Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“No fucking way,” Callow said as his gaze landed on Sully, surprise turning to joy as he moved toward the man on the couch, arm out, hauling him out of his seat to rap him on the back in that manly hug thing guys did sometimes. “The fuck are you doing here?”
“Prospecting,” Sully said. “You made it sound too good to be true,” he added. “Guns, skirts, money, and… donuts,” he said, taking one as Dezi opened the box for him.
“This is looking… complicated,” Nave decided. “Should make some popcorn or something.”
“I’m going for a ride,” I said instead.
The club drama, that shit wasn’t my scene.
Sully got in, or he didn’t, I was indifferent either way. I’d rather hear the highlights from someone else later when the decision was made.
“Where’s Nitro?” he asked, meaning my dog, a Rottie I’d… liberated from a junkyard a while back.
“Assed out on my bed. Door’s open,” I said.
Nitro had settled into retirement with fucking gusto. All he did was sleep, sniff around the yard, and look for someone to slip him some table scraps.
He was definitely my dog, but he didn’t mind being a club dog either, if I was missing for a few hours.
“Don’t let him feed him a whole fucking donut again,” I said, nodding toward Dezi.
And with that, I was making my way out the front door, nodding to the girls who were still out front, catching some bit of conversation from Vi and Luna about Hope picking up a reading hobby because of some guy, which sounded so unlike her that I figured I’d misheard.
I liked the club. The brotherhood. Even the family aspect. But I wasn’t someone who was used to being so surrounded with people all the time. That wasn’t the life I’d led before I came with Valen to Navesink Bank.
And, at times, I still needed to get away, get some air, get some quiet.
Luckily, this lifestyle meant that I got to take off and go for a ride, and no one thought it was weird. It was just part of the lifestyle.
Navesink Bank was a mishmash of things. Town, ‘burbs, rich mansion area, the beach.
What it wasn’t, was rural.
But there were some patches you could drive down that made you feel like it almost was.
That was where I headed, wanting a hint of that old, rural life I used to live.
I didn’t miss it as a whole. I liked what Navesink Bank had to offer. Convenience. Take-away options. Bars. All that shit.
But sometimes it was nice to get away from most people and places for a couple of hours.
It was on that backroad that I saw something.
Someone.
Walking down a road without any streetlights.
Heading fuck-knew where because there wasn’t much of anything down this way.
I didn’t really give it too much thought.
Until I realized that it wasn’t just some teenager, looking to find somewhere to get drunk or high in the woods. Like most of us did at some point.
This person was small not because they were young, but because it was a woman.
A kind of delicate-sized one at that.
Dressed all in black, her hair pulled up.
I don’t know why, what made me do it.
I was no one’s Good Samaritan.
But I found myself swerving off to the side of the road just ahead of her, cutting the engine, and half-turning on the seat.
“You need a ride?” I asked, suddenly very aware of the deep voice of mine that everyone always commented on when the woman flinched, then stiffened.
It was too dark to make out everything. But she was short and somewhat slight with dark hair, her bangs cut long, getting stuck in her eyelashes as she slow-blinked at me.
I couldn’t make out the color.
Hell, I couldn’t see all that much of her face as a whole. Most of it was in shadow.
What I did notice, though, was ink peeking out of the chest of her tank top and down her arms.
“No,” she said, the word sharp, final.
“It’s dark,” I insisted.
“Really? I thought I was just going blind,” she drawled, and I could hear the eye roll before she said it.
“Just offering a ride,” I said. “Nothing more.”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, tone dry.
“This is a long road leading nowhere good,” I reminded her.
Which was true.
Eventually, this road would wind in the direction of one of the beaches in the area. But not one of the nicer ones. This was one of the ones where I’d once found old needles and condoms in the sand.
And even to get there, if that was her destination, she had to walk through an area that had an up-and-coming gang flexing their muscles and puffing their chests.
I mean, I didn’t know any of them personally, but I’d known more than my fair share of gangs and other criminal organizations. As a whole, they weren’t usually friendly to women.