Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Swallowing hard, I turned back to her tablet.
He told me their president had been killed, and the members of the MC had scattered.
But that bartender? He was the break I needed. He knew a bunch of their names and gave them to me willingly. With a shrug of his shoulder. Though he told me he doubted that I was going to find any of them since they all had disappeared months before and no one had a clue where they’d gone.
I wasn’t deterred. I searched every name associated with Iron Owls that he’d given me until I finally found one that might have matched the face I remembered.
A mug shot from an arrest for petty theft when he was nineteen.
Kane Asher. Except just like that bartender had told me, the man had disappeared. There was no trace of him anywhere. No known address or social media or a mention of his existence.
I basically gave up hope on finding him, which meant I gave up hope on finding Jana. That sinking acceptance only grew as the years passed.
There was no question she was gone.
Forever.
So, I tried to move on and live. Tried to get you—my sweet, beautiful sister—to move on with me. Only you were stuck there, in that time, too traumatized to move forward with our dreams.
And my store, or our store, which is the way I’ll always consider it, was a testament to that. Moving on. Living when we’d been given another chance to.
I’d grown almost content with it.
At least coming to a concession that I was going to have to live with the loss.
Until years later, when I was on vacation with my friends at a ski resort in Northern California. In a town called Moonlit Ridge.
There was a club there called Kane’s. I’d laughed at myself when I got a buzz of anticipation. That feeling of desperation I’d felt to find Jana coming back at me in a torrent of sensation. I told myself I was being ridiculous. It was just a name.
Except, it wasn’t just a name.
I saw him.
I saw him across the club.
It was him. I’d never been so sure of anything in my life.
I felt Kane flinch as he was taken to this point in time, both our hearts drumming as we prepared ourselves for what she would reveal.
There was something so inherently dangerous about him. The way he moved. The glint of something menacing when he grinned.
Maybe I’d been an idiot. Sidling up to his side to flirt with him. Giving him only half my name. But I thought it was the only way I might be able to get to know him. To see if he was as wicked as he looked or if he had any of the goodness I’d sworn he’d exhibited that night.
Honestly, I was terrified that I had made it all up. That maybe my consciousness had turned a beast into a savior as a way to protect my heart and mind.
But what had compelled me forward was the idea that he might have information on Jana. Even if he knew she was gone, at least we’d have closure.
So I slept with him as a means to an end.
Not that he wasn’t gorgeous. But it wasn’t attraction that had brought me to him. It was the desperation to get close enough to him that I could find something.
Except, the man was a fortified fortress. A wall of secrets and easy grins.
I finally found myself alone in his office, so I searched for…anything.
I would never forget the chill that filled the room when he found me doing it. The steely rage that had emanated from him.
I wanted to blurt it. Tell him why I was really there, and a vacation fling wasn’t it. But I still wasn’t sure that I trusted him enough to do it.
Turmoil spun through Kane, and he held me closer as he released his regret. “I remember that. I found her hunting around in my office. It instantly put me on guard, and I kicked her out. Told her to never come back.”
“You didn’t know,” I whispered.
“But I should’ve looked closer. Should have given her a chance to explain.”
“I’m not sure she would have if she wasn’t confident about who you were.”
Which we both knew he wouldn’t have given her since he couldn’t let anyone in.
No one until me.
And then, when I found out I was pregnant, everything changed. My goals. The reason I was living. I thought to go to him and tell him, but I still wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure that he could be trusted. I should have left it at that. Went on and just cherished the gift I’d been given.
But every time there was a report of another young girl going missing? I couldn’t stop the clutch of my stomach. This sickness that I’d feel at the thought of someone else going through what we had. No way to stop myself from imagining the things that Jana must have suffered.