Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
I looked over at where he was sitting next to me. “Do you want me to order you a pizza, Truth?”
Truth tapped his lip. “Can we?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
“Pizza doesn’t deliver here,” Trance, another member, said. His eyes were shrewd, and now they were on me, too. “We’re too far out of the city limits.”
I swallowed worriedly, turning my gaze away before he could read too much into my expression.
Jesus, this was about to get sticky.
I knew these men were going to be happy that I was alive, but I’d also let them think the unthinkable—that I was dead.
And it was going to go over like a cat turd in a sand box.
I kept my mouth shut after that, but the next ten minutes I could feel the tension rising in the room.
I’d stayed out of the limelight since I’d become a Dixie Warden. When there were club-wide celebrations each year, I’d skipped them. When there was any chance at all that I might see them, I purposefully went the other way.
But my gravesite rendezvous with Silas were being interrupted by my former club members, I’d had to watch them mourn me over and over again.
They were still mourning me, as a matter of fact.
God, this was a fucking mess.
Fuck. My fucking parents.
“Goddammit,” Sebastian got up then hauled ass out of the room.
I winced.
“Fucker’s gonna give us all the shits and pukes by the time we’re done here,” Cleo muttered darkly.
I looked at him, and his eyes were still on me.
His narrowed, and I steeled myself, letting him study me straight on.
He took his time, and it was a few long, uneasy moments for me.
“Son of a fucking bitch!” Cleo exclaimed.
Lynn walked in with Silas behind him.
The minute that Lynn sat down, the entire room quieted. Conversations that the others were having quieted, and I tensed. But not because this was about to go down, but because Cleo was now standing.
He leaned over the table, his hands steepled on top of it, only a few feet separating us.
“I can see you’ve figured it out,” Silas drawled.
The tension didn’t break.
“What out?” Kettle asked, looking at Silas.
“Tunnel, you mother. Fucker.”
Every head in the room swiveled around at that, and I scooted my seat away from the table and stood up.
“Everybody, sit the fuck down.”
Nobody listened.
“I said sit down!” Silas bellowed.
Cleo was halfway around the table now.
I was turned to face him, waiting.
And the others in the room from the Benton Dixie Wardens were now standing as well.
“Fuck me.”
That came from Torren.
Cleo didn’t stop until a clearly just-puked-his-guts-out Sebastian came back in.
The moment he realized what was going on, he stepped in the middle of Cleo and me, all the while hugging a trashcan.
Cleo’s hands were fisted tightly at his sides, and he was staring at me with such betrayal on his face that it was hard to watch.
I held his glare, though.
I deserved the hate.
A gunshot rang out, and I looked over at Silas, who was standing with his gun in his hand.
Above his head was a forty-five caliber hole in the drywall.
We all stared.
“I said sit. The. Fuck. Down,” he repeated, this time his tone clearly allowing no room for argument.
I didn’t sit until everyone else did, but this time, it was with my back to the wall, and nowhere near the goddamn table.
If I was within reaching distance of any of these boys, they were going to fucking stab me, likely with the pen or pencils that were gathered in a cup in the middle of the table.
God, this goddamn room was giving me heartburn.
This was the Benton chapter’s clubhouse.
This was the place where I finally felt at home for the first time.
This was the place of my rebirth.
“Everyone needs to fucking listen to what I have to say before they go off all half-cocked,” Silas growled, his eyes on Cleo.
Cleo didn’t bother to move his gaze off of me.
“Show ‘em the pictures,” I told Silas.
Silas grunted. “Ghost…”
“His name isn’t fucking Ghost,” Cleo said through clenched teeth. “Let’s go ahead and call him Tunnel. I mean, that is his fucking name, right?”
Hearing my name out of anybody’s mouth but Mina’s was enough to make my heart race.
It felt wrong. It felt like that was the only link that my parents needed to have to take the last little bit of my life that I had left to me.
“No,” I said, purposefully coming off as hard and unyielding. “That’s my name now. Nobody calls me Tunnel anymore, and before you get all pissed off, you need to understand why I had to do what I did. If you still want to kick my ass afterward, fine, so be it. Do what you have to do. But until then, save your judgement.”
Cleo’s eyes narrowed. “My wife still has nightmares about having a part in your death, and she still carries that guilt,” he hissed. “She has my loyalty. At one time, you did, too, but you no longer do.”