Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35499 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35499 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
I scoff. “Home safe? This is home, Colt. She’s already home. Home isn’t safe. Not with a bunch of psychopaths runnin’ things.”
Colt’s shoulders drop. Like he was holding in this judgement and suddenly decided to let it go. He knows it’s true. Savannah isn’t safe here anymore. “Let’s just go get her.” Then he turns and walks out.
I follow him out into the dusky evening, each step a negotiation between pain and necessity. My ribs are screamin’, my head is thumpin’, and the late afternoon sun burns my eyes after days in that dark cabin. My vision swims, but I force myself to focus.
Three horses stand tethered to a nearby pine. I recognize Cassia instantly—Savannah's mare. The sight of her makes something twist in my chest that isn't just broken ribs.
Colt reaches into his saddlebag and pulls out two guns. He hands me one, and I immediately check the chamber, the weight familiar in my hand. Then I notice what he's holding.
"What the fuck is that?" I demand.
"Tranquilizer gun." He says it like it's the most reasonable thing in the world.
"A fucking tranq gun? Are you serious?" I stare at him, incredulous. "Your sister's been kidnapped by some psycho politician's son, and you brought a goddamn dart gun?"
"We're not killing anyone, for fuck's sake." Colt's voice rises. "We're rescuing someone. Marcus can be put out. He's the senator's son—we can't kill him."
I feel something shift inside me. A door opening to a room I promised myself I'd keep locked. But promises are just words, and words don't mean shit when someone you love is bleeding.
"Watch me," I say, each word dropping like stone.
"Legion—"
"No." I cut him off. "You don't get it. Three days, Colt. Three fucking days she's been up there with him. If he's touched her, I'm going to cut off his fingers one by one. Make him eat them. Then I'll open his stomach so he can see them sitting there."
Colt's face pales, but I can't stop. The images come too fast, too vivid.
"Maybe I'll start with his eyes. Scoop them out with a spoon so he feels every second. Feed them to the crows while he listens." My voice doesn't even sound like mine anymore. It's the voice from The Pit. The one that kept me alive when they tried to break me. "Or I could just skin him. Slow. Strip by strip. Salt each piece before starting the next."
"Jesus Christ, Legion."
"You think that's bad?" I laugh, and it's a sound that belongs in a nightmare. "I haven't even gotten creative yet. I could—"
"Enough!" Colt snaps. "This isn't helping Savannah."
Her name pulls me back. Just enough to remember why we're here.
"Listen," Colt says, "There's more to this story than you know about."
"Oh fuck you, Ashby. But yeah," I narrow my eyes down at him. "There's a lot fuckin' more to this story. Shit that would turn your insides sour if you knew."
Colt loses some color in his face, but he recovers quick—meeting my gaze straight on. "You think I don't know that? Why the fuck do you think I'm here?"
"Because you got a conscience? Little fucking late for that." I spit blood onto the dirt between us. "Three years late."
"I'm not Cash," he says, checking the tranquilizer gun. "And I'm not Wyatt. I've been planning this for a long time."
"Planning what?" My fingers tighten around the gun he gave me.
"Getting away from them. All of them." He looks up at the mountain where Savannah's being held. "There’s something you need to know about—" But he suddenly quits talking.
"About what," I sneer. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Let me just say this, " Colt replies, his voice just as low and threatening as mine. "This isn't just Cash being a protective brother. It's not just Marcus being a jealous fiancée. It's fucking business, Legion."
"She's not property," I growl.
"To them, she is. Savannah is the key to forty-seven thousand acres of Ashby land. This is an empire, Legion. A legitimate American dynasty on the line here and Savannah has control of all of it. Every fucking square inch. Water rights are worth more than gold, you know that much." He looks me dead in the eye. "You think they're going to let her run off with some ex-con biker because she's in love, Legion? Fuck no. They'll break her first."
My knuckles go white around the gun. "I'll kill them all."
"And end up back in prison, leaving Savannah with no one." Colt shakes his head. "That's exactly what they want. Why do you think they let you out a day early? Why did Cash pick you up instead of your club?"
"To fuck with me."
"To isolate you. Set you up. They've been playing chess this whole time. It's all been planned." Then he pauses. And this pause here is what makes me go pale now. Because he finishes up with, "You don't even know the half of it."