My brother owned the gavel like it had been his God-given right to be the President of a Motorcycle Club. Sheer power seeped from him the first time I was allowed into the room where the club men held their chapel.
It wasn’t an easy day. It had been almost two weeks since Faith disappeared. Almost two weeks since anyone had seen Cain or Faith. We couldn’t find a single lead to save our life. I was ready to blow up at the smallest provocation.
Without Brayden and Meg to calm the beast that prowled inside me with their kindness and gentle words and touches, I was beginning to doubt I’d ever feel sane again.
But she had understood. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t go back to New Orleans with everything so uncertain with Faith. And when Meg and I had talked earlier in the week, she had almost sounded smug. I had smiled, hearing her unspoken I told you so come through the phone line. Pete had been equally understanding. The conversation I had with him, letting him know what was going on, had been almost as difficult as the one I’d had with Meg. They had become my family.
I would see them again, but it would never be the same.
So while my thoughts were on missing them and finding Faith, taking her far from the hell she’d lived in for the last several years, I wasn’t paying attention to Daemon and the other brothers in the clubhouse.
Daemon pounded the gavel, declared the voting done, and men I’d known for practically my entire life began slapping my shoulders, handing me my leather vest.
I gripped it in my hands. Only then did I realize my hands were shaking.
I said nothing as I took it.
There would be no Prospect patch for me. Apparently putting a bullet in their old President allowed me to skirt that step in becoming a member. Not that most of them hadn’t known me my entire life. Not that I hadn’t heard at least a half dozen of them remind me over the last ten days that no one blamed me for my father’s death.
But still, I stared at the cut as if it was the final step in me returning home. Returning to a life I had never wanted to be in, but knew it was where I would always end up. Now I was done fighting it.
It didn’t make it easier to slide the soft black leather over my shoulders, though.
“I know what you’re feeling,” Daemon said. His voice was low and quiet. All the men were gone from the chapel room besides the two of us.
My fist tightened around the cool leather. “Do you?”
“You think I didn’t feel the same shit when I did this same thing five years ago?”
“Fuck,” I choked out, shaking my head. I stared at the leather, and then at Daemon, a small grin on my lips. “The fucking shit we do for our women.”
Daemon walked by and smacked my shoulder, pushing me out of the chapel room into the living room. “First shot’s on me.”
He nodded toward the shot glasses already lined up on the bar and the men already filling their glasses from the tapped kegs.
He had insisted the club needed a reason to party. We’d been running ourselves ragged for the last two weeks trying to find Faith, coming home from overnight rides where we hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, completely exhausted. My frustration and fear grew every day.
But he was right. The men needed a night off. Most of them were still reeling from Bull’s betrayal and with the uncertainty of Sporelli and Black Death retribution chasing them—us—the mood had been somber.
And if they wanted to do it on my behalf, I’d let them fill me with shots and cheap beer until my own head could fucking settle down and maybe, finally, be able to sleep for a night.
“We’ll find her,” Daemon insisted as we stepped outside.
The men cheered and raised their glasses.
A shot glass filled with tequila was pressed into my palms by Jaden, followed by a slam to my back.
“Drink up, brother!” he shouted, and all the men yelled again. I took in the room. The room that was filled with men I had once considered family. Where the older men had always been like uncles and pseudo-fathers, and the younger ones like brothers.
I slammed back the shot and faced Daemon.
“We’ll find her,” I agreed. “But it better be fucking quick.”
Then I was yanked into the madness, filled with shot after shot. Beer after beer. I played pool, and I got my ass kicked at darts.
Liv tried—and failed—to get me to smile.
Jules showed up and avoided Jaden while he scowled and stared at her in the corner until she left.
And then I passed out in my new room in the clubhouse. The room spun in the darkness.
And through all of it, all I could think about was where the fuck was Faith. And knowing that if when I found her she had any visible injury on her at all, there would be more blood on my hands.
“You going for a ride with me?” I asked Finn, the quiet Australian, as I slid onto a bench to him outside. Xbox and one of the twin prospects—Jimmy or Johnny, I had no clue—sparred inside the boxing ring.
A muscle in the man’s jaw jumped. He was quiet. I hadn’t spoken to him much, but under his quiet, watchful eye, for some strange reason I trusted the fuck out of Finn even if I didn’t know his story.
“Where to today?”
My hands balled into fists. I had no fucking clue. I only knew I had to get out from behind the caged walls and into open air, and then hope like hell someone, somewhere, had seen Faith.
“Headed West, I figure. If Cain has her, he’ll head toward where they have other Charters in Colorado.”
Finn was quiet for a beat before he ran his hand down his face. “Why the fuck not?”
“What’s your story, anyway?” I asked, although I didn’t expect an honest answer. Daemon and Jaden had both told me no one knew why Finn had left Australia and headed toward the States. Even more confusing was how he ended up with a bunch of outlaw motorcycle men. Murder was my first guess. Not that I was in a place to judge him for it.
Finn swung a leg over his bike and narrowed his eyes on me. “You ever run from something?”
I arched an eyebrow. He shrugged. “Then you know what it’s fucking like to be asked about it.”
I gave him that play, but still I said, “Yeah, but I came back.”
He started the engine on his bike, and at the same time shouted over the rumbling sound, “I won’t.”
I gave him that play, too. The man was a silent broody mystery, but hell if I didn’t also agree that we were all entitled to our own secrets. I carried enough of them.
He followed me as we pulled out of the club and I waved a see you later to whatever twin wasn’t in the sparring ring. Someday, I’d learn their fucking names.
The sun was brutal as it beat down on our arms. It heated me through the black vest that had somehow become a natural part of me over the last few days. It was two hours into our drive when my phone began vibrating in the front pocket of my jeans.
I ignored it at first, lost in the familiar silence of what it was like to be on a bike again. Daemon had fixed me up with his old one as soon as I declared I was staying. I’d get my own someday soon, but for now, it worked.
Eventually, I could no longer ignore the incessant buzzing against my thigh, so I waved my hand and signaled for Finn to pull over at the next rest stop exit.
When we did, my phone buzzed again.
I clicked it open and snarled almost immediately.
“Want your woman?” A slightly accented voice that I could place rumbled through the phone.
I hit the speaker button and watched Finn’s eyes widen.
“Who the fuck are you?”
The man laughed. It was recognizable and my blood boiled instantly.
“Sporelli? You fucking shit.”
“Calm down, son, my men just got her.” He paused and my pulse increased. “She’s hurt.”
Fuck! “How bad?” I asked through the choking sensation in my throat. Faith was hurt? When I found Cain or whoever was responsible for hurting her more than she’d already been hurt, I’d kill them with my bare hands.
The asshole almost sounded compassionate. His voice softened. “She’ll live.”
Which didn’t fucking help me. At all.
I growled. “Where is she?”
“Not close, yet,” he said. My hand clamped onto the seat of my bike. What the hell was he playing at? “But you’ll see her soon.”
“What’s your game?”
The asshole sounded like he was smiling. And suddenly, I knew I was fucking tired of the guilt of killing people. Some people, like Bull and now Angelo Sporelli, simply deserved to die.
“Consider her collateral,” he said. “You’ll get her when I get my first shipment delivered to the Cities. Should be arriving in your ports later tonight. Don’t screw it up.”
And then he was gone. I stared at Finn. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Apparently not, man.” He shrugged like this was no big deal, like it didn’t matter that Faith was being held by someone we were supposed to be working with. And it still begged the question of where in the hell Cain was and Faith’s mom.
I didn’t have time to answer all the shit in my head.
I picked up the phone and called Daemon.