Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Bracer’s eyes widen, but he’s silent as he straightens back up, assessing me in silence. I hate the judgment in his little smirk.
“Oh that’s just fucking precious. What a joke. You threw your life away for dick?”
His words are like a slap to the face. He has no idea how deep my connection with Road goes. He isn’t just some dick. He’s my lifeline. I might be as dead as the bodies next to me in the eyes of my club, but I’ve got no doubt that if I show up on his doorstep, he’ll pull me in for a hug and work something out. He cares about me in ways Bracer can’t fathom.
I’m not about to tell this prick any of that.
“It is what it is,” I say noncommittally, so I can keep the cards close to my chest and see what I can gain here. He did mention that I could be of use.
Bracer sneers. “So you don’t have a meaningful connection to the Vultures. I might as well have shot you.”
“Wait! No. I’m a dead man now. I’ve got no way back and nothing to lose. You want my uncle gone? I can do that. He won’t see me coming.”
“If you’re lying, and you think you’ll just disappear on me with your lover boy, know that I will find you. And I’d shoot him first.”
Not a hollow threat, as I recall a Butcher who went off-grid for three years back when I was a kid. He was found in Louisiana, and executed for betrayal. Bracer has his ways, and I’d be living with eyes in the back of my head, worried that one day Road won’t come back to wherever we call home.
But can I commit to assassinating my uncle? I never had love for Puck, but even killing him was a split-second decision not cold-blooded murder.
Then again, whatever gets me out of the position I’m in now works. I could regroup, find Road, reassess our situation, and maybe even snitch on Bracer. I know I’m done for in my club, but if I gave my uncle an actual rat’s head on a platter, maybe he’d let go of the vendetta against Roy’s killer. Or at least I’d be able to disappear with Road without a price on our heads. For all the rest of the Butchers know, I’m dead.
“I’m not lying.” A lie detector might beg to differ, but there isn’t one here. “I’ll get to him for you and disappear.”
Bracer smirks and gestures for me to get up. “Don’t be seen anywhere in public.”
Relief floods my heart even though this is hardly the end of my trouble. It’s a step in the right direction. I jump off the truck under Bracer’s watchful eye.
“Take that off. You’re not a Butcher anymore.”
I realize he means my vest with club colors, and even though I have so little love for my club brothers at this point, I’m reluctant to take it off. My identity has been tied to this club for so long I struggle to understand who I will be without it.
Just… Clyde?
I swallow and take off the cut, struggling to say goodbye to it. It feels like getting skinned. I’ve got no doubt this wound will bleed for years to come, if I’m lucky enough to live that long.
I throw the vest to the bed of the truck, right by Bracer’s boots. He shakes his head and points to a motorcycle in the corner of the garage.
“You can take it,” he says like some benevolent fucking king. I guess beggars can’t be choosers, but it does hurt that I’m losing my Harley too. I know that baby inside out, unlike the piece of junk I’m headed for.
When the keys fly toward me, my feet feel like I’m wearing concrete boots. But he’s watching me, so I can’t show weakness, no matter how sick this situation makes me. Nausea coils in my stomach when I grab the handlebars and raise my leg, praying I don’t embarrass myself by stumbling as I mount the motorbike, but then I’m in the saddle, and the key goes into the ignition.
Bracer’s watchful eyes seek out any cracks in my armor, and I stiffen when the engine doesn’t immediately come back to life. I’m about to scream when it kicks in, and I drive out without looking over my shoulder. My stomach tightens, as if it wants to cuddle up to my spine, half-expecting a bullet to hit the back of my head after all. As if this was all a stupid game to Bracer. But nothing happens, and I ride past the gates of the crematorium, bursting out onto the empty road cutting through the fields.
My hands are damp with sweat by the time I’m in the woods, too far for him to see me, and my body gives up trying to pretend everything’s fine. I brake so fast I avoid falling on my face by a narrow margin, but then I’m bending to the side and emptying my stomach into the grass as tension jerks my body in frantic heaves.