Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 117494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
“Where are they being held at?”
“East Bend Penitentiary.”
“What?” That didn’t make sense.
None of it–what?
I frowned. “That’s where Connor is.”
He was just watching me. One blink. One nod. “I know.”
“No.”
Nope. I wasn’t believing him. That made no sense. “Why–they’re up here? That makes no sense.”
“They’re in Indiana. At a prison. At a prison where all of the guards are being paid by Marco. All of them. There was a new hire and he turned down the payout. His family was decapitated the next morning. He has every single guard in there on his payroll.”
“No, but…” Connor.
Not Connor.
My chest was caving in. An invisible pressure was pushing down on me. My knees were threatening to buckle.
Please. Not Connor.
“The favor?” Everything in me was hurting because the pieces were coming together now. “The favor he’s doing for you, he hasn’t done it yet. Has he?”
Shane shook his head, so slowly.
I was being torn open, slowly by one piece of skin being pulled apart at a time. It hurt to breathe. Felt like I was inhaling blood. I could taste it.
“They were big favors. Sending bikers to Ruby’s, that’ll set her for life. My sister, you were going to buy her a hair salon.”
“The club was, not me personally. You didn’t ask for anything.”
I was remembering and that wasn’t right. “I asked for you to leave.”
“We did. It’s why we left, for you.”
But Claudia. Fucking Claudia. She followed, and I went after her. “My friends went with me because they thought I was running from Foley. I pulled them into all of this based on a lie. I wasn’t running from Foley.” I couldn’t take much more, but I had to face the truth. “Ruby asked me to go after my sister and I went because I was following you. I pulled Harper and Aly into this life because I wanted to fuck you.”
He let out a soft curse. “Kali–”
I shook my head. “No! You’re not done. We’re not done. No masks, Shane! Your words. You’re going to finish telling me everything. You’re going to tell me the favor my brother is doing for your club and you’re going to tell me why this all had to happen how it happened. I want answers. I want…” I couldn’t get air. My chest was imploding.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded, my neck was so stiff. “Just finish it, Shane. Tell me fucking everything.”
“Okay. I will.”
“No more masks.”
He agreed. “This is all the cards.”
He told me about their club’s meeting. That he brought it to every charter they had, that he was the one who was pushing to leave the Estrada Cartel. And I got that. I did. My heart was still hurting, but I understood. Marco’s hold was strangling them. I didn’t understand that part, but I didn’t need to. No one would want to work with a cartel. No one who had family and loved ones and children, and some of these men did. I also knew I only saw the tip of the iceberg, but I got it.
“What is Connor supposed to do?”
“Marco couldn’t put them in separate prisons. It’d be too much for him to control to keep them safe, but one prison was enough. And it’s set up where all four of those men are never together except for one time. And the expiration is running out. It’s an animal training course. The men signed up for it. They themselves did. It’s short-term. It’s only given to the best inmates. One instructor. One guard. And those four men.”
I was really getting it now. All of it.
“Connor loved animals.”
“Yeah.”
I knew what he was going to tell me, but he had to say the words. I had to hear them out loud. If I didn’t, I’d never believe them. I’d have hope it wouldn’t happen or that it didn’t happen.
I grated out, “Say it, Shane. Just fucking say it.”
“Connor’s going to kill all of them. Every one. We got a weapon smuggled in for him. He’s going to take out the guard, and then he’ll take out the rest. They won’t be able to get to him to unarm him, and they won’t be able to run. The room is locked down. The guard will go first so he couldn’t call for help. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“It’s suicide. This is the favor. He’s going to kill Marco’s four ‘second-in-commands’ so you can kill Marco and know that his cartel won’t be taken over. Right? That’s the plan?”
“His cartel will fall. Another will take its place, but it won’t be the same one. It’ll be chaos in Mexico for a while until another gets in power. That means we’re free. We’re not under his hold anymore. You don’t understand how sick Marco Estrada is.”
They were going to kill my brother to save their lives. That was the bottom line.