Break Maiden (Chrome Horsemen MC Book 3) Read Free Page B

said very slowly and clearly, "No. One million by two o'clock today or I start dropping bombs. I swear to God, nothing will be left of that fucking house of yours but a big black, smoking, hole."
     
    Silence.
     
    "Hold on," Gabriel said.
     
    Jim looked back to Cole, "She called you?"
     
    Cole nodded but couldn't speak.
     
    "She could have been forced," he offered.
     
    His voice croaked when he tried to answer. He cleared it and tried again, "She went there on her own."
     
    Gabriel came back on the line, "Fine. It's done. I've made the transfer using the normal methods. We can get back to business. I'll expect the drivers and guards to show up before five."
     
    "No."
     
    "Excuse me?"
     
    "I said, no. We're done. If I ever see you again, I'll kill you. We are done." Jim said and closed the connection. Jim looked around the room at his officers, "I felt that this man is too insane, clinically insane, to put our men at further risk during future actions he might create. However, if you feel differently, now is the time to convince me.”
     
    "You were right before Jim," George, the List Master, told him. "We should have distanced ourselves near the first of the year.”
     
    Bear, the Sargent and Arms, said, "It was perfect win Jim. You got a million, ended the war, and got us away from a psychopath. I declare victory."
     
    A round of cheers and shouts went through the room. Jim stood looking at Cole, his face still as stone. When the noise level dropped he said softly, "Victory never felt so bad before. I'll be in my office." Then he lumbered out of the room.
     
    Cole made it to the bar before his energy ran out. It was wrong; it was all fucking wrong. But she went there on her own! She went there on purpose, back to her life and her wealthy men. And she was right! This life wasn't for someone like her. What the hell did he have to offer her?
     
    But she said…
     
     

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    Cole woke the next morning with what he could only describe as an emotional hangover. He had a shot at the bar and a shot when he got home, but wasn't close to intoxication when he went to bed at ten.
     
    His night's dreams were deep and what he mostly remembered were feelings of confusion and suffocation -- trapped in a dense, weighted fog and couldn't figure out which was up or where to go. There was a feeling of panic, or rather what should have been panic, but the panic couldn't seem to get past the fog either; it was always there, but never surfacing so he could scream.
     
    He woke drenched in sweat and gripping his pillow hard enough that the seam had broken.
    Making it to the coffee pot, he put the makings together and started the brew. From his stash, he put out a line of cocaine and sent that into his sinus. Then he grabbed a cold bottle of beer and headed for the shower.
     
    Between the steam and hard streams of water, the cold beer, and the cocaine, his chemistry was shocked enough to reset and the emotional hangover was gone as he dried off.
     
    He dressed for riding, as he normally did, and was just pouring his first cup of coffee when he heard a Harley engine gearing down in front of his house and then coming up his driveway. There, the engine powered down. He began walking to the front door, fairly sure the engine was Brian's Lowrider. Opening the door, before his visitor could knock, he found the redhead on his porch. "Morning, Brian. Coffee?"
     
    "That would be good. Glad you are up already," Brian said as he walked past and into the living room.
     
    "Why's that?" Cole asked, deciding the morning was nice enough to leave the door open and take advantage of the fresh air.
     
    "Well," Brian replied, removing his leather jacket and revealing his dual-shoulder holster, "I hate waking people up when I want to ask them a favor. It always feels like I got the favor already if they weren't pissed off about being woken up."
     
    Cole noticed that the guns Brian was carrying weren't the hand cannon twins, but what