Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 74501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Dutch already was not real thrilled with this Jackson sitch he knew about, but also didn’t.
That made him less so.
Though, he was intrigued about her talent with baked goods.
“I’d find this farce amusing, if I wasn’t still tied up on the goddamned floor,” Carlyle stated.
Dutch moved to him where he was still sitting on his ass on the floor and crouched.
“I gotta share you’re gonna stay that way until we get you safe, unless you promise you’re gonna be cool.”
“Fuck you, let me go,” Carlyle returned.
“I know what you’re doing, Carlyle, and it doesn’t seem like it now, but everyone in this room is here to help,” Dutch told him.
“You don’t know dick and I don’t need your help,” Carlyle retorted.
“He saw you, didn’t he? The guy who shot your dad.”
Carlyle’s eyes told the truth even as the kid himself shut up.
Georgiana crouched beside him.
“Hi, Carlyle, I’m Georgie.”
“Don’t give a shit who you are,” Carlyle replied.
“I can imagine,” she murmured. “But you know, uh, so we can get this situation taken care of as fast as possible, we have pictures we want you to look at so you can let us know if one of them is the guy you saw that night.”
That caught his attention. “What pictures?”
“From Jessica, your neighbor’s Facebook.”
“Bitch, you think I didn’t look there first?” he sniped.
Okay, the line was far for Dutch that Carlyle couldn’t cross.
But he’d just leaped over it.
“You don’t know me,” Dutch said low. “And I get you don’t wanna know me. But know this, you do not call my woman a bitch. Are you feelin’ me right now?”
Carlyle’s eyes shot to Dutch, and he didn’t even look at the men who had gathered at Dutch’s back at hearing his tone.
The kid he really was, the kid his father raised, came out and he looked wrecked for a beat before he hid it.
But Dutch zeroed in.
“That’s your father’s son, do not lose what you’ve got left of him by losing hold on that.”
“You don’t know dick about my father,” Carlyle spat.
“You’re very wrong. A few seconds ago, I was looking him right in the eye.”
Carlyle’s entire big body shuddered before he closed his eyes tight and turned his head away.
Dutch knew that feeling.
He’d felt it just that morning.
And his father had been dead for twenty-three years.
“Now, we’re pickin’ up Gary Bronson, and we’re gonna be talkin’ to him,” Dutch shared, and Carlyle looked back, too young, or too broken, to be able to hide his shock. “And we’ve got men on Jessica, and we’re gonna be watchin’ every move she makes. And we know where the warehouse is, and we’re gonna be on that too. You got more for us, we’ll be all over that. In the meantime, we got a safe place for you to stay with a roof, a bed, food to eat and good people who’ll look out for you. And if you’ll let me, I’ll go to your ma and share you’re good, you’re safe, and I can bring her and your sister to you so we can prove that to her. But she’ll be safe the way I do it. And then you leave this to me, to my brothers, to the men who’ve waded into this, because we got you.”
“I got there before he was down.”
It came out beyond his control.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
“Cut him free,” Georgie whispered urgently.
Carlyle’s eyes were locked to Dutch.
“I saw him take it in the neck.”
Roam was behind his back, working fast.
“Give it to me, man,” Dutch urged.
“I saw it. I saw him take it in the neck.”
Dutch shuffled closer, muttering, not to Carlyle, “Get her back.”
Georgie disappeared.
“He went down. He’s a big guy like me.”
“Give it to me.”
“Made a big noise when he hit. Bitch screamed. Loud. So loud. All of that. Seemed louder than the gunshot.”
“I can see that,” Dutch told him when he stopped talking.
“‘Not the kid,’ she said, then shoved the guy out the door,” Carlyle continued.
At least she did that.
“Dad was down, but his arms were moving, he was looking at me, motioning me to get out of there. I didn’t do what he told me to do. I went to him.”
After that, Carlyle jerked suddenly, slammed his large fists into the floor beside him, then curled instantly into a ball, his hands one over the other on the back of his head.
“He went down. Never got up. Never got up. Never gonna get up,” he said to his thighs.
“Do I need to call Jules?” Vance asked quietly.
“No,” Dutch answered.
He didn’t touch him. Dutch didn’t move.
Carlyle started rocking.
It didn’t last long.
Carlyle’s hands slid away. They fell to the floor like they weren’t flesh he could control, but useless appendages made of nothing.
He lifted his head and eyes filled with everything Dutch had felt all his life, all at once, caught on Dutch’s.