Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 102335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Scrubbing my face clean of the tears, I massage on moisturizer, before starting on my makeup. Makeup is the ultimate concealer for life. If only they gave something similar for the bruises people leave on your battered soul.
I’m just finishing up my lips and moving my hair to one side when my phone chimes from a text message.
This weekend. I need you.
My blood boils, but I swing off a text anyway. Sure. I will be there.
Because I have no other fucking choice. And he knows that.
Sweeping up my bag and phone, I make my way out of the house, where my G 63 is parked, with Tony on one side and another soldier on the other.
“You ready?” Tony asks, opening the back door.
“As I’ll ever be.”
He drives us over to central Chicago. I have never been to the Wolf Pack MC headquarters, or whatever it is they called it before, and I never thought I actually would be. Why the hell else would I need to be at some washed-up fucking biker bar where crusty old men lie?
No thanks.
Catch me at a bar downtown before you’d catch me here.
We pull to a tall, wired gate. It doesn’t look run-down, or even neglected. Immediately not what I expected, but it does look private. You can’t see in or out of that thing.
A young guy dressed in a black vest with no patches comes to the driver’s side window. “They’re in the back. Drive straight through to the left, past the clubhouse. You’ll see a small dirt road which will lead you farther down and into a barn.”
A barn—great.
“No problem.” The gate opens and Tony drives us in. The closer I get, the more my breathing feels labored. As if I’m wearing a shirt too tight and I can’t get in enough oxygen. Fuck. I should have taken a Valium.
Directly in front of us is a large building, which I’m guessing is the clubhouse. There’s an iron sign on the front that has the words Wolf Pack embossed into the metal, ahead of a porch with chairs scattered around it. A sliding door opens up to the inside, to what I’m guessing is a really fucking big space, and in front are where bikes line up perfectly. To the left is what looks like a fighting ring, or cage, and to the right is parking for cars.
Tony directs us to the left and around the corner of the clubhouse.
“Jesus fucking Christ—” Tony says, and I shuffle in front to see what he’s seeing. A barn is hidden behind thick shrubs of trees, and cars are parked haphazardly at the front. Limo, black, sleek, and European.
This isn’t good.
“What is happening? I don’t like going in blind.” Before the car can stop, Val walks out, waving our car toward the barn door, where it’s wide open. I can’t see anything inside but the cars and bikes at the front, some fallen over. Dead giveaway of the kind of chaos that has happened here.
The car stops, and before Tony can come around to open my door, I slide out and slam it closed behind me, glaring at Val.
“Seriously? What the fuck am I doing here, Val? You fuck a biker’s woman? Hmm?” I flick his chest and roll my eyes, stepping over the wet ground. Puddles of blood are meshed with the mud and I turn around, glaring at Val again. “I’m going to kill you.”
“Look, I know, but listen! Lala!”
I spin around as he grabs my arm. “I need to warn you what’s inside, because it’s not pretty.”
“Really?” I snap. “Well, neither am I!”
Val rolls his eyes. “Girl, shut up. No, but seriously.” His hands are on my arm and I search his eyes, looking for a sign. Anything. “This is bad. It’s Gio, he got your—” I don’t let him finish the sentence before I push away from him and head into the barn, my heart racing in my chest. What the fuck have you done, Gio?
I enter through the doors and pause when I see the pile of bodies lying in the middle on top of each other.
“Okay. Someone needs to tell me what the fuck is going on.”
I turn to the side, where I see a group of men, all bikers. One older, one slightly younger and attractive. He grins at me and I narrow my eyes. Okay, more than attractive, and then an even younger one beside him. “Anyone? Why the fuck am I here?”
“Because of me, principessa…”
At the sound of his voice, I spin around. It can’t be. There have been times during my life where I have thought that maybe it was wrong. Something was wrong.
“Papa?” I freeze when I see him standing on the other side, his suit soiled with blood and his cheek cut. I run toward him, my arms flying around the back of his neck to pull him into me. Even now, as a grown woman in four-inch heels, I whimper in my father’s embrace. “What is happening?”