
He lets out a sigh, then smiles almost sadly. It’s like a piece of him wishes he didn’t say what he says next, but he can’t stop himself.
“You’re going to make an incredible mother, Kay.”
Even if a huge piece of me knows I shouldn’t, I glow under the force of the compliment anyway. Warmth whelms in me, promises of the future that seem so distant from my brother, a hospital bed, and the agony of letting him go.
“We’ll have to tell him when he recovers,” Kai says fiercely.
“I know,” I whisper, “but not until he’s completely better, okay?”
Neither of us says the obvious. He might never recover from a bullet wound to the stomach. He might already be dead. We’re hundreds of miles away, and there’s nothing we can do but get home as quickly as possible and hope and pray.
“We need to find an airport,” I tell him.
“No, we can’t fly. If this is as bad as it seems, we need to be mobile. It’s rumored that this other club could have ties to the cartels. We can’t risk being trapped on a plane with a cartel goon with nothing to lose. We have to be mobile.”
“Just in case you have to stop me? Is that it? From being with Ryan?”
He swallows and nods.
“I’m risking a lot by taking you home. Let me do it my way. Or, I swear to God, I’ll stop you, Kay. Even if you hate me for it.”
I could never hate you, I almost reply, but instead, I shrug and walk to the bike.
We’re becoming broken records, both of us, when we mention the need to stay apart. No matter what we do, we end up together, somehow, like two bikes without riders that miraculously follow the same path. We want, need, desire, hunger for, and own the same thing—our future, all the love and joy we will share.
But if Ryan dies, will there be any of that? Will we ever be able to let ourselves feel it? Will we even be able to look at each other if, before Ryan dies, we don’t tell him the truth and give him a chance to hate us?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kai
I race down the road, trying not to think too often about what Kay and I shared on the prairie. It’s not just the lust or the taste of her body, but what we shared about the future, our desire for a family—all of it.
All I can think about is Ryan. I barely see the landscape or register anything. I can only think of my best friend lying in a hospital bed, unconscious, as the doctors try to stop his blood from poisoning him or his body from failing. He’s connected to machines. That bullet tore through him and gutted almost enough blood to leave a man drained.