Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 80902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
“She someone’s old lady?” Havoc asks.
“Not last I knew.” Phoenix cuts a sideways look my way, like he’s not happy to be talking about this. He runs a hand through his short hair and shakes his head. “She hung around with the Pit Vipers. I don’t know if I’d call her one of their sluts exactly, but she was always looking for company in the hopes someone would take a liking to her ass.”
Wait. I turn to Phoenix. “How would you know? Why do you know so much about the Pit Vipers?”
His face goes blank. Sledge and Havoc share a look.
“What? What does everyone here know that I don’t?”
“I know about them because I was one.”
“What?” The air rushes out of my lungs. I struggle to take a deep breath as my world shuffles things into new positions. “Okay. Okay. I can handle that. I mean, I used to hang out with them, too. Right? They had a lot of members. I just don’t know why nobody told me before.”
Phoenix’s face goes blank, like he’s trying not to show any emotions at all. At least to start. “Because we aren’t the same. I wasn’t some junior member, Shelby. I was raised in the club. My father was a Viper, my uncles were Vipers. The God damned legacy is in my fucking veins.” By the time he finishes, the words come out like they’re laced with the venom of his past.
“Did you get out before I was hanging around? I don’t remember you and Dodger did bring me to some of the parties.”
Why is this the first I’m hearing about it? Havoc knows my past, he must have told them at least some. I go through the time since I found Phoenix in my yard, trying to remember what I’ve said and what he would know.
Stone cold Phoenix is back. He’s staring straight at the monitor, looking anywhere but at me as Snark rewinds the footage to get a better look at the car. “I knew him, but I was a little older and didn’t really socialize with the new members. We weren’t exactly friends. I don’t remember you either, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t cross paths at some point.”
I twist my brain, trying to remember, but he's right. Dodger and his friends were mostly prospects or newly blooded members. And he only brought me to the actual club a few times. At the time he said he didn’t want any of the other men getting ideas about me, but looking back, I don’t think he wanted a girlfriend to cramp his style. He might have considered me his, but I know now that he didn’t feel any loyalty in return.
Phoenix snorts a humorless laugh. “You wouldn't have wanted to meet me anyway. I was a mean motherfucker back then. Had to be in that shithole.”
“But you're in the Eagles now. And you're here, with us. I'm not going to judge you for who you were. I feel like that'd be really unfair, especially with my background.” I put my arm around his waist and he leans into me for just a second before pulling away.
“Mia’s what? Four? Five?”
“She’ll be five in August.”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Shel, what did the Pit Vipers do that sent you into hiding? What exactly?”
Ice chills my veins so cold that I'm surprised I can move. “Why are you acting so funny? You got out because you weren’t like them, right?”
“I got out because I didn’t want to be like them. Just answer the question.”
“Um, I was out with Mia. She was about six months old, I think, and I was just starting to get used to being a mom. I took her to a friend’s house for an overnight. Dodger… he didn’t want anything to do with me when I told him I was pregnant, but after she was born, he started contacting me randomly. Sometimes he seemed almost like he’d been when we were together, but mostly he just ranted about how I had his kid so I belonged to him, whether I liked it or not. He had all these crazy ideas about how when he moved up in the ranks, I’d be his old lady and give him a boy. A kid who was worth it.” I look up to find all the men in the room looking at me with clear disgust at the idea that Mia wasn’t good enough. “Thank you, right? Anyway, I think it was around three AM when I got a call from my mother. She was hysterical. I couldn’t understand most of what she was saying, but she just kept saying; don’t come home, don’t come home. I called 911 and they found her hiding in the back shed. The house was on fire, and Dan… Look, I didn’t always like him, but he loved my mother, and he was good with me and Mia when I moved back home. The firefighters found him in the living room, shot. Machines kept him alive for a couple days, but he died without ever waking back up.”