Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 39123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 196(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 196(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
“Nah. Did that while eating breakfast this morning,” Geek teased.
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “What do you want, Geek?”
He harrumphed but got on with whatever he was actually bothering me for. “Johnston asked me to come get you. Said he needs to talk to you about something.”
Damn. If the Prez was calling me to his office, he needed me to take care of something. And as his Sergeant at Arms and being ex-SEAL, I was his number one option to take care of shit that needed to be done quietly and with a low profile.
I finished tightening the nut onto the bolt and set my wrench aside. Grabbing my grease rag, which was dangling over the raised hood, I wiped my hands on it. “He say what about?”
Geek shook his head. “Nah. Seemed pissed though.” Just great. Johnston was an asshole when he was angry. Geek lifted his beer to his lips, swallowing a healthy swig. “Then again, Johnston always seems pissed.”
He wasn’t exactly wrong.
I snorted and grabbed my wrench, tossing it into the tool bag at my feet before reaching up to close the hood. “Let him know I’ll meet him in his office as soon as I wash my hands,” I told him. The hood closed with a slam that made Geek curl his lip at me. He wasn’t a fan of loud noises.
“I’ll let him know.” Turning, Geek headed back toward the clubhouse. Picking up my tool bag, I tossed it into the driver’s seat of my truck before slamming the door shut and heading inside. Heading to the bathroom just inside the clubhouse, I scrubbed my hands clean with the Fast Orange hand cleaner, then headed down the hall toward Johnston’s office.
He was already seated behind his desk and waiting for me when I knocked on the open door. Without looking up, he beckoned me in. “Shut the door behind you.”
I did as he instructed before shoving my hands into the pockets of my cargo pants. “What’s up, Prez?” I asked
Johnston was a cold-blooded monster. The only thing in this world he truly gave a fuck about was his wife, Aaliyah. He ran this charter and the Texas charter with an iron-clad fist, and if any of us stepped out of line, we had him to contend with. None of us were afraid of him, but we did respect him. Because Johnston gave us all a place to belong when the rest of society deemed us unfit. He’d given us a home and a second chance at life.
That was something that could never truly be repaid.
He grabbed some pictures off his desk and tossed them in my direction. I grabbed them before they could scatter to the floor, my jaw clenching at what I saw. Someone had been stalking Aaliyah, and she was clearly unaware the pictures were being taken. In each picture, she was doing regular day-to-day things: sweeping the porch, grocery shopping, getting her nails done, getting her hair done, shopping for clothes.
“What the absolute fuck,” I growled.
Johnston leaned back in his chair and rested his elbows on the arm rests, linking his tattooed fingers together over his flat stomach. “These were waiting for me on the seat of my bike this morning,” Johnston informed me. “They left a note with it.” Reaching forward, he snatched a piece of paper off the desk and handed it to me.
In blocky letters on plain, white printer paper, the note read:
Give me what I want, Trim, or she’s next.
My stomach clenched. About a year ago, the woman I was madly in fucking love with had been brutally beaten and raped and left unconscious behind the bakery display case in her bookstore. Chase had been watching her through the cameras at her store, essentially stalking her. He’d rushed to get to her as fast as he could, but he hadn’t gotten there in time to stop what’d happened.
Sophia still hadn’t fully recovered from what happened to her—not mentally. And I knew every fucking day, Chase lived with the guilt of not saving her in time, even if he never let her see it. And I knew most days when he looked at his hands, he still saw them stained with her blood.
And now, these mother fuckers were threatening to do the same thing to Johnston’s wife.
“What’s the plan here?” I demanded, setting the note on his desk. I wouldn’t let these assholes touch another woman, especially not one who belonged to this club and one I looked at like a sister.
Johnston scratched at his jaw. “You’re going to the Texas Charter’s clubhouse and staying there until you find the son of a bitch responsible for stalking my woman and thinking he can threaten her. This is clearly Russian-related. They’ll get our territory and my woman over my dead fucking body,” he snarled.