Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Marcy continued her forward assault as well, hand-to-hand combat, sweeping the legs out from under another bodyguard. Thompson shot her multiple times, emptying his weapon into her, all the while yelling at his men to take Ambrie down.
It was Gleb and his partner, Denis, who managed to take her legs out from under her so she hit the floor hard, landing in the river of her mother’s blood, staring into her wide-open eyes. Gleb kept his knee hard in the small of her back as he did so. She didn’t move or speak, but watched the life go out of her mother.
“You’re coming home with me. Your clothes are already packed. The license is in place, and we’ve got a very willing pastor to perform the ceremony, so it will be in a fucking church. How do you like that, Ambrielle?” Walker Thompson laughed as he led the way out of her parents’ home.
Gleb and Denis had to carry her because when they forced her to stand, she erupted into kicking and fighting. When she started screaming, they injected her with something that made her world turn black.
THREE
The Torpedo Ink clubhouse was usually a place of comfort for Master, a sign of freedom and brotherhood, even if at times he did feel apart from the others. He knew his brothers and sisters accepted him, whether he thought they knew him or not. To those in the club, he was one of them, and they would fight to the death for him. That was how deep their loyalty ran. He felt the same way about them.
The clubhouse was very large and overlooked the ocean. The sound of the waves breaking against sea-stacks and the bluffs was a constant melody that never faded into the background, not even when they held one of their important meetings. Czar had called them together, and fortunately, the room was spacious, a good thing after Master had spent far too much time in the small prison cell feeling as if he were unable to breathe. He still felt that way.
He was a big man, and sometimes—especially after he’d been incarcerated—he could barely stand to be inside four walls no matter how sizable the space was. The large windows facing the ocean and the crashing waves helped to create the illusion of being outside, but he still felt as if he couldn’t get a decent lungful of air, especially when every one of his brothers and sisters arrived and took a seat around the large oval-shaped table.
Czar opened the meeting immediately, not waiting for them to finish their usual bantering with one another, which Master was grateful for. He didn’t ever feel like talking with anyone when he first got out. He needed to be alone and get back under control. He was two people, and he needed to lock this one away. The one kept behind those prison bars wasn’t fit company for anyone anymore, not even his brethren. He knew this meeting was important or he wouldn’t have come.
Absinthe seated himself in the chair beside him. Master was very aware Absinthe knew him better than any of his brothers. If anyone truly saw inside him, it was Absinthe. He could hear lies. He could compel the truth. Absinthe could be a very dangerous man to anyone outside the club, but he was protective of anyone inside it. Right now, he was declaring silently that he was protecting Master should he need it. It wasn’t as if Master needed the protection for himself—it was more that Absinthe knew Master needed a shield standing in front of him to keep the others safe until he could put the beast he became in that prison away, shove him out of sight where no one could see him and no one could be in danger.
Master sat quietly, inhaling and exhaling, watching his brothers take their seats, studying their faces. Czar was stressed, an unusual situation for the president of their club. They all were. Even Steele, their vice president, had those lines carved deeper than usual. No one had ever threatened a family of Torpedo Ink before—the entire family.
They were actively hunting the Ghosts, a group of assassins out of Russia from the same schools they had been trained in, but whoever was threatening Czar wasn’t after him because of that. The woman was connected to the Ghosts, but she had her own vendetta against him, and her payback was to take out Czar’s family. Master had gotten some information, but not enough to actually find her.
This was a first for them. They were used to being hunted. They hadn’t exactly had conventional childhoods. But once they had settled in Sea Haven, no one had ever threatened their families, certainly not Czar’s. Blythe and his children were sacred. The heart of the club.