Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
“Ink,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
I brushed my lips with hers—just the lightest of touches. “Not being such a brat now, are you?” I asked her. I pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips. “No matter what, though, Jessie, I’ll always take care of you,” I promised her. I smirked down at her. “Even if you get on my fucking nerves.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Asshole.”
I spun her around to face the mirror hanging beside her bathroom door, and I wrapped my hand around her throat, yanking her body back against mine. “What was that?” I whispered in her ear.
She moaned. Fuck. I knew it. She fucking enjoyed this shit.
And I wasn’t the kind of man to leave my woman unsatisfied.
I lowered my lips to her ear, nipping lightly at her earlobe. The moan that spilled from her lips had my cock straining against my jeans. With slow, measured movements, I slid my hands down her body until I was gripping the hem of her shirt.
“Ink!” Joey roared from the other side of the door.
I jerked my head up, my blood running cold. Joey sounded panicked. That wasn’t good.
“Fuck,” I swore. I rushed over to the door and swung it open. He looked murderous, his chest rapidly rising and falling.
“Someone just fucking shot Gloria out back by the dumpsters,” he told me. “Elaina went to go take the last bit of trash out and found her bleeding out. Whiler and Sam are rushing her to the ER. I need you to pull the fucking footage.”
“What?” Jessie croaked as she came to stand beside me. I drew her into my arms, holding her tight to me as she began to cry.
“Easy, my girl,” I soothed. It was like a switch for me to fall into VP mode. I pressed my lips to Jessie’s before I slipped from my room, rushing up the hall to my own room to grab my laptop. I already had it opened and was pulling up the application that I needed to view the security feed when I made it back to Jessie’s room.
Joey was pacing her room. Elaina was standing against the wall, holding Antonio in her arms as she silently cried. I sat beside Jessie on the bed and drew her against my side, pressing my lips to the top of her head as I pulled up the security feed that showed the dumpsters.
“Did you call Alejandro?” I asked Joey. Alejandro was the leader of the Mexican Cartel and the father of Elaina’s son. Their story was a twisted, fucked-up one, but I knew he wanted tabs on everything that happened at this clubhouse because of both Elaina and his heir.
“Fuck,” he cursed as he pulled out his phone.
“Already taken care of,” Elaina told him quietly. He looked up at her. “You know how he is if something happens too close to me or Antonio, Joey,” she reminded him. “You were trying to get shit taken care of.”
He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and kissed her before he looked back over at me. “Anything?”
I shook my head. I looked up at Elaina. “About what time do you think she went outside?” I asked her. I squeezed my arm around Jessie when she sobbed. “Shh, baby,” I soothed. “She’s going to be alright.” I looked back up at Elaina, arching an eyebrow, needing an answer.
“Probably a couple of hours ago,” she told me.
Joey cursed, and I was right there with him. That was quite a bit of time.
I nodded, looking back down at the laptop. I didn’t know of anyone we had pissed off recently, and normally, people kept to themselves because of our affiliation with Alejandro and the Mexican Cartel.
I paused the video when I saw Gloria get shot from a distance. There was no way to tell where the shooter had been exactly when he shot her. I shook my head at Joey. “Nothing on the dumpster footage,” I told him.
“Fuck!” he shouted as he shoved his fingers through his hair. Both Elaina and Jessie jumped.
“I need time to look over all of the camera feeds,” I told him. “You need to go to the hospital, make sure all of Gloria’s paperwork is filled in, and wait for a doctor to come out and speak to you about her. You’re her emergency contact.” I looked down at Jessie. “Baby, you need to go with them.”
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around my waist. I brushed my lips to the top of her head. That move told me she wasn’t going anywhere without me.
“Go, Joey. I’ll let you know as soon as I find something out,” I promised him.
He nodded. “Keep her safe,” he said, pointing at his sister.
“Always,” I promised him.
5
Jessie
I felt like absolute shit the next morning. After Ink had searched all of the security feeds and couldn’t find a single damn thing, the men had even searched the grounds high and low for any kind of sign of who it may have been and where the shooter was positioned when they shot Gloria, but they had come up empty-handed.