Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
“I love you, Falcon.” I looked up at him to meet his gaze. I needed him to know I meant what I said. I wasn’t just saying this because I thought it was what he wanted to hear or to make him feel obligated to stay with me. It was the honest truth. “I want you to be happy. Whatever you choose. That’s all I want for you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And what about you? Don’t you deserve to be happy?”
“Well, yeah. But not at the expense of a good man like you. I won’t lie. It’ll hurt like hell. But you deserve a chance at the life that got taken from you. If that’s what you want.”
“Well, lucky for me, that’s not what I want.” He leaned down and kissed me again. Lightly, but no less passionately. “You’re stuck with me, honey. And I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
He settled into bed with me again. I lay cuddled against his chest, swirling my fingers through the sparse hair beneath them. “What happened, Falcon? With Joilyn. Before and… on the way home. I know you had to have talked to her.”
Falcon sighed and kissed me again. It seemed like a compulsion with him, like he had things to say, but got sidetracked. I couldn’t deny I loved it. Even if he was trying to distract me.
“Baby, are you sure you want to talk about this? I’m here with you. I’m not going anywhere, not even for her. I don’t want you to be upset because there’s no reason for it.”
“She wants you back, doesn’t she?”
“It doesn’t matter what she wants, baby. She chose her path, still walks the same fuckin’ path that led us here. What matters now is what I want. And I want you.”
I blinked away the tears that threatened to spill. “And you’re really, really sure about that?”
Falcon propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at me with those intense eyes that always seemed to peer right into my soul. “Gina, honey, I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”
His declaration warmed me, chasing away the ghosts of doubt that lingered in the corners of my mind. With a deep breath, I let go of the last tendrils of insecurity and smiled up at him. “Then I’m all in, Falcon. No looking back.”
He grinned that lopsided smile that had first drawn me to him. “That’s my girl.” He kissed me once more before settling back on his pillow, me firmly against his chest, and tugged the covers closer around us. “Get some rest, baby. I have a feeling tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.”
Chapter Twelve
Falcon
“Look, man. Believe me or not. But I’m telling you, Joilyn is working with the CIA to get inside Grim Road.” We were outside the Salvation’s Bane MC compound in a yard where they had parties with other clubs, or friends and family. Whatever the occasion. Rattler braced himself with his palms flat on the surface of a nearby picnic table and hung his head. I knew the feeling. While I didn’t want to marry Joilyn anymore, that didn’t mean I didn’t still care about her. This whole other side to Joilyn was throwing me, but I thought there were still glimpses of the young woman I’d known and had thought I’d wanted to spend my life with.
“Did she admit to that?”
“She didn’t have to, Rattler. She didn’t even try to deny it. She wants the three of us to be a team. She doesn’t understand they’re manipulating her to get to us.”
“Or maybe she knows and doesn’t care.” Rattler shook his head. “You know how that place is. They get you isolated from everyone and everything you’ve ever known, then make you rely on them. On your handler. Whoever they tell you to trust. Deep down, you know something’s wrong, but you can’t place it. Before you know it, you’re a lifer. You’re in that middle place where you’re a true believer. Just far enough up the food chain to have some authority but not far enough to realize everything they do has three or four different agendas, each one acting like a cascade until the end is reached.”
“Yeah,” I said, throwing the toothpick I was chewing on to the ground. “And the end result is never anything you’d have agreed to if you’d known what was happening.”
“Christ, what’s she gotten herself into?”
I tilted my head to the side just as a man walked out of the clubhouse. Finally, a place to focus my anger. I lifted my chin in the man’s direction. “Ask Scout.”
Yeah. That might have been the exact wrong thing to say. Rattler pushed off from the table and stormed off toward Scout. The other man gave him a wary look that morphed into resignation. Then Rattler swung a haymaker at Scout’s face, connecting with a crunch.