Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 80391 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80391 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Although I’d only been to the clubhouse for the first time today, I knew instantly that this was where they had all their club meetings. What had my dad used to call it, gospel?
“Yeah,” Silas agreed, giving me a reassuring squeeze before letting me go and standing. “Let’s go to church. Minnie, darlin’, how about you bring out a couple cots. I think we’re going to be a while. No reason y’all can’t all catch some rest while you can. It’s time for us to bring our family together. Kettle’s gonna need the support when he gets back.”
Church was a MC’s version of a business meeting between the members. It’s where all the important decisions were made. Who was told to do what. Where problems were brought forth to be worked through. I always compared it to a judge’s chambers. It was where all the important things were ruled on. Some of them even life and death.
Knowing that arguing would be futile, we all started setting up cots in between the splayed couches and recliners. Some even behind the bar.
I had no intention of sleeping, however. Exactly the opposite, in fact. I wasn’t sleeping until my man was home safe in my arms. Where I could hold him, because I knew he wouldn’t be all right when he got back.
And I was right.
He wasn’t.
Chapter 14
Pain is weakness leaving the body. No, pain is my fist when it hits your fuckin’ face.
-Kettle to his father, age 18.
Adeline
It was the sound of glass shattering that jarred me out of my in between sleep and awake state.
I’d laid down on the cot that was against the far wall hours ago.
My eyes blinked open blearily and I looked around noting all absence of light in the huge room, minus the sliver that was coming from a door at the back of the bar.
It took me a few more minutes to get my bearings, but I knew it was Kettle who’d done the glass shattering.
Sitting up slowly, I took the phone off the floor and pressed the button to light up the screen.
4:27 A.M.
Friday, December 25, 2014.
A sick knot of dread filled up my stomach, and I swallowed convulsively to keep the bile from exiting my mouth.
Bending at the waist, I slipped my feet into the boots from Kettle, being sure to tuck in my sweat pants that had been thrown at me from Silas earlier that night.
‘Here. These are Kettlle’s. Might be too long, but the boy probably wouldn’t like seeing you in some other man’s clothes.’ He’d said.
Using the light on my phone, I worked my way through the maze of cots and couches until I got closer to the sliver of light.
That was when I heard the men, and what they were talking about.
“Have to do something. He’s not going to stop. He already took my sister. What do I do now? Wait for him to take my woman while she’s at school? The fucker took out three other apartments beside my own today. Three adults in the first. Two adults and one eight year old in the other. Five kids and one adult in the last. Luckily, they all got out. Though, he’s not going to care about a couple of kids that get in between him and his goal. He’s already done that tonight.” Kettle snarled.
Something low and vicious was said by another man, and then I heard them all get into it.
“All right, settle down boys. Now, day after tomorrow we’ll figure this out. Spend your Christmas’ with your families. Kettle your house good enough to go home to?” Silas asked.
I didn’t hear Kettle’s answer but he must’ve confirmed that, yes, it was because Silas next comment scared me a little.
“Okay. Now that that’s settled, Kettle, you won’t be going with us. It’s too new for you. Too personal.”
Then there was more crashing as well as rage pouring out of that room, and my hesitation at the door vanished. I went into the room like I had every right to be there.
I lost the desire to know the word as soon as I saw Sebastian pushing Kettle up against the wall with Trance on one of his arms, and Loki on the other. In fact, I was kind of pissed.
My man was hurting and what he needed was vindication. Not someone telling him that he couldn’t go with them, effectively denying him the one outlet that he needed to make peace with the fact that his sister was gone. He’d just lost the only blood-family member he spoke with, in one of the most horrific ways possible. If they thought he wasn’t going to go, they didn’t know him at all.
“Fuck you,” Kettle was bellowing. “I’m going and you can kiss my fuckin’ ass.”
Silas was back at the head of the table sitting down calmly as he watched the men. “This right here is why I don’t want you to go...”
Kettle just started struggling more, and I had enough.
Stomping into the room, I started elbowing members out of the way so I could get to Kettle. One by one, they either moved or I squeezed by them until I was standing behind Loki’s left shoulder.
Loki’s shoulders were straining hard, and I knew he really had to work to keep Kettle from destroying the room or taking a swing at one of them. Kettle was straining so hard that veins in his neck and arms were distending the skin. Kettle’s eyes were pinned to Sebastian as he kept telling the man to get off him in such a deadly low tone that it made my insides feel like jelly.
Looking around, I found a rolling chair pushed off to the side of Loki’s legs, so I went to it and moved it to where it was directly in Kettle’s line of sight before standing on it and using Sebastian’s back as a stabilizer.
Sebastian, who’d been directly in Kettle’s face backed off slightly to see who was at his back, and when he did, it gave Kettle a clear view of me and he froze.