Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
"I can handle that," I assured them, not a drop of doubt in my voice because I had none.
In a place where I felt wholly off my footing, I did know that I could handle the guards, keep them quiet.
And, for once, I wouldn't even need to use my fists to do so.
"Where will you go?" Vance asked as my fingers moved across the keypad of my phone.
"I'll find a place," I assured them. "I'm not a little kid anymore. I can make my own way."
"I wasn't questioning that, Ferryn," Vance assured me. "I just want to make sure you aren't running off again."
"I'm not."
"We're just supposed to take you at your word?" West asked.
"What other choice do you have? Tying me up and tossing me in the basement? I'd like to see you try."
"Alright. That's enough of that," Vance cut in, a sigh in his voice. "How about you crash at my old place? It's there. Empty. I'm here all the time. It's not much. Got it back when I was done with the band but before I started here. I kept it just in case your father realized I had no place in the club and kicked me out."
To that, I snorted. "No one gets kicked out of a club, Vance. They get taken out of one."
"Never heard you talk about your father like that."
"I've learned a lot of harsh realities over the years. Even about my own family. Where's this place you have?"
"I will bring you."
"I can bring myself."
To that, he let out his breath, deflating his strong chest. "How about you humor me, Ferryn?" he suggested. "You can follow me on your bike."
That was fair.
I was being argumentative for no real reason.
"I'll be damned," West said, making us both turn, finding the Hailstorm guards both lifting their phones, listening to the voice on the other end, looking back at me, nodding, then hanging up.
In my hand, my phone buzzed.
I got the confirmation I needed.
My secret was mine until my parents got back.
"Alright. Let's go," I declared, tucking my phone, putting my helmet back on.
Without anything else, I turned over the bike, pulled out on the main street, waiting for Vance to do the same.
A week.
That was it.
I just had to lay low for a week.
I'd been laying low for almost nine years.
A week was nothing.
Yet it somehow felt like a lifetime.
So close to everything I had left behind, but still so far.
Vance pulled out ahead of me, and I couldn't help but wonder how the hell he had found himself on a motorcycle, in a club, running guns for my father.
Last I had seen him, he and his band had been paying their dues. They weren't big time. They weren't even hinting at big time. But they had a large local following. They were making plans to start doing some touring. They would have made something of themselves if they kept on the same path. There had been nothing to suggest they wouldn't. No internal battling. No one letting their ego get the better of them.
How did he go from promising rockstar to an outlaw biker?
Those thoughts were pushed away as Vance turned off the main drag, leading me down toward, well, the bad area of town.
Growing up, my father had always made it clear that none of us were ever to go near Third Street territory.
A local and unpredictable street gang known for constant changeover in leadership, roughing up the girls they pimped, and selling whatever drugs they could get their hands on—my father always had worries about them one day rising up, getting a leader who would set their sights higher than the drug and pimp game, who would try to find a way to take over the much more profitable gun-running. I guess he figured one good way for them to so would be to take my brothers or me, use us as pawns to get what they wanted.
We were banned from the area.
Of course, that meant very little to me. I was always looking for ways to bend or break rules. But after a trip of two, finding nothing but sadness, and people desperately trying to scrape by, well, I saw no reason to keep bending that particular rule.
If Vance had needed to rent a place in Third Street territory, well, the transition between being a band member and a biker had to have been a rough one.
We drove toward the very end of the road where there was a sad little house that looked as though a slight breeze might blow it down. In the backyard was a line of what looked to be shoebox apartments, all connected and sharing a slab porch.
"I know it isn't much," he admitted when we both cut our engines, our bikes parked in front of the last one on the right, a light on inside like he had decided that a lamp on a timer would fool anyone into thinking someone was actually living there. Why he bothered, I wasn't sure. What could he have possibly stored there that he needed to protect from intruders?