Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
I focused on Kate. Her head was thrown back, laughing at something Violet said. As if she hadn’t a care in the world. As if she had known no difficulty or pain.
I’d seen men grit their teeth and fight through gunshot wounds, tortured men who didn’t scream as I peeled their skin off, but that, Kate’s unbridled happiness, her ability to laugh after everything she’d been through… that was the strongest thing I’d ever seen.
“I’ll do it,” Hades’s words punctured my thoughts.
I turned to him, seeing that he was staring at Kate. “Do what?”
“Kill him,” he answered, lifting his beer.
I knew he wasn’t joking ’cause the motherfucker didn’t joke. I also knew who he was talking about. He was watching my woman and her daughter laugh in the sunshine like they didn’t know what waited for them in the shadows. It was impossible not to want to avenge them. To make sure there was no one on this earth who was a threat to them. It wasn’t in our nature to do nothing.
“Brother, I promised her I wouldn’t do it,” I gritted out. That promise still sat heavy on my shoulders, jerking me awake at night.
“You won’t,” Hades said, still looking at them.
I chuckled without humor. “Yeah, the distinction of who pulls the trigger won’t fly with Kate. Her husband ends up dead, she’ll know it was the Sons.”
“I can make it look natural,” Hades offered.
He could. He was an expert in killing, like all of us were. Anyone could pull a trigger, draw blood. But there was an art to it that few men possessed, enabling them to make a death slow, painful or quick and painless.
“I’m sure you can,” I replied, tempted to take him up on the offer. “But Kate is smart. I know Macy’s got her into crystals and shit, but I doubt even she thinks karma works that fast.”
“If she knew what this was doing to you…”
“She knows,” I grunted. “But what this is doin’ to me don’t mean shit compared to what this is doin’ to her. She wants him dead. Even though she’s not bloodthirsty by nature. Even though she saves strays. Even though she’s got the softest, kindest heart I’ve ever known.” I reached down into the cooler for another beer. “She would wear his blood if she could,” I continued, staring at Kate. “But she will live in agony forever if it means saving her daughter from even an inch of pain.” I let the cool liquid slip down my throat. “Plus, I’ve come to the decision that letting him live without his money, without them,” I nodded toward my girls, “that’s the worst punishment. A fate worse than death.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kate
“I was thinking,” Violet said as she dressed the salad.
“I’ve heard it’s dangerous when women do that,” Swiss taunted from where he was setting the table.
He was not one to sit on the sofa with a beer while we prepared dinner. No, he was involved, helping by refilling drinks, chopping vegetables, pretty much doing anything and everything he could to contribute.
Violet had noticed it during her time here with us. We’d settled into somewhat of a routine. I say ‘somewhat’ because there wasn’t really such a thing as routine in my life now. Not with impromptu dinners at Macy’s or Freya’s or Caroline’s or my place. Or club parties. Dinners at the two restaurants in town that served great food. Visits from other charters which required an ‘all hands on deck’ situation.
So yeah, there was no Meatloaf Monday or anything like that in the biker world.
Which I adored. I loved that I never knew how a day might end. Maybe a quiet dinner out or getting tipsy in the desert with women who had become my family.
But we did get nights, a good amount of them, just the three of us. I cooked because I enjoyed it, not because I was required too. Violet sat on the breakfast bar, chatting to Swiss and me while sipping wine. She’d acquired quite a taste for it in Paris and had argued about how ridiculous a drinking age was when you could ‘enlist in the Army but not buy a beer,’ and I was inclined to agree with her. I also wasn’t going to disapprove of my adult daughter having a glass of wine or two at dinner.
Those dinners were special. Precious. They had an energy about them, a magic about them that gave me the impression that we would never have quite a time like this again. I was looking forward to the future, looking forward to Violet growing into herself even further and achieving great things.
But I also knew that that would mean seeing less of her, her having a separate life outside of me.
So I was savoring every moment we shared.
Violet poked her tongue out at Swiss at his joke, and he grinned back at her. The two of them had developed an easy relationship, a friendship even.