Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80621 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80621 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Chapter 2
Clay
HEARING SOMEONE BANGING on my front door, I drop the weights in my hands to the mat at my feet and grab a towel off the weight bench. As I make my way across the concrete floors, Skye falls into step with me, with her ears up and her tail wagging.
“What’s up?” I greet Tucker and Miles as I swing open the door then turn to head for the kitchen.
“What the fuck was that yesterday?” Tucker asks as I grab a bottle of water out of the fridge.
“What the fuck was what?” Dayton asks, looking a little worse for wear as he steps out of the room he’s been crashing in since he got into town a couple of days ago.
“Were you out all night?” I raise a brow his direction.
“Yes, Dad.” He squints his eyes. “Why the fuck do you need so many windows?”
“I like the light.” I put the bottle to my lips and tip it back.
“Are you going to ignore my question?” Tucker bites out, planting his hands on his hips.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Yesterday I was helping you out.”
“You know you’re supposed to be invisible. We can’t catch these guys if we don’t have a trail to follow.” Tucker points out.
My jaw clenches. He’s not wrong; I’ve been laying in wait for months, waiting for these guys to slip up, and yesterday when I was sure they did, I fucked up. I shouldn’t have stepped in, I should have just got the information I needed to put the pretty brunette on radar, then let the situation play out, but there was something about her that clawed at my insides and urged me to protect her.
“Not sure it’d be wise to use Nico Mayson’s daughter as bait anyways.” Miles mutters.
Tucker’s jaw clenches.
“And you wanna talk about blowing my cover? What the fuck was that with you telling him I’m your brother?” I ask.
“You don’t know Nico. If I hadn’t stepped in, you’d likely be in jail on some charge he made up until he could figure out who you actually are, and he would find out,” Tucker bites out.
I raise a brow at Miles.
“He’s not exaggerating.” He shrugs.
“I’m obviously missing something,” Dayton says, looking between us.
“You’re not missing much, we’re still at square fucking one when it comes to tracking down anything new about Arya.” Miles walks to the couch.
The water in my empty stomach settles like a lead weight. Arya became my sister when I was twelve and ended up in the same foster home as her, Tucker, Miles, and Dayton. The family we lived with was better than some of the other foster families I had stayed with in the past. We never went without food and always had a bed to sleep in, though they made it clear from the beginning that we were not a part of their family, they had kids of their own and were only doing their duty as god-fearing people by taking in unwanted children.
And each of us had been passed along through the system so often at that point we were use to being the outcasts, so we formed our own family within that family, until one day we came home from school and found out that Arya, who had just turned thirteen was being adopted by a couple that lived out of state. By that weekend she was gone, leaving all of us who were helpless to do anything to keep her from going.
For the first year after she was adopted, we would get letters in the mail from her almost weekly, but eventually those letters started to come fewer and farther between until they stopped all together with no explanation as to why. That’s when Tucker, Miles, Dayton, and I made a pact that as soon as we aged out of the system, we would track her down.
Only we had no idea at that time what we would uncover when we did finally find her.
“Clay.” A hand lands on my back. I snap out of my thoughts and look at Dayton who has moved from the island to stand next to me. “Did you hear what I asked?”
“No.” I finish my water then walk across the kitchen and drop the bottle in the recycle bin.
“I asked if you checked the chats to see if this woman you stepped in for had been requested by someone?”
“I checked last night, and couldn’t find anything.”
“I’m still not sure they were tagging her,” Miles says from the couch across the room. “Over the last few months numerous car thefts have taken place, and in the cases where those cars are recovered before they could be scrapped, there’s been a tag just like the one you found yesterday.”
“That doesn’t explain the two guys waiting for her outside the liquor store.”