Twisted Steel: An MC Anthology: Second Edition by Elizabeth Knox (top 5 ebook reader txt) 📕

“Can I hel… fuck!” He tried to slam it closed, but I raised my foot and pulled it back, slamming my heel into the cheap piece of shit and almost cracking the fucking thing in half. Adrian stumbled back, hitting the wall for a second in his stunned state before he lifted his hands, his head shaking back and forth. “Hawk, man, come in!”

Shoving what was left of the fucking door to the side, I stepped through, Drew and Blue right behind me.

I wasn’t one of those assholes who sent their entourage in first.

I handled whatever I could fucking handle with my fists or the bullet in my goddamn gun.

“I don’t have the money,” Adrian protested. He knew exactly why I was there because, unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time I’d had to visit his dumbass. “You gotta give me some time.”

Shaking my head, I stepped inside the run-down apartment. There were holes in the walls, stains on the carpet, and fucking trash pushed into corners. Oh, and the smell? “Last thing I wanted to do was come down to this fucking dump, just for you to tell me you don’t have the money,” I ground out, dodging a pile of trash that looked like it was fucking moving. “I don’t have the time for that.”

I really didn’t. I had shit to do that didn’t involve this dirty bastard and his inability to know when to fucking stop ticking up shit he couldn’t afford.

Bad for him, good for us.

The club had been debt collecting for the past three or four years. We bought debt from businesses at lower than the amount owed, then add what we like to call ‘tax’ on the top of the original amount. It could be a gamble, given there was never any guarantee we were going to get our money back, but the one difference between us and other debt collection agencies—they have to follow the law.

I find there are other far more productive means.

Hands shaking, Adrian reached for a lit cigarette sitting in an ashtray and drew it to his lips. “I… I honestly don’t have anything. I don’t.” He took a long, deep inhale of nicotine, holding his breath for a few long seconds before letting the steady stream of smoke leak from between his lips.

“You’re on your third strike,” I warned, dusting off the wall beside me before I leaned against it, my gun resting against my leg. “So, there’s only two ways I’m leaving this place.”

That was his warning.

I’d been here three fucking times, and this time wasn’t a fucking courtesy call.

Bishop’s orders were clear this time around—he wanted what he was fucking owed, or he wanted a fucking body.

Adrian’s eyes grew wider, his cigarette hanging limp from his fingers. His other hand scrubbed over his gaunt-looking face, his cheeks sucked in, his eyes sunken into the sockets like he hadn’t slept for weeks. His body trembled, his nails scratching at his face made my skin fucking crawl.

I wanted to get the fuck out of here.

I was done coming down to this nasty piece-of-shit apartment.

“Hawk, man, I can’t… I don’t… you know me, you know I’m good for it… if you just give me a few days!”

He was right. I knew him far too fucking well.

And the people he kept fucking over were sick and fucking tired of his drug-addicted ass. He was bad for business, and honestly, just a waste of air. “I’ll give you five seconds,” I told him with a shrug.

“Hawk—”

“Five.”

His head was shaking back and forth, his long, matted hair flopping around frantically. “I can give you something else. My car? My uh… my…” He had fucking nothing because he had already sold everything he owned to get his last fix.

“Four.”

“My girlfriend!” he announced, pointing his dirty fucking finger toward the door. “She’ll… she will be right back! She’s just gone out to get food. You can take her. She’s cute. Pretty.”

“One,” I hissed, lifting my weapon and only pausing to aim for less than a second before I squeezed the trigger. Over and over. Emptying the entire clip, his body jerking with every silent blow, stumbling backward and slamming against the wall behind him.

Shaking my head, I twisted off the silencer as he coughed and spluttered, his body sinking to the floor as it convulsed.

“Who taught you how to count?” Drew teased as he and Blue both stepped around me, moving down the short hall off the tiny apartment, making sure there were no loose ends left lying around. “You forgot three and two.”

“Itchy trigger finger,” I drawled, trying to ignore the tightness in my shoulders. “Uncontrollable twitch.”

“You should get that checked.”

“I’ll make a fucking note.”

He paused at the end of the hall and turned to look over his shoulder at me. “It was the mention of the girl, right?”

My lip curled in disgust as I looked down at the piece of shit, his blood decorating the dirty cream-colored carpet, if anything, making this hell hole look a little better. I refused to acknowledge it, but Drew was right, it was the mention of him trading his fucking girlfriend to get himself out of the goddamn hole he’d dug for himself.

Sacrificing others so that they get to live.

Willing to throw people they are meant to love under the bus for their own benefit.

Just like The Valley.

I didn’t have time for cockroaches like him.

And I wasn’t about to give him a place on earth to do that kind of shit.

Yeah, I was fucked up.

I’d been through hell, and I had fucking problems—that was no joke—but I owned my shit. Who I was, the life I lived, the choices I made.

I owned it all.

“Everything good?” I asked, standing a little taller and raising my brow at Blue as he finished scanning the house, making sure there was nothing left, nothing of ours, nothing to indicate us.

Not that the police would come looking.

They’d be thankful.

One last piece of shit for them to scrape off their shoe.

When we