Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
I didn’t argue.
The rooms beneath The Pit were not an accident. Concrete and steel. No windows. No air except the heavy hum of the vent. A drain that didn’t clog. Doors that laughed at pry bars. And a cache of tools and weapons that always made Edge grin. Especially when he added something new to the collection.
The prisoner was quickly zip-tied to a chair, head lolling, blood matting his hair where my elbow had cracked his skull. His chest heaved too fast, and his eyes fought the light until they glistened, animal-sharp and fucking stupid.
I laid out the tools. Not for show. For purpose. No theatrics. Men who called it art were lying to themselves so they could feel special. This wasn’t art. This was maintenance.
“Here’s how this works.” My voice was even as I snapped on gloves. “You tell me the name. The one that keeps the rest of you fed and paid. The one who wasn’t at the party tonight. You speak quickly, and you might have a future.” I shrugged. “Or maybe just an open casket.” As I selected a plier with a slim, serrated mouth, I continued, “You don’t, and I take things in a way you’ll regret for however long you get to live.” Another shrug. “I’d consider cremation after that.”
He tried to talk around the gag so I pulled it down. He licked split lips and coughed.
“You think—” he started.
I snipped the tip of his ring finger off before he got past the verb in his sentences.
He shrieked, high and strangled. The sound hit the concrete and bounced around the room.
“Verb choices matter.” I put the plier down and picked up a mallet. “So do knees.”
He struggled against the zip-ties as if they might give way. Idiot. The chair scraped an inch to the left before I set my boot on one foot and made him still again with my weight.
“This isn’t about vengeance, you know,” I told him, truthfully. “This is removing an obstacle in my fucking way.”
Silence.
Continuing on, I didn’t shout. Didn’t posture. Didn’t waste a word. My voice stayed low, steady, as I pressed the point of a blade just deep enough to slice nerves and bleed truth. His finger snapped under pressure, and his kneecap shattered with a crack that echoed off the walls. Each sound filed away inside me, clean and cold.
He broke. They always did.
The name spilled out of him on a sob. The last one. The guy who’d been pulling strings in the dark.
I stared into his eyes for a beat, then I put a bullet between them.
Blood pooled under the chair. I washed my hands in the sink until the water ran clear. When I took the gloves off, my fingers were steady.
I wasn’t satisfied. Not angry. Just finished with this part.
One left. That’s all.
I holstered my pistol and headed for the stairs.
Edge was waiting when I came up, and his eyes caught mine.
“Got it.”
“On your six,” he returned, already moving.
We rode out at midnight, engines low, two predators on the hunt. The location was a rundown house on the edge of town, roof sagging and porch half-rotted. A light flickered in the front window.
We killed the engines two blocks back, rolled the rest in silence. Boots hitting the dirt, our weapons in hand.
The door creaked under my push.
He barely had time to reach for his gun.
Edge slammed him back against the wall, pinning him like prey, and I raised my weapon.
One shot. Quiet. Brutal. Over.
The body slid down the plaster, leaving a smear of red.
Cold satisfaction hit like ice water in my chest. Now she’s free.
Edge clapped my shoulder once, then we walked out, leaving the house to rot behind us.
It was deep into the night when I rolled back through the compound gates. The air was thick with the silence that followed storms—still, heavy, and almost sacred.
Kane stood outside his office, leaning against the doorframe. His eyes scanned me once, reading every drop of blood, soot, and exhaustion.
He handed me a plain black garment bag.
“She’s yours. Make it official when you’re ready.”
My throat tightened as the words landed in places I didn’t show people. I just nodded, took it, and walked away.
My room was dark and cool. I set the bag on the bed, unzipped it, and folded the plastic back like I was undressing something sacred. The vest lay inside, black leather, freshly stitched. It was smaller than mine, cut for her frame. The words on the patch were simple and not up for debate.
PROPERTY OF JAX.
The sight hit like a punch. Heat in my chest, sharp enough to hurt. Everyone would know she was mine. More than that—she’d know.
I set it in the closet, careful and reverent, staring for a long time. The weight of it anchored me.
Then I stripped and stepped under water hot enough to bite. Blood and soot went down the drain in the shower as the steam filled my head and made the edges of the world soften. I scrubbed until the skin on my knuckles protested. Cuts I hadn’t noted earlier stung when soap found them. None of them mattered.