Claimed By The Mountain Kings – Alisson Bento

The synchronized, terrifying efficiency of their brotherhood was absolute. There was no panicked shouting. There were no frantic questions about what had gone wrong. They saw the blood soaking the entire left side of Darell’s leather jacket, and they instantly transitioned into a flawless, unspoken triage protocol.

“Perimeter!” Darell grunted, his jaw locked tight against the agonizing burn of his shoulder. He shoved me gently toward the center of the room, releasing my arm. “Marty’s already on the tree line,” Blake responded instantly, his mismatched eyes sweeping over Darell’s form, calculating the blood loss in a fraction of a second. The chaotic amusement was entirely dead. Blake was a coiled spring of pure, directed violence. He didn’t carry a handgun; he held a customized, short-barreled shotgun, his finger resting flat along the receiver.

“The secondary access roads are wired. Bruno is sweeping the northern ridge. We hold the hollow.” Atwater didn’t speak. He stepped into Darell’s space, carrying the hard- shell black plastic medical trauma kit he had used on my hands. The logistics manager moved with the sterile, hyper-focused precision of a field surgeon.

“Sofa,” Atwater commanded, his voice a low, level baseline of absolute calm. Darell didn’t argue. He crossed the Persian rug, his heavy boots leaving dark, watery tracks of mud and blood across the immaculate wool. He dropped heavily onto the edge of the longest distressed leather sofa, his right hand resting the heavy Colt .45 on the mahogany coffee table with a definitive, metallic clack.

I stood frozen in the center of the room, water dripping from the matted ends of my dirty-blonde hair, completely paralyzed by the overwhelming, crushing weight of my own guilt. My hands were suspended in the air in front of me. They were covered in it. The dark, sticky crimson was smeared across my palms, staining my fingernails, soaking deep into the cuffs of the wool sweater. It was his blood. He had thrown his body over mine.

He had taken a bullet meant to tear through my chest, and he had slaughtered three men in a crowded diner to ensure I kept breathing. They were dying for me. This impenetrable, isolated family was being dragged into a meat grinder because I had brought the devil to their doorstep. “Callie.” The sharp, clipped snap of Atwater’s voice cut through the suffocating static in my brain.

I blinked, my gaze snapping to the sofa. Darell didn’t wait for Atwater to begin the triage. Before the logistics manager could even reach for the heavy trauma shears, Darell shoved his uninjured right hand into the deep pocket of his ruined leather jacket. He pulled out the heavy brown paper bag containing the high-pressure brass manifold and tossed it forcefully to Blake. “The manifold,” Darell gritted out, his jaw locked tight against the agonizing burn in his shoulder.

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

1kitap1.com/en CHAPTER 1 Blood and Pine The ringing in my ears was a high, sustained shriek, drowning out the hiss of the ruptured radiator. I tasted blood and the bitter, chalky chemical powder of the deployed airbag. For a long, disjointed second, I didn’t know if I was upside down or right side up. The stolen sedan rested at a violent, jagged angle against the trunk of a massive pine tree, the hood crumpled backward like a crushed tin can.

Freezing air poured through the shattered windshield, carrying the sharp, medicinal scent of crushed pine needles mixed with the metallic tang of my own blood. I blinked against the stinging dust, my vision swimming into focus. The dashboard lights flickered, casting a sickly yellow glow over the spiderwebbed glass. I shoved at the deflated white mass of the airbag, my hands trembling so violently I could barely form fists. A sharp, searing pain tore across my left collarbone, right over the jagged scar Miriam had given me.

I reached up, my freezing fingers brushing against the torn fabric of my thin jacket. It was wet. Warm and wet. The impact had torn the old tissue open again. Panic, cold and absolute, finally broke through the shock. I had to get out. If Miriam’s men had followed my tracks off the interstate, if they had seen the headlights veer off the mountain road and plunge into the timber, they would be here in minutes.

Miriam didn’t leave loose ends. She didn’t forgive. She viewed me as property, and property that ran away was property that got broken into unrecognizable pieces. I fumbled blindly in the dark footwell, my fingers grazing the icy rubber of the floor mats until I brushed against the hard plastic of the burner phone. I grabbed it, shoving it deep into the right pocket of my jacket.

My hand swept over the passenger seat, seeking the only other thing I had managed to grab from the estate.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: a3f7cd22dd1e3eb0
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,751,252 bytes (1.67 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 373
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 585.67 minutes
• Total Words: 117,134
• Total Characters: 710,684
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