Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
As we move through the dark, I focus on why we’re doing this.
The entire reason for me leaving Smoke without telling him.
The surveillance video image. More specifically, the corner of it I didn’t show Smoke. The part where you can see that Griff didn’t leave Morgan’s house empty handed. He was holding a wrapped bundle of towels in his arms, but it isn’t the towels that’s fueled this mission, it’s what was peeking out from underneath them.
A tiny pair of pink feet.
Chapter Fifty-Two
“You’re Rage?” Griff asks, adjusting his glasses as if it would make her morph from a girl to a guy. “I pictured someone different.”
He’s wearing the hat. The one from the surveillance video. White with a black stripe above the brim. He’s much shorter than I imagined, but he’s got this look in his red-rimmed beady eyes. He’s unhinged. Disturbed.
The dread moving up my stomach into my throat threatens to strangle me but I swallow it down.
“Someone with a little more penis perhaps? I get that a lot,” Rage says, pursing her lips, giving the impression that she’s bored. She looks so unruffled. So composed. I wish I could feel that way or at least fake it better because I’m quaking from the inside out. My stomach is twisting as if it decided to take up gymnastics. But even with this level of fear coursing through me, I can’t help but notice that Rage and I make a good team.
Griff looks amused. He sucks his top teeth and steeples his fingers. “That’s exactly what I was expecting.”
“If a dick is what you want, I can cut one off one of your guys and give it to you. Would that make you feel better?” She pulls her blade from the sheath.
Griff smiles. His overly tanned skin is in contrast with his too-white teeth.
Rage, growing impatient, shoves me forward, and I fall onto the ground on my knees. My chin bounces off the concrete since my hands are bound behind my back.
“What’s this? A gift? For me?” Griff asks, looking down at me like I’m a species of goat he’s never seen before. He places his fingers under my chin, and I jerk my head from his touch. This buys me a backhand to my cheek. I see stars.
“Frankie Helburn,” Rage says. “Word is she stole from you. Consider her an offering to prevent the war and the deaths of my brothers that would happen if this bitch keeps hiding behind the walls of my club like a scared bird instead of taking her punishment like a woman. Now say ‘thank you’ like a good boy so I can get the fuck out of here. It’s cold and dark and dusty in this fucking place. You’re like Batman without the cool car.” She gives Griff a once over. “Or the good looks.”
Griff ignores her insult and glances down to me. “You don’t care that I’m gonna kill her?” he asks, straightening his jacket as if it will make him better looking.
Rage rolls her eyes and tightens her hair tie around her long blonde ponytail. “We all die, Griff. Don’t act like that’s a surprise to you. We’re all just biding our time until we meet the dirt again. I’m just buying us a little more time is all. One in exchange for many. I hear that’s how morals work. I’m giving it a shot. Do we have an agreement? The bitch for laying off my club?”
Griff places his hand under his chin and pauses for a moment. “We have a deal.”
Another man comes up and yanks me off the floor, roughly pushing me across the room and tethering me to a small metal chair.
Rage doesn’t look in my direction when I yelp as he tightens the knot on my wrists, cutting off my circulation.
“You don’t care that Smoke won’t be happy with this revelation?” Griff asks curiously. His voice is high-pitched for a man’s. He sounds like a grandmother from Queens.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but there’s bad blood between me and Smoke,” Rage says. “I know people think I abandoned him. Just packed up and left, but he’s the one who broke up the team. He left me so he didn’t have to split the paycheck two ways anymore. So, you see? There’s no love lost between us. I’m looking forward to seeing his face when I tell him I’m the one who brought his bitch back to the kennel. But Smoke’s mine. To kill, to let live. He’s mine. That’s part of this deal.”
“Search her,” Griff orders suddenly.
I’m hoisted out of my chair and patted down. There are hands and fingers everywhere, and I mean everywhere. My eyes water from the painful intrusions.
Rage still looks bored, buffing her nails on her pink t-shirt that reads WHITE GIRL WASTED until they toss me back down onto the chair with such force my tailbone stings.