Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
“Bear.” They jerk their heads in acknowledgment. “Oh, Princess, you’re back.”
“Not now,” Bear barks at them. Holding their hands in surrender, they take off in the other direction.
“Let’s go over here.” Bear nods for me to follow him around the side of the building.
Folding his arms, he stands like a bodyguard at a club entrance waiting to allow us inside. “You know what happened. Kings killed him and our pres.” There’s no ounce of untruth in his tone. He stares me unswervingly in the eye. That’s what he believes, I’m sure of it.
“Why?” I ask. “Why would they kill them?”
Releasing a puff of air, he looks down at the ground. “We planned to do some work for them, but they betrayed us.”
“Why would they do that?” I implore him to make it make sense.
He scratches his head. “I don’t know. It was all fucking ugly business back then. What’s this all about?”
“Was anyone else there that night?” I ignore his question, continuing with my own.
“Just Ty. He barely got away. His bike was shot up, and he had a bullet wound in his leg. What’s with all the questions? What’s going on?” I know that scar on his leg like the back of my hand. But he never told me where it came from.
“Nothing. Forget I asked.” I move past him and slip around the building, entering the club at a side entrance.
It’s so much smaller than the King’s. The wood structure looks old and in disrepair with dingy decor and zero love and attention. No money has been spent on its upkeep. The wood floor creaks with every step I take. It’s worn so badly in some places that it’s a completely different shade than the rest.
“Princess, you’re home.” When I enter the main room, Jenna leaps to her feet from a table surrounded by other club sluts, wearing her usual tiny skirt and tit-showing top. I never really looked at her up-close, but she appears older than her twenty-nine years. Her eyes crinkle, spiderwebs stretching out from the corners. It must take its toll, alcohol and drugs every night, spreading your legs for a brutal bastard who doesn’t give two shits about you.
Tyler loves me, I do not doubt that—and yet he still treats me like an object he owns. I’m the shiny trophy he likes to polish now and again. I can only imagine how poorly he treats her.
“We’re not friends,” I tell her blatantly. “I’m grateful you handled a lot of the wedding shit when everything happened, and I want to tell you I know you’re in love with Ty. But for fuck’s sake, don’t waste your life on him, Jenna. He will fuck you and use you. He will never put a ring on your finger or put you on the back of his bike.” Water pebbles in the corners of her eyes, but I don’t care. Let her cry. “You will never bear his kids. And one day, you’ll wake up with your best years behind you, wondering why you stuck around a fucking asshole for so long.”
Her mouth opens and closes like a trout, then she says, “Why are you with him if he’s such a bad guy?”
I shake my head, tightening my lips. “I’m not with him. I woke up.” I move around her and head for Tyler’s office.
Even though Bear said Tyler is not here, my stomach tightens when I turn the handle and push into his office. It’s empty, and I rush to close the door and take a deep breath. It smells of dampness mixed with cigarette smoke in here. The drab wooden walls still hold the old pictures of dogs dressed like humans around a card table on them. They’ve been here since before Tyler took over the space. The beaten, dark tan leather couch I spent years studying on mocks me from the back of the room. His desk has one leg propped up with a folded piece of cardboard, our initials carved into the wood from when I turned sixteen, and he gave me my first switchblade for my birthday. Memory after memory assaults me. It’s enough to make me lose my damn mind.
Lowering myself onto the couch, I sit for over two hours, waiting. Everything Callan showed me and told me whirls through my head. I attempt to make sense of it all. My heart gallops when Tyler finally enters the room, trying to escape him. I can’t do this. I’ve never really dissected how fucked up our relationship is. My senses fooled me into thinking it was normal, the proper progression. But when he first took me to his bed, he was double my age. Why did everyone let all this come to pass? Anger eats away at me, rotting my core. I’m infected with Tyler’s poison. It’s seeping into the fabric of my being, corroding me from the inside out.