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)
It was a wish on a star, that sort of shot. But looking at Kali right now as she was trying to hear us, all the way across the lawn, and knowing she couldn’t, I knew I had to try. For Connor, for Kali. I had to make the call.
But everything needed to be ready.
“Who’s got the current line to Connor?” There was a guy in Connor’s prison that had a cell. The number tended to change frequently. We were never told the reason why that happened, but we would get an update on the current number. That person operated on the basis that if we sent a message, it would be only one time, and he would need to give that message to Connor. The phone operator didn't know what the message was about, or even who was on our end. It was a deal set up, and when that message was delivered, we’d pay that person a fuckton of money, but if that person also ratted on Connor, all that money would go away. It never surprised me what people would do for money, and a ton of it too. It’s a currency that made the world go round so we used it when we needed to.
“I do.” Christopher Raith, Maxwell’s nephew and also known as his biker name, Wraith, raised his hand. “Once you tell me to send the message, I will.”
“Good.” I skimmed the group. Heckler was right. We needed to get set up. “Let’s get going.”
As they moved to do what they needed to do before once again, going into another battle, I stepped aside and pulled my phone out.
KALI
Shane wasn’t talking.
I was going with the flow by now, and knowing they still needed to handle Estrada, I was figuring he was next on their list. Claudia had no clue. I don’t know what she was told, or if she’d been filled in by Machete. I was guessing not because she seemed almost chipper.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her and I’d been thinking of all the different scenarios to get Connor out of this, but I kept coming back to the part where he was in prison. He was in prison. I couldn’t get to him. I couldn’t get him out. Not in the time I needed, and not ever.
Shane was right. My brother was never getting out.
I hated this plan, but it was a Connor plan. Had everything Connor about it. Of course he’d put himself in the line of fire to help someone he considered a brother. Of course he’d be adamant to make sure his family was also taken care of, because Shane didn’t know this, but I knew that was part of why Connor put all this together.
It was as much to take care of his family as to help Shane. In his mind he was killing two birds with one stone. Shane. Us. And a third might’ve been that he was choosing to go out how he wanted to go out.
God. I didn’t know. How could I?
I just loved my brother. I wanted him back.
But he killed a judge’s kid. He confessed to it, knowing he was signing his life away when he did. He still did it because my brother was a good person in his heart. Did stupid stuff, seriously atrociously dumb stuff like getting addicted to drugs and sinking so low to putting himself in that judge’s house in the first place. But he pleaded guilty because he killed a kid, and I couldn’t help but to wonder if that was the last part. My brother couldn’t take the guilt?
My brother would never be free again in his life, but I didn’t want this to be the way he went out.
God, no. Please.
“You going to clue me in on whatever the fuck is going on? You’re wound up tight. Your man’s wound up tight. Machete is not making eye contact with me lately, and now everyone just got real serious and my tits are so perked up from all the tension in the air that I have those tied up assholes eyeballing me.”
I started crying.
I couldn’t stop it, and I couldn’t control it.
The dam burst and my sister jumped back ten feet from me. “Oh, fuck my tits. She’s lost her mind.”
I heard gravel crunching and then Shane’s voice, “Go elsewhere, Claudia.”
“I–”
“It’s not a request.” Then his hand touched my arm, and I didn’t have the strength to fight him.
I should hate him, I knew this. And maybe a part of me always would, but for the life of me, I could not think of a way out of this. Not one that wouldn’t get a whole ton more people dead.
So because of all of that, because I was gathering up my strength to do what I just now decided to do, I let him hold me. And I let him pull me away from the group.