Total pages in book: 174
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
It was bad enough, her being within a thousand miles of me. Her goodness too great to be tainted by the scum that I was. But there was nothing I could do but bring her into the shelter of my home.
Protect her.
Give her anything she needed or wanted.
Except what she was asking of me…
My throat nearly closed off, and I focused on the last bend before the road opened to the slumbering town of Moonlit Ridge below. All the businesses were closed for the night except for the few bars that glowed their neon signs and invited people to dip their toes into a little debauchery.
The red sign for Kane’s gleamed up ahead, and I slowed to take the left into the parking lot of the enormous stone building. Its towering spires disappeared into the endless expanse above, riding so high they appeared to touch the stars.
Kane had converted the old church into a club when we first settled in Moonlit Ridge close to seven years ago. The perfect cover for the business we attended to.
My bike chugged and rumbled as I wound around the side of the building.
The row that ran along the wall was reserved for motorcycles. It appeared all my brothers were already there, their bikes facing out, the metal glinting and gleaming in the shower of moonlight like a warning of who was lurking inside.
Men who were not to be toyed with, but few had any clue what that really meant. How deep our ruthlessness went. How we’d been carved in violence from the beginning, but we’d somehow taken that cruelty and turned it toward righteous vengeance.
Slowing to a stop, I planted my boots on the pitted gravel so I could walk my bike backward between River and Theo’s. Dull lamps hung from the walls and cast a murky glow out into the rambling stretch of cars and trucks that filled the lot.
I kicked the stand, killed the engine, then raked a hand through my hair as I swung off.
Resituating the disorder that the wind had whipped it into, though more so hoping it would do something to quell my fried nerves.
My mind fucked and twisted, tied on the woman and those kids who I left at my house. Did my best to remind myself to focus and not to go slipping because I had business to attend to.
I couldn’t afford to get distracted.
I was always on the straight and narrow. Never straying from the permanent path I chiseled out for myself.
Forcing myself to move, I followed along the side of the building toward the entrance at the front.
The thud of the bass from the dance music playing inside beat against the walls and reverberated out into the night.
I rounded the corner and bounded up the five long steps that fronted the building.
Jonah manned the massive double doors. He was one of the bouncers at Kane’s who helped Sovereign Sanctum with security outside of his nightly duties at the club. We’d had to bring him on the inside six months ago after he witnessed some shit go down at The Sanctuary Motel that Theo owned.
We used the motel as a cover for housing the women and children we brought under our protection before we got them to their new permanent homes.
Jonah was now fully invested.
“What’s up, brother?” he asked with a lift of his chin.
“Not much,” I grunted, the same thing as I always gave him, which tonight wasn’t even close to being the truth.
“Rest of your crew is already here and waiting in Kane’s office.”
“Thanks,” I said as I angled into the pulsing duskiness of the club.
The place was packed shoulder to shoulder. Always was on a Saturday night. People filled every space, and the dance floor writhed with bodies. Lights strobed from above and glinted off long, vertical stained-glass windows that sat up high on the cavernous ceiling.
They sent glittering flashes of color over the faces of the people below.
A haze clung to the air. A sense of barely bridled chaos and mayhem that crawled through the atmosphere.
I shouldered through, cutting into the middle of the masses and winding my way toward the hallway at the far-left corner of the building.
People parted, making me room, as if they sensed the threat I emitted.
There was a large booth at the very back that was always reserved for our family, though now it was empty since it was a rare occasion the women were here on a Saturday night. Women who had changed the face of our secret society.
But more so, women who had completely changed my brothers.
Without slowing, I hooked the left at the narrow, long hall and strode to the end. I rapped an impatient fist on the door to the right.
“Who’s there?” Otto sang from the other side like the goofy motherfucker he was.