Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
I light a smoke and walk out to greet someone I never thought I’d see again. Someone I’ve made a mission out of avoiding. My one-time partner and friend.
Rage.
Rage sets down her kick stand and removes her pink helmet revealing her trademark long blond hair pulled into a tight ponytail. She smooths it down with the palm of her hands.
Rage looks like a typical teenage girl. That’s how she gets away with being a stone-cold killer for hire. Most men can’t see past her tight body and pretty face.
Until it’s too fucking late.
Rage spots me and doesn’t smile, doesn’t react. She grabs her duffle bag from the storage compartment below the seat and drapes it over her shoulders. She walks up to me with her hands on the strap. Her shirt is tight and pink and says BITCH PLEASE across her tits.
“Nice shirt, princess,” I say.
She shrugs. “Well, they didn’t have one that said STEP BACK OR DIE so I went with this one.”
“Good call.” I stub out my cigarette.
“Surprised to see me?” Rage asks.
“Understatement,” I reply. “Why you here?”
“Where’s my ward?” Rage asks, peeking around my shoulder and ignoring my question.
“Changing,” I say. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Now or NEVER?” she asks with a smile I know to be fake because I’ve seen her practice it in the mirror a million times.
I shrug. “Can’t say.”
The guilt I’ve felt since the night we parted ways has never left and standing in front of her now the whole shit-show of that night hits me in the fucking gut, and I want to puke and shoot someone all at the same time. “Didn’t think Preppy would send you of all people. Thought I’d get a Lawless prospect.”
Rage narrows her eyes at me. “First off, you of all people know that no one SENDS me anywhere. Second, he didn’t send me. He was sending his brother, but I volunteered instead. And third…” she reaches into her duffle bag and pulls out what appears to be a small version of a biker’s cut and shrugs it on. “I am one of the Lawless.”
Rage spins around to show off the cut and sure enough, the back has the Lawless MC logo. The front has a patch that would normally hold a title like Sergeant at Arms but hers reads Don’t Label Me.
“Cute,” I say, amused as all hell. “Can’t say I’m surprised though. Only you can get a fucking MC to make you a member. What brought this on? Thought you didn’t like tying yourself to any one group.”
Rage follows me up to the house. “You mean besides the threats of violence against them if they didn’t let me in?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
She stops on the porch and circles around to face me. “You.”
“Me?” I take a drag of my smoke.
She exhales and shakes her head. “Smoke, you were my mentor. My dahli-fucking-lama. You were my only connection to humanity before you inserted Nolan into my life because you knew I needed him and others around me. I didn’t understand it until him.” She lowers her voice. “You and I were a team, and then you left. I wanted another team. I needed to belong again.”
“Thought you didn’t have feelings,” I say, the pain in my gut growing.
“You of all people know that’s not true. It’s me who didn’t know it, but you showed me. And then you LEFT me.”
She pokes her little index finger into my chest.
I look away and stub out my smoke on the railing, lighting another one. “We don’t gotta do this right now.”
“We do! You left me. I didn’t realize it then, but I realize it now. You were like my brother. You were family. Then, you left.”
“What a fucking brother I was. I left because…” I lower my voice, unable to say the fucking words. “You know why I left.”
“No, I don’t,” Rage says, shaking her head and setting her duffle bag down on the porch.
“I raped you, Rage,” I say, my chest burning with anger toward myself. Bile rising in my throat. “While your man was forced to watch. You didn’t deserve that. Nolan didn’t deserve to watch that.”
Rage’s small hands grab hold of my cut. She’s the only person in the world that can get away with this shit. Any other man would be missing that hand by now.
“Look at me!” She yells, yanking on my cut. I look down into her blue eyes. “Smoke! There was NO RAPE! That shit-bag forced us to have sex at gunpoint. That’s not rape, and if it is, then, I raped you, too. ‘Cause this isn’t all on you. You can’t take all the blame.”
“It’s different for you!” I shout, raising my voice above hers.
“Why? Why is it different for me?” she challenges, releasing my cut and jutting out a hip. Her head cocked to the side.