Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
As I removed the key fob to my Gladiator truck, the Hydro Blue Pearl paint gleaming in the sunlight, footsteps approached from behind. A hand gripped my shoulder. I pivoted. Muscle memory sent the other man—whom some would call my second oldest brother, Leith—stumbling back a few paces when my hands slammed his chest. “Don’t touch me, lad.” I made a joke of their dialect.
“Lad?” Leith scoffed, scrubbing a hand through his blond crew cut. “Okay, I get it. You’re not Scottish anymore. You’re just some random American.”
“Yep. It’s rather simple, really. Did you come out to discuss that? I thought I made myself clear when I walked out of their house. And”—my head tilted—“when I stood from that rollaway chair in your father’s office and sent it crashing through the French doors. Yeah, that just about sums it up?”
I should’ve walked away. But Leith might be the only MacKenzie boy I still loved. I wanted to love Jake, but who could love a shrink? Baby Jake hadn’t even started his supervised clinical hours and already seemed annoying. Therapists got in your head too much. Besides, out of my older brothers, Leith never condoned the weapons and drug trafficking. He wasn’t so … bad.
As if he sensed it, too, Leith took a step forward. A muscle worked under his jaw. “Listen, I won’t say you’re breaking Mam’s heart.”
“Nan, you mean?” I referred to the woman by the name most everyone in Southern California called her. Most everyone who wasn’t on her hit list. When Nan MacKenzie wasn’t the matriarch of the Scottish mob, she baked delicious cookies.
That muscle jumped again. Leith put his hands together, breathing deeply. “We aren’t your enemy. Even though you disappeared for the last seven years. Almost a decade! The same blood running through my veins is—”
“I wish …” I stepped close enough for my nose to press down against Leith. Yes, I’d grown much taller and loved it. At six seven—and now two hundred twenty pounds of raw muscle thanks to my seven-year career as a Marine, eventually becoming a Raider—I no longer felt like a reed blowing in the wind. Because of my time in the military, my presence dominated any space I occupied. “I once wished I were never born. After Uncle Nolan rescued me when I was six, I was this weak thing, not even human. A clingy parasite not fit for life.”
“That’s not how anyone saw—”
“ ‘Make sure Jamie takes his pills.’ ‘Make sure the boy uses his breathing techniques.’ ‘Little Brody, if you’re gonna watch people hump on the telly and Jamie’s home, don’t do it in the den. Do it in your room, son.’ ” I mimicked Mam as best as I could with a much deeper baritone. “Your mother admonished Brody about his viewing choices when I was fourteen, I believe. I’d trembled while standing in the archway to the den. She’d just skinned tatties for bangers and mash. Little Brody had some R-rated movie on. I suppose other fourteen-year-olds hid magazines under their bed while I couldn’t move, except for how my entire body trembled uncontrollably.” A laugh barked from my tensed lips.
“That was then, Jamie. You’re the big three-oh. Thirty. A grown man. You’ve had a girlfriend.” Dude’s expression showed uncertainty.
“Listen, I don’t understand you all’s need for an intervention. I haven’t crossed paths with anyone in Clan MacKenzie in over seven years …” A flash of a memory made my eyes close. Devi … I didn’t save that girl. That asinine prostitute, with corky hair and a mouth that soured compared to her honey skin. But now, there was someone else I could rescue. I tapped my knuckles against Leith’s chest. “I could use your help, actually.”
“What is it? Anything,” Leith promised. In his early forties, he was now dependable. Had a good head on his shoulders ever since he met his wife—they were kids then. He wasn’t involved in all Clan MacKenzie affairs. His parents’ Sundays were spent at church, while their basement hosted torture fests for the rest of the week.
I glared at the distant sun and then met Leith’s gaze. “What if the MacKenzies knew that my abductor …? What if—?”
“The MacKenzies. Jamie, you are a Mac—” Leith slammed his own mouth shut.
“Listen to me, Leith.” I roughed a hand over my face, feeling the cool breeze from the coast, but it couldn’t lower the anger that rose into a heated rage. “What if your parents knew I wasn’t the only child my abductor had taken? What if those Scottish mobsters knew about the others?”
Leith paced the sidewalk, striking one hand against the other. “What others!”
“Weans, as your mother would say; other chil—”
“Are you off your medication?” came another voice, deep with accusation. “And what do you mean, Leith’s mam?”
I threw a quick glance at Little Brody, who scratched at his beard. Ahh, the clan’s namesake wouldn’t sit this one out. So predictable.