Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Hush met her eyes, but his were blank. Dead . . . it fucking terrified me.
I crouched down next to Sia. “Val.” His blue eyes fell to me. This close, I could see the state of his face. His entire body was battered and bruised. “We need to move you.”
Fucking tears started coming from Hush’s eyes. He looked back at the crosses. “There’s nowhere for me to go.”
Sia stilled, clutching his arms. She looked at me, eyes wide in obvious alarm. I shuffled closer. Hush was just staring at the crosses. “Val—”
“I saw pictures.” He choked on a sob. “They were everywhere. Surrounding them. And Mamma . . .” He sucked in a breath, the air wheezing in his chest. “She was in the window.” He pointed to where the window used to be. “She saw them . . .” he whispered. “She was watching them with their flaming torches and signs that told her she shouldn’t be with my papa . . . that she should never have had me.”
“Hush,” Sia said brokenly.
He blinked. Then looked at me. “Jase . . . Pierre . . . Stan . . . Davide . . . it was their initiation to the Klan.” My blood ran cold when what he was saying finally sank in. I shook my head, but Hush wasn’t finished. He looked into my eyes. “They were coming for me and my daddy.” He tried to move, like he had to flee from the words he was trying to force from his mouth. Sia backed away and let him move. He scrambled to the crosses, clutching the one he’d made for his mamma. His hands ran down her name and the inscription he’d carved. “But I had that fucking seizure,” he continued. “So she stayed . . . and took my place.” He screamed. Fucking bellowed into the air. Over and over again until his throat grew hoarse. “It should have been me,” he whispered and collapsed at the base of the cross.
Sia crawled forward and hugged him from behind. He looked up. “I have no one. No family.” My chest fucking cracked when he spoke those words. Because he had us.
He had us.
The sound of a bike’s roar made me look to the road. I pulled my gun from my belt. “Stay with him,” I told Sia. A Harley thundered toward the house. I raised my gun, wondering who the fuck it could be.
The rider stopped and got off his bike, and a face I knew well came into view. “Crow?” I said, real fucking confused. He marched to me and saw Hush on the ground, Sia protecting him with her body like a shield.
“Thank fuck!” Crow blew out a breath. “Thought I was gonna find him dead.” He shook his head. “He almost made a good job of that with Titus.”
I felt my face drain of color. “What?”
“Marched into the club and threw a fist at the prez.” Crow shook his head in disbelief. “Then just let Titus kick the shit outta him. I pulled Hush away and took him to my place. I . . .” He gave me a weird look. “I’d found out some stuff about how his folks died.” He ran his hand down his face. “Should’ve known he wasn’t in the right mind to hear it. I was fucked. Before he got to the club we’d been drinking all fucking day. I went to bed, leaving him with all the information about his past. Woke a few hours ago to see him, and my truck, gone. I roughly remembered where he’d lived and rode like fuck to get here. Fucking rode past this place a few times before I worked out it was where he used to live.”
I glanced back at Hush. He was sitting up. But his eyes were still lost. Fucking devoid of any kind of life. That scared me more than anything. “It was his granddaddy,” Crow said. I snapped my head back to my old VP. “He’s who got the Klan to start the fire.” He came closer still, voice low. “Wanted him and his daddy dead.” Crow hesitated, eyed me weirdly, then said, “Your folks knew too, man. Weren’t closely involved . . . but they knew something was going down. Just thought you should know.”
Blood rushed through my ears like a flood. My hands shook at my side.
“Hush has a list of those who were here. Who lit the place up.” Crow’s words hung between us. I got was he was saying loud and clear. They wouldn’t be walking this earth much longer. Hangmen brother code. Crow pointed his thumb south. “There’s a motel in the next town over. Get your boy and . . .” He looked at Sia.
“Sia,” I said. “Our old lady.”
Crow nodded, but his dark eyes fixed on me, like he was trying to read something in my eyes. “She understand club life?”