Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
“Sariah has been lookin’ into him when I explicitly forbade her from doin’ it. I’ll get what she’s got,” Colby said.
Swiss grinned. “You’ve got some shit to learn if you think that woman is gonna do anything but the exact opposite when you try and forbid her to do shit.”
Colby did not grin back at him.
“Get whatever she has. Wire is going over all police reports as we speak,” Hansen told us.
How that fuck actually survived was anyone’s guess. He was on call for half the clubs in the country and could hack into anything.
“Violet’s old roommate … Ollie, she’s been lookin’ into shit too. Seems to be a college version of Wire,” I said.
Hansen nodded. “Okay, I want all the club girls followed everywhere. Want new security at the club and eyes open.”
Even though he didn’t have a gavel to hit, everyone took that as their cue to go.
Hansen eyed both Swiss and I, so we lingered, knowing he had shit to say.
He only spoke once the door shut, leaving just the three of us. Though I was itching to get back to my woman, I managed to lock my shit down.
“Worries me that whoever this was knew the club so intimately,” he muttered.
He was vocalizing what we’d all been thinking.
“You think it’s someone wearin’ a patch?” Swiss asked, cracking his knuckles.
A muscle in Hansen’s jaw twitched. “I hope to fuck it’s not,” he replied. “But we can’t rule it out. I trust each of the men in this club with my life. Wouldn’t have given them patches otherwise. But no fuckin’ way I’m taking any chances.”
Swiss nodded, I tightened my fists. The thought that it could be a brother left me itching to cause mayhem. There were men I knew for a fact couldn’t do this. Men with Old Ladies, children. But the ones without that, fuck … who knew.
“If it is a patch, they’re fucking excellent at hiding what they are,” I growled.
Everyone wearing a patch went through a year of prospecting. Before they even prospected, they had extensive background checks. That’s how Hansen knew about my past.
It was not unique for a brother to have a record. Fuck, it was practically a requirement, along with a fucked-up past. That’s what made men seek out this life.
Unfortunately, that also could be a recipe for a piece of shit who liked to kill and torture women.
“Wire is going over everyone’s shit again, with a fine-toothed comb,” Hansen sighed. “But that fucker is busy as it is. There’s a lot to wade through. This piece of shit covers his tracks well, hasn’t left so much as a scrap of evidence at any crime scene. It’s not gonna happen quickly, so we need to be on guard.”
Both Swiss and I nodded. I imagined he was going to have a similar conversation with the men we all knew had nothing to do with this. Problem was, prior to what happened, if you’d asked me which man in the club could be capable of this, I wouldn’t have been able to point to a single one. Sure, I didn’t like every single brother, but I trusted each of them with my life.
We were all silent for a moment, considering what the reality of a brother betraying us would look like.
“Onto something a little more cheerful,” Swiss clapped his hands together, breaking the silence. “You convince Violet to marry you yet?”
It was hard to remember that my brother no longer wanted to kill me.
“It just so happens I have,” I replied.
He grinned, clapping me on the shoulder. “Impressive. I would’ve put money on it taking you at least another week.”
Hansen smiled too. “We needed something to celebrate. The bad comes whether we want it to or not. The good we need to celebrate.”
I nodded, thinking of my woman in that hospital bed. The woman who would be my wife.
I tried to focus on that instead of the man who tried to kill her still walking this earth.
He wouldn’t be for long.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
THREE WEEKS LATER
VIOLET
Mom and I were out shopping.
We were not alone.
Colby was with us.
Not because he wanted to be shopping for dresses that didn’t scream ‘shotgun wedding,’ but because I did not go anywhere alone anymore.
Elden was with me as often as possible, which was almost constantly—this was the first time he’d let me out of his sight for a prolonged period of time since I’d gotten out of the hospital.
He’d been … intense, to say the least. But I’d needed that. As much as I liked to consider myself strong and capable, I had PTSD from seeing a mutilated dead body then fighting for my life afterward.
There were nightmares. Flashbacks. Panic attacks.
But Elden was there for every single one. He was my calming, strong presence. My port in the storm. He chased off the most severe effects. And I had become somewhat insatiable since we got out of hospital, desperate to feel alive again.