Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
And now, it was my turn.
I stepped forward, letting the carefully controlled malice bleed into my expression.
Store saw it.
She felt it.
Her whole body started shaking as she tried to shrink back.
“No,” she whimpered, shaking her head frantically. “No, no, no, please—”
I grinned. She screamed for help, but no one would come.
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry!” She was hyperventilating, stammering, babbling the same word over and over again.
How pathetic.
I crouched down, staring into her tear-streaked, terrified face.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I cooed mockingly, brushing a strand of hair from her face. Then my smile dropped. “You will be.”
Her sobs turned into a broken, terrified wail.
And I drank in every second of it.
Reaching for the knife on the table beside me, I pressed the tip against my fingertip, testing its sharpness. A satisfied hum escaped my lips as I felt the sting—a small bite of pain, just enough to confirm the blade was honed to perfection.
Good. The knife was meant for her.
I was just about to drag it across her chest, to carve a lesson into her skin, when she spat out words that stopped me cold.
“I wasn’t fucking him the day your mom killed herself,” she screamed, her voice hoarse, raw. “He wouldn’t touch me!”
I froze.
She wasn’t done.
“I deserved the fucking head of the MC,” she seethed, her face contorted in rage. “He was mine. But that whore—” she sneered “—she knew what she was doing when she got knocked up. She came in, lost her shit, so Preacher kicked me out.”
The fight drained from her in an instant. Her head slumped forward, shoulders sagging. I stared at her, my grip tightening around the knife handle. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t tell if someone was lying. I was trained for this, to read people. To dissect their words, analyze micro-expressions, pick up the nuances in body language that betrayed even the best liars.
But now?
Her words tangled in my mind, looping with the ones from my mother’s letter, overlaying the image of her lifeless body. The gun still clutched in her hand, the blood soaking into the floor. If Store was lying, Preacher would have told me the truth by now. Or Duke would have. Wouldn’t they?
I forced myself to breathe, I couldn’t let this get inside my head. She was lying, she had to be.
My face remained unreadable as I stepped forward. I grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back roughly. Her lips parted in a silent gasp, but I ignored her as I lowered the blade and, with precise, deliberate strokes, began slicing through her dry, bleached strands. Her screams echoed in the room, but I tuned them out.
The knife glided through, separating chunk after chunk until her scalp was nearly bare, the brittle remains of her pride falling in clumps at her feet. Once I was satisfied, I lifted the largest mass of hair, twirled it between my fingers, and then, I dropped it in front of her with a grin.
She stared at it, chest heaving, as if somehow the strands of her own hair on the floor were more horrifying than anything else I could have done to her.
Pathetic.
JAGGER
We all heard what Store had said to Kyle. The door had been left slightly open, just in case Kyle needed backup, and her words had carried through to where we waited outside.
And Preacher, well, he had tensed the second she started talking. I had never seen him that still before. His body was locked up tight, fists clenched at his sides, his jaw like iron. But the moment Kyle didn’t believe what was being said, the moment she rejected the possibility that her entire life had been built on a lie, that tension doubled.
His face might as well have been stone, but his whole presence was screaming. He wanted to correct her, to tell Kyle something, but he didn’t. And that silence spoke volumes.
Duke was the first to break it. He stepped directly in front of his brother, his usual easygoing nature replaced with something sharp. Unforgiving.
“You need to sort that shit out,” Duke said, voice low but lethal. Preacher barely blinked, but Duke wasn’t backing down. “It’s killed me lying to her all these years,” he went on, his tone vibrating with restrained anger. “And before you start your shit, yeah, it is a lie—even if it’s one of omission.”
Preacher’s mouth parted, an argument already forming, but Duke cut him off with a raised hand. “No. Grow a pair and put that poor girl out of her misery.”
And then, without another word, he turned and stalked off in the same direction as Kyle.
Preacher stood motionless, staring at the floor.
I wasn’t done with him either. Taking a slow step forward, I met his gaze, speaking to him in a way I never had before.