Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
All that I knew was I was alone with my pain and filth, and then there were people. Saving me.
Except I was already gone.
I was expecting Colby to be the one bursting in, getting to me first. But it was Hades.
And I was glad for it. Or at least I thought I was.
Glad... A good feeling. It couldn’t have been that.
He’d said things, Hades. Things that made my heartbeat steady somewhat. He was almost … gentle. Which was funny considering he was the scariest biker of them all, covered in tattoos and emanating a general air of death that had nothing to do with his name.
It was nice, though. Having death unchain me. I didn’t feel quite as dirty and ruined as I would’ve if Colby saw me like this.
Chained up like a dog.
COLBY
They’d already incapacitated Elijah. Or Beau. Whatever the fuck. He was bloody, unarmed and chained up.
Like Sariah had been chained up. Bleeding on the concrete.
I couldn’t think of her like that.
My eyes raked over him. The man we’d all overlooked. The one we’d underestimated. Yeah, we thought he was going to bring problems for the club, and we’d been planning on taking care of him one way or another.
But we’d fucked around. Because we were focusing on finding the fuck who was hurting women, and that was priority.
We’d found him now. But it was too late.
He had blood on his hands.
A lot of it.
It was hers.
He was coated in her blood. It even stained his mouth.
I no longer felt cold, empty or determined. I’d been determined to find Sariah alive, had turned off all emotions in order to do that. And now that I’d found her alive … barely. Fuck, I wasn’t even the one who found her. One of her friends did, half a country away. I’d done nothing. I didn’t find her. Didn’t protect her.
My fists were crunching against his flesh in the blink of an eye, hot rage taking over me. I had only one need right now: to kill the man who’d hurt my woman.
I’d killed before, but not for pleasure. Out of necessity. For the club. It never made me feel good. Fuck, it made me sick for a week after.
But the only thing I felt while watching him bleed, watching his face cave in, was pure satisfaction.
Until someone fucking pulled me off him.
In the end, it took multiple someones.
I fought them like a fucking animal because that’s what I was. I was a rabid beast with only one purpose.
Hansen took hold of my neck while Jagger had my hands behind my back. “Lock it down,” my president told me through his teeth.
I struggled to get out of Jagger’s hold as Elijah/Beau groaned behind Hansen, proving that I was not. Done. Yet.
“Colby,” Hansen said, louder this time. “The time for him will come. But you only have one chance to be there for your woman right now. You make the choice to prioritize revenge over her and you’ll regret it forever.”
His words filtered in slowly, fighting against all of my instincts to kill.
He was right. Choosing to kill Elijah now would be a path I could never come back from.
“Let me go,” I demanded, trying again to jerk my arms from Jagger’s hold.
Hansen searched my face, as if he were gauging something.
“Let me the fuck go,” I repeated, sucking in a breath, forcing a steady exhale. “That choice is mine to make.”
Hansen nodded to Jagger who released my arms.
Then I made my choice.
SARIAH
He finally appeared.
I’d been expecting it. Dreading it.
Hours ago, I’d been hoping for it. Praying for it. For him.
But that time had come and gone.
Hades had held me in his arms while Hansen had gone over my many wounds with a pale face, saying I needed to get out of there stat.
I was guessing that even field surgery wasn’t an option at this point. That was a relief.
Maybe I’d die on the way to the hospital.
It was a comforting thought.
The air was chilly when we walked out of the warehouse, an icy bite against all the holes in my body.
There were a bunch of bikes everywhere along with the club van.
I tried my best to avert my eyes from the men milling around. I didn’t need to see their faces. The pity, the fury, the worry, the disgust.
Hades was the only person who hadn’t looked at me differently. Who didn’t make me want to crawl into a hole and die.
I burrowed closer into his cut with what little strength I had.
We stopped walking.
Or more accurately, someone stopped us.
“I got her.”
I froze at Colby’s voice. It was thick with emotion. Intense. Sounding deeper and older than it had been before.
It hit me like a Mack truck, and I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
“You got it locked down?” Hades asked. His voice was even, the same tenor I’d heard from him the few times I’d been around him socially. That made me feel ... better, if that was possible. At least the state of me hadn’t rattled this man. He’d seen worse. I wasn’t the worst. I tried to hold on to that.