Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Her hair spills across my chest like honey. I touch it carefully, afraid to wake her. It's so soft, it barely feels real. Nothing about this feels real.
Not the linen sheets. Not the moonlight streaming through windows without bars. Not the woman sleeping in my arms like I'm something worth holding onto.
Especially not the choice I've already made.
Mercy's getting her shot. The education, the horses, the chance to be something more than a Kane. The chance to break the curse that's followed our bloodline for generations.
And Savannah... Savannah gets her freedom. From Marcus. From her brothers. From her mother's ghost and all those photographs.
From me.
She mumbles something in her sleep, burrowing closer. I wrap my arm around her, holding her tight against me. Memorizing the weight of her. The smell of her hair. The way her breath feels against my skin.
Outside, an owl calls into the darkness. Another answers. They speak a language I don't understand, but it sounds like a warning.
I close my eyes, not to sleep but to focus. To remember this moment exactly as it is. To burn it into my memory alongside all the other things I've lost.
All the other things I've walked away from.
All the other things I've destroyed.
The tally marks on my collarbone seem to itch.
Like they're waiting for me to add another.
One more debt I'll never repay.
One more sin that can't be washed away.
One more time I should die, but won't.
I ease myself from beneath Savannah's sleeping form, careful not to wake her. Her body shifts, seeking my warmth, then settles back into the expensive sheets with a sigh. The floorboards don't creak here—nothing in the Ashby mansion announces itself. Nothing betrays.
The moon hangs low over the eastern pasture, spilling silver across acres of land that will never know my footprints. I stand at the window, bare-chested, watching my reflection watch me back. The brand over my heart stands out, the angry red starting to turn white now.
I trace the invisible 'B' with my fingertips. The skin puckers under my touch, sensitive and wrong. I remember the sizzle of my flesh, the smell of burning skin, Brick's eyes shining with pride when I didn't scream. When I took it like a man.
Like a brother.
Beyond the glass, Ashby land stretches for miles in perfectly maintained fences and manicured fields. The stables stand silent in the distance, housing horses worth more than I can even comprehend. Nothing here knows hunger or need. Nothing here understands survival.
I place my palm flat against the cool window, marking the barrier between my world and hers. The glass feels cold and unyielding. Like the truth.
After dinner, Mercy showed me the Rimrock catalog. Her small fingers traced over pictures of girls in plaid skirts clustered around a science display. Her eyes had widened with excitement as she described the paleontology club and their collection of real dinosaur bones.
"They have an actual triceratops skull, Legion. And they let the kids touch it!"
She'd never had possibilities in the trailer. Just survival—instant noodles, second-hand clothes, and learning to shoot before even being legally allowed to hunt. Her whole life, watching doors close before she even knew they existed.
I glance back at Savannah. She could have anyone—a man with clean hands and a clean record. Someone who wouldn't drag death and danger behind him like a shadow. Someone who belongs in this house, with its crystal glasses and imported rugs.
The brand stretches when I move. Tight and taut, reminding me of the promise I made. The brotherhood that took me in when no one else would. The life that fits a man with my history, my violence, my particular set of skills.
I turn back to the window, seeing my reflection merge with the distant mountains pressing my forehead against the glass, feeling the cold seep into my skin. I don't belong here among linen sheets and security systems. I belong in the dirt with my brothers, doing the ugly work that keeps the wheels turning. This brief taste of another life was never meant to last.
Just a fever dream.
Just one more thing to lose.
Back downstairs in my room, I dress in darkness, jeans, t-shirt, boots.
Moonlight spills through tall windows, illuminating the Ashby dynasty in silver frames. Eleanor's eyes follow me from every photograph, knowing and possessive. I don't look at them directly. Some ghosts are better left undisturbed.
The kitchen is all granite and stainless steel, everything cold and perfect. The landline hangs on the wall—old school, like something from another time. My fingers dial without hesitation, the number etched into my bones since I was seventeen, desperate to belong somewhere.
Three rings before Diesel answers, his voice rough with sleep or whiskey or both. "Yeah?"
"It's me," I keep my voice low, though no one in this house would hear a gunshot through these thick walls. "I need a ride."