Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Kane slowly rode his bike across the lot and went left on the long dirt drive that led toward his house that was hidden about half a mile to the back of the club.
Blowing out a heavy sigh, I kicked my bike into gear and pulled out the same direction River had gone, though the guy hadn’t been fucking around when he implied he was anxious to get back to his girl since I couldn’t even see his taillight.
I took to the road, hands stretched out to grip the handlebars, relishing the cold that stung my cheeks and whipped my hair into disarray.
Hadn’t been lying to Piper, what I’d told her this morning.
There was no time that I felt freer than when I was at the helm of my bike. Here, where my ghosts couldn’t catch up to me. The wails and cries of regret not loud enough to be heard over the howl of the engine.
I inched back on the throttle and increased my speed as I blazed through the sleeping town, every business except for the bars locked up tight for the night.
Though it was the buzz in my chest that warned that I was far too eager to get back to The Sanctuary.
So fucked up.
Maybe Otto had pegged it.
Maybe I was actually going soft.
Getting reckless and greedy in a way that I couldn’t.
Because I hadn’t been interested for one damn second about sticking back and finding a warm body to bury myself in.
A warm body to rid myself of the lust that twisted my guts and hummed through my veins.
A way to rid myself of whatever insanity Piper Whittman elicited in me.
But there I was, a prisoner to the burn in my body as I flew along the lake, The Sanctuary neon sign glowing like a beacon in the distance where my motel sat at the far end of the shore.
That anticipation only amped as I made the left onto the long drive and wound my bike through the thick woods, then took to the paved private drive that led to my house.
I dug my phone out and pushed the button for the garage door and pulled my bike into its spot.
Didn’t take the time to go inside my house.
I grabbed a flashlight and pushed out into the night.
Walking the perimeter of the motel the way I always did. Ensuring it was clear of the fiends and beasts that would forever hunt for innocent prey.
Wondering if I was just as sick as them.
Because I stood in the shadows staring up at the haze of light that glowed from the big upper window on the second floor of Unit B.
Wondering how this stranger could make me feel like I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere else.
NINE
THEO
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD
Theo pulled back on the throttle of his bike. The powerful engine grumbled and growled, a roar in the vapid, desolate night, the heavy metal vibrating through him as he tore down the street.
A street that was seedy as fuck.
Filled with corruption and depravity.
Half of it meted by his own dirty, tainted hands.
He’d been partner to it for so long that he no longer recognized anything else. Had been this way since he’d found himself homeless at fifteen. A bus had dumped him in the middle of LA after he’d run from the place that could no longer be considered a home.
A scoff ripped from his throat at the memory.
Home.
That was something it had never been.
His parents had hated him since the day he was born, a sentiment he’d easily returned, and it had been only a matter of time before he split.
He wasn’t exactly sure how he’d found one here. The family that had been built with his brothers during the time when the only thing they could do was survive.
Nah.
Otto, Cash, Kane, and River weren’t blood.
They were better than that.
Their loyalty was scored on their souls.
It had only grown deeper since they’d been running with the Iron Owls. All five of them fitting in with the perversion like they’d been made for it.
Powerful and feared.
No one brave enough to touch them.
No one to abuse or torture or neglect them the way most of them had been when they were kids.
They’d risen above it.
Gave themselves over to brutality, because they all knew what it was like to be weak.
They wouldn’t allow themselves to be that again.
Bent and broken to another’s will.
And that power rolled from him as he wound in and out of cars as he traveled through the city.
Wearing his leather cut with the Iron Owls emblem emblazoned on the back.
The vicious owl with its wings outstretched and in full flight.
A skull hanging from its claws.
Warning every motherfucker what would happen to them if they even considered crossing them.
The engine chugged as he slowed and made a right, driving deeper into the sordid. To that squalid place where you could taste the wickedness oozing from the decrepit buildings.