Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
We pull alongside the road, park, and exit the vehicle, walking to the wooden bridge in the black forest.
Milo Price sits on his knees in the middle, Santos gripping the back of his collar.
I stop in front of them, my brothers behind me. “Where was he?” I ask Santos.
“The motel.”
I look down at the piece of shit who tried to assault my sister, and who made Krisjen bleed. The motel isn’t a brothel, but he acts like it is.
It’s a good place to disappear for a few hours, though. Guys like him can afford fancy hotel rooms, but the sleaze of a seedy, well-used mattress is half the turn-on for them.
I gaze at the scar running down the side of his face. My sister’s girlfriend did that, but that was never the end of it. He should’ve known we’d come for him eventually. We don’t trust St. Carmen police to protect anyone but St. Carmen assholes.
Milo smiles at me. “You had to wait for me to come over here.”
I nod. “Traffic cams and such.”
There are cameras everywhere. If they track his last location, they can track him to us, but when he comes to the Bay, traffic cams lose sight of him long before he crosses the tracks. From there he could’ve gone anywhere. There’s no proof that he came here.
“Well, let’s get it over with,” he spits out. “It’ll take more than five of you to give me a beating I can’t take.”
“I’m not going to hit you.”
His smile falters, but still … he doesn’t seem afraid.
Santos hands me a hunting knife, heat coursing down my arms as I take it. I squeeze my fist around the hilt.
“Can I ask you something?” I peer down at him. “Why do you pay for it? Sex, I mean.”
It isn’t always Bay women he’s fucking, but whoever it is, he’s coming to the motel and he’s paying them.
“It doesn’t look like you’ve had any trouble getting tail for free,” I continue. “Is it because it makes it a job for them? To please you?”
I never asked the women who paid me.
But he shakes his head. “No,” he tells me. “When I pay them, they’re animals.” He pauses. “Farm animals.”
My fingers ache around the hilt.
He shrugs. “When I’m done eating, I just shove the sloppy, sticky dish under the shower for their next fuck.”
My mouth goes dry.
I grab his collar, yanking him from Santos. “Thank you for your honesty.”
I rear the blade back, my eyes on his throat, but then she’s there, slipping between him and me. Footfalls race over the bridge behind me, and I can only assume it’s my sister and Clay.
Krisjen grips my shirt at my stomach, her eyes looking up at me and pleading.
“Get out of my way,” I growl. “I won’t make the same mistake as my father.”
If he had put my mom first, she wouldn’t have spent twenty years dying from the inside out. I’m not giving Milo Price a chance to succeed the next time he comes for my sister or Krisjen. Family comes first.
I glare at Price, but I hear the tears in Krisjen’s voice. “The only mistake would be doing something that risks you being taken from me.”
No one will take me from her.
“Look at me,” she begs, and I see Liv out of the corner of my eye. “Look at me.”
I meet Krisjen’s blue eyes.
“I love you,” she whispers. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever been sure about. I love you so much. He doesn’t have anything you have,” she whispers. “Look at what you have.”
Her gaze flits around me, and I don’t have to look to know my family is everywhere. My brothers, my sister, my friends—safe and alive.
“We come first,” she commands, and then leans in, whispering. “And his day will come.”
“Krisjen and I can fight our own battles,” Liv adds.
My hand shakes with the knife. This has to happen. He has to go.
“Don’t leave me,” she begs. “You’re not going to want to look at me”—she presses her body into mine—“through a piece of glass.”
An image of me talking to her in jail and not being able to touch her flashes in my mind. An image of her sleeping without me.
That’s not what a man does.
I grind my teeth together. She’s right. Making sure that I’m always at her side comes first.
I lower the blade and release Milo. Wrapping my arms around her, I pull her into me and press my mouth to hers, gripping the back of her scalp and holding her so tight, she groans.
God, I love her. I bury my face in her hair. I love her so much.
“You’re smart,” she murmurs in my ear. “You’ll figure out how to get rid of him. Bide your time.”
Damn right. I hold her to me, pressing my lips to her forehead.