Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“How we gonna play this?” Bam asked. I knew what he was really saying, of course. He wanted to know if they were going to get Skid medical help or put him in the ground. I braced myself and took a deep breath, knowing my work wasn’t done quite yet.
“Not in front of the girls,” Dad muttered, and I knew the answer. So far as Dad was concerned, Skid was already dead. “Ruger, you and Painter take them, get them safe. Call the medic. He can meet you at the clubhouse. We’ll clean up here.”
I shook my head.
“Don’t kill him. You do that, there’s going to be even more fighting.”
“This is about the club, Em,” my dad said quietly. Translation—Go home and be a good girl. Let the men do the thinking for you.
Suddenly I was sick of it.
I’d gotten kidnapped because of their bullshit, and I wasn’t even supposed to know why I’d nearly died. I’d gotten myself out of it, no thanks to them, and now I was expected to just nod and smile.
Fuck that.
I popped up on my toes and whispered in Dad’s ear.
“Hunter told me about the truce and the cartel. If you kill this guy, we’re all going to suffer. I know you’re pissed, Dad, but we have to think of the club. Please. Think of me and Kit—I don’t want to live in fear.”
He stiffened.
I pulled away, looking up at him, begging with my eyes. Don’t let your ego make this decision.
He shook his head, jaw rigid. Fuck. I crossed my arms and stepped back, my plea turning to a glare. How fucking typical—the king’s pride got hurt, so now we all have to go to war? If anyone gets to make the decision, it should be me and Sophie.
Dad held my eyes for long seconds, then sighed.
“Okay, we’ll take him with us and dump him somewhere he’ll be found,” he said. “See if you can find something to bandage him up with, Bam.”
Relief crashed through me. I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him tight.
“You’re doing the right thing, Daddy,” I whispered.
“This was club business, baby girl. You shouldn’t be worrying about things so much. That’s my job.”
His words cut through me and I stiffened. I wasn’t a fucking baby to be handed a sucker and told to go play.
Wait, where had that come from?
Dad wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t said a thousand times before, but for some reason this time it really pissed me off. This is what it feels like to be Kit, I realized, suddenly understanding her need to rebel. Oh, I didn’t like this feeling. I didn’t like it one bit.
I glanced toward the brothers. Nobody was paying attention to us. Perfect.
“Daddy, I love you, but this stopped being club business when I got kidnapped and cuffed to a bed,” I said quietly, making sure my voice didn’t carry. “That made it my business. I’m still trying to figure out what happened and what it all means, but I have a right to worry about things that might destroy my life.”
He frowned at me.
“Let’s talk about it later, baby.”
Right. I knew that tone. “Later” meant “never.”
I sighed, because I’d gotten as far as I would for now. That was okay—this wasn’t the kind of conversation you have in front of an audience, anyway. I was determined, though. I wasn’t going to just slide back into life as usual.
Everything had changed.
I’d been raised to let the men in my life tell me what to do, and look what that’d gotten me. It’d been so easy to follow Hunter away from my friends and into that alley. I’d been so fucking naive. Blind.
Never again.
From now on, I’d be making my own decisions and Dad would just have to deal with it.
Chapter Eight
ONE WEEK LATER
I was right.
“We’ll talk later” meant “We won’t talk about it.”
To be fair, Dad wasn’t around much in the days following my rescue. He didn’t say where he was going, but I assumed he was off dealing with Toke and the Devil’s Jacks. I just hoped he hadn’t “dealt” with them permanently. Of course, I was expected to stay home and forget all about it.
That shit used to be okay. Not anymore.
Not that I would confront Dad directly or try to push my way into a club meeting to find out the real situation—nope, that wouldn’t accomplish anything, anyway. But it did confirm what I’d started to realize the day Sophie and I took down Skid. It was time for one Emmy Lou Hayes to get the hell out of Coeur d’Alene.
I needed to grow up and get a life.
Finding a place to go was the first challenge. I knew I could stay with Kit, but she only had a studio at school in Olympia. I didn’t think it was fair to put that kind of pressure on her. Nope, I wanted to find my own path. At least I had money saved … One advantage to living with my father was I didn’t really have many expenses. I’d already applied to that aesthetician’s program in Portland. It was a great school, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk being in the same city as Hunter. On the other hand, it was a city—not a village. Wasn’t like I’d see him around all the time. Hell, I’d probably never run into him at all.