Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 56628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Jessie jumped to her feet and rushed over to the doctor, who was still in his surgery scrubs. “I’m his sister,” she rushed out. “Is he okay?”
The doctor gave her a sad look…
And I fucking knew.
I’d lost Joey, too. My chest began to cave in before he even got the words out of his mouth.
“I’m sorry, Miss, but we did everything we could,” he softly told her.
My scream would have been one for the Oscars as I collapsed to the floor, my arms wrapping tightly around myself. Sobs wracked my body, my screams bouncing off of the walls. “No!” I screamed, my fists pounding the floor. “Joey!” I screeched.
Tristan dropped to the ground next to me, dragging me into his arms, holding me tight to him as he rocked me, doing his best to calm me back down. I tightly wrapped my arms around his torso, loud cries ripping from my lips as I begged Joey to come back to me. He’d promised me. He fucking promised he wouldn’t leave me!
Tristan gripped my face in his hands, shaking me gently as he forced me to look up at him. His expression shattered as he ran his eyes over my face. “No, baby, not now. I need you to breathe, Addy,” he told me firmly. “Focus on me.” I couldn’t breathe. Everything hurt. He was gone. “Come back to me, baby. Joey wouldn’t want you to be like this.”
I whimpered, my chest aching.
Tristan gave me a gentle smile. “Come on, baby girl. In. Out. Breathe.” I followed his instructions as he ran his thumbs over my cheekbones. “That’s it. Slowly, Addy. Just breathe, baby.”
“I-Is he really gone?” I croaked, my voice coming out weak and strangled.
Tristan slowly nodded and drew me into his arms as silent tears trickled down my cheeks.
Who else was I going to lose before all of this shit was over?
The clubhouse was silent as I walked through the doors with Tristan right behind me. Some people were silently crying while others were staring blankly into space.
This club had just lost the greatest president to ever grace this earth. They’d lost their founder.
And I had just lost one of the greatest men I’d ever known.
“You know this is your fault, right?” Charles asked from his position at the bar. I looked over at him silently, a blank expression on my face and in my eyes. “Joey would still be alive if Vin hadn’t fucking gone after him for protecting you.”
Tears welled in my eyes at his words, shattering that numbness that I so desperately needed to hold on to. “I’m sorry,” I choked out to both the club and Joey. Joey who would never hear my apology now. He’d never hear any of them.
It was all my fucking fault.
Tristan’s hands settled over my shoulders, and he pressed himself against my back, guarding me and protecting me the best that he could. “Watch your fucking tone with her,” Tristan snarled at Joey’s VP, who now the president of the Sons of Hell.
“He’s right,” Jessie snapped at Charles. “This isn’t her fucking fault.”
“How the fuck is it not?” Charles snarled at her. I flinched at his words. “She’s been nothing but fucking trouble since Joey took her from her birthday party when she was eighteen.” Charles looked at me, rage clouding his features. I swallowed thickly. “As the new president, I’m ordering you to leave,” he snapped, pointing his finger at me. I sucked in a sharp breath at his words. This was my home. What the fuck did he mean leave? “Get your shit and get the fuck out of my clubhouse. You’re no longer a part of this fucking club.”
“Now hold the fuck up!” Ink roared from his position beside Jessie. “You know Joey never wanted her to leave this fucking club, Charles! She’s one of us! She was his, for fuck’s sake.”
“Not anymore she’s not!” Charles roared at him. I rolled my lips into my mouth, resisting the urge to whimper. “Now shut your fucking mouth when speaking to me!” He looked back at me. “Get out, Adelaide.”
I tilted my chin up defiantly, refusing to show weakness to the asshole in front of me. Wiping my expression clean off my face, I nodded once at him. “Alright, Charles, I’m leaving, but note this,” I snarled, shrugging Tristan’s hands off of my shoulders as I strode forward until I could feel Charles’s hot breath on my skin. “This club will turn against you, Charles. No fucking new president ever goes against what the old president wanted. It’s called respect for the fucking dead.”
Charles tightly gripped my arm, yanking me closer to him as a disgusted snarl twisted his features. I brought my knee up, crushing his pathetic dick. He quickly released me and dropped to the floor, holding his balls in his hands, his expression white with pain. I spat on him, clenching my fists at my sides. “Mark my fucking words, Charles. You ever fucking come near me again, and it won’t be my knee on your balls. I’ll shoot your fucking dick off, you got me?”