Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 134654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
The men sat taller.
The women shuffled closer.
This was no longer about wealth or company or comfort. The Club—with just a few sentences from its leader—switched into a machine I recognized. A machine evolved to fight, murder, and pillage. Bikers lived on the outskirts of the law for a reason. We made our homes in the grey, impervious to right and wrong.
Arthur had achieved the impossible by turning people who fought against authority into a close-knit team, but at the same time they were still ruthless, still terribly dangerous.
“Over the past three days, Grasshopper has been collecting intel on where Rubix and his Club fled to.” Rubbing a hand over his face, Arthur dispelled some of his pain but not all of it.
The telltale sign that he wasn’t coping sent my heart racing.
Residual agony glittered in his eyes like shards of green glass. “I admit I was arrogant and paid the price.” Arthur glanced at me, guilt glowing in his gaze.
Glancing back at his members, he said, “At least our plan no longer includes petitioning the state to relinquish Dagger Rose land to us.” Arthur threw me a conspired look. “We have the rightful owner sitting among us, and the bastards fled, so that aspect solved itself.”
“What do you mean?” Mo asked. “How did it solve itself?”
Arthur smirked. “Cleo can tell us.”
My lungs stuck together. “Um, I can?” I had no idea how.
Arthur spun the gavel in his fingers. “Did your father ever tell you what he did?”
I blinked.
Time stopped. The feeling of being overwhelmed increased at the mention of Thorn Price—my kindhearted, lovable father. “What he did?” I tried to remember, but there was nothing. Whatever shields were in my mind still kept that part captive. I’d hoped I wouldn’t be prisoner to amnesia anymore, but there were certain holes waiting to be filled.
Just ask him.
Arthur would tell me.
But wouldn’t that be cheating? I had to do this on my own—otherwise, who was to say what I recalled wasn’t his version of the events and not mine. I might be tainted and not remember the truth.
Arthur nodded. “He did something rather extraordinary.”
The Club watched us, their heads volleying from side to side with who spoke.
“Remind me,” I said. “Tell me something and I’ll see if I can remember the rest.”
His gaze turned cloudy, looking into the past like a seer. “We’d just come back from the beach. It was mid-summer and you’d just turned—”
“Thirteen,” I gasped, hurtling headfirst into the memory.
“Happy birthday, Buttercup.”
I threw my arms around my father once he put down the castle cake and thirteen candles stuck into the turrets. “Thank you, Daddy.”
He grinned, motioning behind me.
Hands came over my eyes and the familiar scent of spicy deodorant and grease bombarded me. “Art, stop it.” I laughed, unsuccessfully ignoring the tingles his touch caused.
“Wait a second.” His voice was a soft caress.
“Okay, she can open them now.”
Arthur dropped his hands, letting me blink and focus at a piece of paper in my father’s hand. It looked like the most boring birthday present ever. But somehow, I knew it wasn’t.
This was precious. To my father. To me. To my future.
Capturing it, my father tapped the bottom where a signature had already been scribbled and a blank space for another. “You have to sign here.”
My eyes scanned the title. “Deed to property Forty-Seven Hundred.”
Arthur came from behind me, grinning broadly. “It’s yours, Buttercup.”
“Mine? What’s mine?”
My father passed me a pen, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re my only child. I own Dagger Rose outright. The land, the holdings. There’s acres of land that will only keep growing in profit the more the world expands. I want you to have it.”
I shook my head, the piece of paper trembling in my hands. “But … I don’t want it. It’s yours.”
My father smiled, but his eyes were guarded. “Sometimes, Buttercup, it’s best to prepare for the worst when everything is at its best. You’re young, but it doesn’t matter if I give you this now or when you’re eighteen or twenty-five. It doesn’t change the fact that I want you to have it.”
Taking my wrist, he guided the pen over the piece of paper. “You’re old enough to know the value of what I’m giving you. Sign it, sweetheart. Let me know that I’ve given you a present that will provide for you until you’re old like me.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth. “Dagger Rose … it’s mine.”
Arthur nodded. “Every shrub, tree, and piece of dirt is yours.”
“But—”
Arthur held up his hand. “You want to know how my father was still living there with the Club? After destroying your family?”
I nodded, unable to comprehend such an asset or that I’d forgotten something so life-changing.
And we burned it to the ground!
Had that been his plan all along? Was that why he gave me the torch—because it was my land to destroy?