Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“Jeff, why?” I whispered, shivering.
“I wasn’t planning to lose it,” he replied, his voice cracked and hopeless. “I thought I could win it back, make it up somehow. Or that maybe I could hide it in the wire transfers…”
“Shut the fuck up,” Picnic said, smacking the side of his head with his free hand. “You don’t talk club business. Even when you’re about to die.”
I whimpered, feeling myself start to tremble.
“There’s another way,” Horse said to me, still casual. “Paying in blood can mean different things.”
“He doesn’t need to die for that to happen,” I said, thinking quickly. “Maybe you could burn down our trailer!”
I smiled at him encouragingly. Fuck the trailer, I wanted Jeff safe. And me. Oh shit, if they killed Jeff they’d have to kill me too.
I was a witness. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck!
“Oh, we’re gonna do that no matter what,” he drawled. “But that’s not blood. I can think of something that is though.”
“What?” Jeff asked, his voice full of desperate hope. “I’ll do anything, I swear. If you give me a chance I’ll crack so many accounts for you, you won’t believe what we can accomplish. I’ll stop smoking, that’ll clear my head, I’ll do a better job…”
His voice trailed off as Horse laughed, and the mohawk guy shook his head and grinned at Picnic.
“You believe this asshole?” he asked. “Seriously, douche, you aren’t making a very good case for yourself, telling us just how much you been slacking.”
Jeff whimpered. I wanted to go to him, to hold him and comfort him, but I was too scared.
Horse stretched his neck, dipping his head to each side, and then cracked his knuckles like he was warming up for a fight. Kind of made me think of an episode of The Sopranos, which would have been funny as hell if I didn’t happen to know how that episode ended.
“Let’s get a couple of things clear,” Horse said after a pause that lasted approximately ten years. “We’re not going to hurt you, Marie.”
“You aren’t?” I asked, not sure if I believed him. Jeff listened anxiously, blinking rapidly against the moisture in his eyes. I watched as a trickle of sweat rolled down his forehead, making a track through the still-oozing blood.
“Nope,” Horse said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, we aren’t pissed at you. This isn’t about you. You’ll keep your mouth shut about this if you want to survive, and you’re smart enough to know that. That’s not why you’re here.”
“Why am I here?”
“So you can see just how seriously fucked your brother is,” he replied. “Because we’re going to kill him if he doesn’t find a way to pay us back. I think he might be able to pull it off with the proper motivation.”
“I will,” Jeff babbled. “I’ll pay you back all of it, thank you so much—”
“No, you’ll pay us back twice as much, fuckwad,” Picnic said, kicking him viciously in the side with his heavy leather boot. Jeff pitched to the floor, keening in pain, and I flinched. “That’s if we let you live, which is entirely up to your sister. If it weren’t for her you’d be dead already.”
My eyes flew to Picnic’s face. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I’d do anything to save Jeff. Anything at all. He was the only real family I had left, and while he was a dumbass, he was also a sweetheart who truly loved me.
“I’ll do it,” I said quickly.
Horse snorted, his eyes wandering down my body, lingering on my boobs, then trailing back up to my face. I realized the rest of the groceries had fallen to the floor and my fists were clenched tightly.
“Don’t you want to ask what it is first?” he said dryly.
“Um, sure,” I said, studying him. How could such a beautiful man be so cruel? I’d felt how gentle his hands could be, where was this coming from? Real people, people who laughed and shared meals together, didn’t act this way. Not in my world. “What do I have to do?”
“It seems Horse here wants a house mouse,” Picnic said. I looked at him blankly. He shot an annoyed look at Horse. “She’s clueless, you sure about this? Seems like work to me.”
Mohawk guy smirked as Horse narrowed his eyes at Picnic. Tension filled the room and I realized that contrary to what I would have thought, things could probably get a lot worse pretty fast. What if they turned on each other? Then Picnic shrugged.
“This is your option,” Horse said to me abruptly. “You want to keep dumbass alive, pack a bag and climb on my bike when we leave. You do what I tell you, when I tell you, no questions and no bitching.”
“Why?” I asked blankly.
“So you can cook dessert for me,” he snapped. Mohawk man burst out laughing. My mouth dropped open—all this for dessert? I knew he liked sweets, but I didn’t get it. Horse shook his head at me, wearing that frustrated look he got around me sometimes, like he thought I was a crazy woman.