Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
It would have been the best of mine too.
If I didn’t know what was coming next.
I was too much of a coward to give her any kind of warning, though. Not as we cleaned up, got dressed, and headed back downstairs to wait for the valet to bring the SUV around.
It wasn’t until I missed the turn for my house (and where her car was parked) that she turned to me, brows furrowed, but a soft smile still toying with her lips.
“I think you missed your turn,” she said.
“Actually, I want to bring you to the club for a bit.”
“Oh,” she said, brows furrowed.
I could tell by the way she relaxed back into the seat, a smile toying with her lips, though, that she thought what I had in store for her was simply another item on her bucket list.
And not completely blowing her world up.
But I pulled into the lot.
I saw Huck open the front door.
There was no going back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rue
Honestly, I had no idea what on my bucket list could be at the house with all his buddies. I spent the whole ride there racking my brain (and going over my list) for any possibilities.
I’d narrowed it down to a possible poker game when we’d pulled into the lot.
When I saw all the bikes lined up and a man standing in the door, I figured that had to be what it was.
It didn’t explain, though, why Kylo had become a barrel of nerves with each mile we’d driven.
I knew anxiety when I saw it.
It was in the ticking muscle in his jaw, the way his shoulders had inched up, his tight posture, and that strange, faraway look in his eye. Like his mind was a million miles away.
It was so strange to see those things on him, though. He’d always been so calm, so laid-back, so unflappable.
But he was definitely, you know, flapped as we climbed out of the SUV at the house and made our way toward the door.
“You remember Huck,” Kylo said, moving past the hulking man who was eyeing me.
“Hey, babe,” Huck said, tone friendly, if maybe a bit guarded. “Come on in.”
I probably wouldn’t have felt a weird prickle up my spine at it if it weren’t for how strangely Kylo was acting.
I moved into the house, following the path made by Kylo into the kitchen.
“Hey, Mackie,” I greeted the bird who was hanging off the side of his cage to try to steal a beakful of potatoes off a plate on the table.
It wasn’t just Huck and Kylo who moved into the kitchen. Oh, no. Several of the guys I’d already met came as well as a few men I didn’t recognize who looked closer to Huck’s age.
“Is… is everything okay?” I asked, swallowing hard, fighting back the urge to rush to the back door and make a break for it.
Something about the air in the room felt wrong.
“Can you take a seat?” Huck asked.
I glanced over toward Kylo, who was slumped against the wall, his head lowered, refusing to make eye contact with me.
What the hell was going on?
“Everything’s okay,” the guy I’d met briefly named Velle said. He was tall with a swimmer’s build, black hair, a beard, dark eyes, gauged ears, and a hoop in his nose.
His tone was soothing, reassuring.
But shouldn’t it have been Kylo trying to assure me that everything was okay?
Still, I was kind of trapped. Big, hulking men were blocking all the exits.
I stepped backward and sat down at the table, wondering if the knife still sitting on the plate was something I should try to reach for.
“We just need to talk to you about some things,” Velle said, moving to sit on the other side of the table, getting on my level, everything about him relaxed.
But Kylo seemed to only be growing tenser by the second.
“Okay,” I croaked, finding my mouth too dry to even swallow past the fist lodged in my throat. “Talk about what?”
I asked Velle.
But it was Huck who answered.
“Marco,” he said.
The whole world felt like it lurched.
My hand slapped down on the table, feeling like I was falling, and desperately trying to hold on.
“Marco?” I asked, looking over at Kylo.
But he was still studying his shoes.
“Yeah, about this tall,” Huck said, gesturing. “Stupid swagger. Cocky attitude. You know him from smuggling guns in through your delivery trucks.”
Oh, God.
How did he know that?
Why was he bringing it up even if he did?
What the hell was going on?
“I, uh, don’t know what—” I started to deny. That was the agreement I’d made with Marco. I told no one. And then nothing happened to my grandmother.
“Babe, don’t,” Huck cut me off. “We have more than a little proof.”
“How—” I started. But it was just then that my gaze moved back toward Kylo.
That was it.
Why he was being weird, why he was tense, why he wasn’t looking at me.