Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Easily distracted,” Sully said with a smile as he pulled me out to the common room, then over to the poker table. “Want to play?”
“I don’t know how,” I admitted. “So, we’ll play in a team,” he suggested, waving over a few of the guys as they came out with their plates.
Then we spent the next two hours playing poker, talking, laughing.
And it was so surprisingly… easy.
There was none of the usual awkwardness I felt in social interactions. Because, unlike in those past situations, for some reason, I didn’t feel like an outsider here. Even if, objectively, I was far more out of place in their clubhouse than I had ever been anywhere else in my life.
“Four of a kind,” Rune said, laying down his cards on the table next to an alarmingly large pot.
“Wait, so… you’re sure?” I whispered in Sully’s ear as I looked down at the cards in my hands.
“Positive,” he said. “And do me a favor and gloat about it,” he added. “Rune has kicked my ass the last four times we played.”
Taking a deep breath, I lowered my hand to the table dramatically. “I might be mistaken, but I think this is a royal flush,” I said, beaming at the look of shock on Rune’s face.
Then I leaned forward, gathering the pot, and scooping it toward me.
“You won’t be needing this.”
“You gotta play Layna next,” Croft said.
“Why Layna?” I asked, looking at Sully.
“Layna is a professional poker player,” he told me.
“That’s a job?” I asked.
“Believe it or not, yeah. There are big matches all around the world. With the kind of pots that could change lives.”
“Wow. That’s really cool. But I don’t think I will be playing Layna anytime soon, then.”
It was right about then that the club’s president came in, zeroing in on Sully.
“I should go get dressed,” I said, even if my day clothes and sleep clothes were practically identical. Fallon clearly wanted to talk to Sully. So I needed to excuse myself.
“And then… bread?” Dezi asked.
“Yes, then bread. But, remember, it’s going to have to rise for a while before I can bake it.”
Sully reached to give my hand a squeeze. Was it thanks for knowing to excuse myself? Or reassurance that everything was okay, even if Fallon looked particularly tense?
I had no idea.
But I moved off down the hallway, dropping down onto Sully’s bed, suddenly in desperate need of a nap on a bed after sleeping in a cramped position on the couch for only a few stolen hours that morning.
Dezi was just going to have to wait a couple more hours for his bread.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sully
I looked down at the phone Fallon placed in front of me on the poker table. It was a brick wall I recognized as one of the ones at Redemption, the bar owned by Fallon and his wife.
And on the brick wall, graffiti.
It was rough but intricate, featuring a bloody scene that depicted one crew being killed by another group.
“You think this is related?” I asked, brows lowered.
“I don’t know. But I don’t think someone went from trying to blow you and some innocent girl up to just running with his tail tucked. If this is a threat, I want to know.”
“And if it’s just a couple of idiot kids…”
“I want to scare the shit out of them, little fucks,” Fallon said with an amused smirk.
Being a former hellion himself, he had a soft spot for troublemakers. But as the third-generation president of an outlaw biker club, he couldn’t let neighborhood kids think they could tag anything belonging to the club and get away with it.
“Your cameras didn’t catch this?”
“Something knocked the camera in the other direction before it happened.”
“Honestly, it sounds more like—“ I started, but was cut off by several loud pop pop pops.
Normally, my instinct would be to grab a gun and head outside, to face the threat, to defend the club.
As the others did that, though, I found myself running down the hall and into my room, finding Bonnie had dropped down off of the bed, her shoulders up by her ears, her hands on her head.
“Come with me,” I demanded, grabbing a gun out of my drawer.
When I glanced back, her head was shaking side to side, her body trembling.
“Okay. Alright. I need to move you,” I said, rushing toward her as there were more pops outside.
What the fuck was going on?
“I got you,” I said, leaning down, scooping her up, and running out of the room.
The bedrooms in the clubhouse were windowless and reinforced for a reason. She could be safe from a stray bullet in there. But if we were about to be invaded, I wanted her somewhere damn near impossible to infiltrate.
“Layna!” I yelled when I found the door already barred. “Bonnie needs in.”
The door flew open, whacking into me with its force.