My hands still feel the warmth of Brooke’s skin as I ride to the clubhouse. My tongue still tastes her.

I still hear her cries of pleasure in my ears. Still feel the release of my cock as I emptied myself deep inside her.

She let herself go with me. For the first time. She let go of her defenses and let me in.

And I know it was something she needed. I can still hear her, begging me to make her forget everything for a little while. Asking me to take control.

I always knew Brooke kept something essential about herself hidden from the world. Something she never told anyone. Not even me. When we were kids, she seemed strong as hell to most people. Independent, almost to the point of being aloof. But I knew underneath all that, there was something fragile about her. Something I needed to be careful not to break.

From the first time I saw her, Brooke was always gorgeous as fuck. She had this way about her, kind of a “fuck you” attitude wrapped in a sexy little body. But unlike other girls her age, she didn’t feel the need to put it all out there on display. Hell, she might not even have known the effect she had on guys. Maybe she didn’t see it, or maybe she chose not to see it. I don’t know.

That day I ran into her outside the high school, sitting around by herself, she looked like a wild thing. Like a bird just about ready to take off at the slightest movement.

I was careful not to scare her off. Careful to give her time to trust me. To let her open up to me.

I thought I was getting there. I thought I was cracking that tough exterior.

And then she skipped town, without so much as a word or a look back.

I never knew why. Over the years, I thought about her from time to time. I always made myself stop, though. There was always a willing pussy I could forget myself inside. A willing mouth to give me what I needed, even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted.

Yeah, I was pissed at her for leaving. Pissed as hell.

Now I’m just pissed at myself. Because I know pretty soon she’s gonna leave again.

And if I had just stayed the fuck away from her, I wouldn’t care that much.

I left the hotel after she fell asleep, without saying goodbye. I know it’s better that way. Because there’s no way this shit has a future. Partly because Brooke was never the kind of girl to look behind her when she decides something’s over.

And partly because in spite of what just happened between us, she’s a fuckin’ fed, and I’m in an outlaw MC. We live by different codes. Work under different creeds.

And right now, I’m on my way to deliver a shipment of illegal firearms. To be sold to rival gangs who won’t be happy until they’ve managed to completely kill each other off.

* * *

The run down to the border takes a couple hours. Our contact is supposed to meet us at an abandoned gas station out in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere. By the time we get there, we have a little over half an hour to get into positions, just in case shit goes bad. Bullet, Sarge, and Horse keep watch while Angel, Brick, and I pull the truck around the back of the station. The three of us get out and take a walk around the perimeter, then settle in to wait.

“Rock’s outta the hospital today,” Angel tells me as we lean against the truck. Brick is still walking around checking shit out.

“Yeah? Who’s picking him up? He staying at the clubhouse again?”

“Nah.” Angel lights a cigarette and blows out a plume of smoke. “I guess Trudy’s givin’ him another chance. She’s pickin’ him up at the hospital and takin’ him back to their house. Maybe him almost dyin’ made her re-think the divorce.”

“Could be.” Trudy and Rock’s relationship is none of my fuckin’ business, but I have to admit it would be sad if they can’t make it work after all these years they’ve been together.

“Hey, Angel,” I continue, changing the subject. “I got something to run by you.”

“Yeah? What?” He gives me a glance.

“It’s… kind of fucked up.”

I got no idea how to start talkin’ about this, so I might as well just come out with it.

“Okay,” I begin. “The short of it is this. I was at the hospital yesterday, to see Rock. Happened to find out from Isabel about this girl that got brought in with injuries. Girl from Ukraine. Shows up alone, and it turns out she’s only sixteen years old.” I pause. “Well, come to find out, she escaped from this sex trafficking operation. She don’t speak English, so she barely knows anything at all. But she saw my cut,” — I look down, and then nod at his — “and she freaked. Said she recognized it.” I wait a beat. “Said a man with the exact same cut was one of the men involved with the trafficking ring.”

“What?” Angel looks at me sharply. “That ain’t possible. You sure she didn’t just see a different MC’s cut and figure it was one of ours?”

“That’s what I said. But apparently, she insisted.”

Angel frowns at me, skepticism etched in his features. “You said she doesn’t speak any English. So how do you know that’s what she said?”

Here’s where shit gets complicated. But I have to tell Angel the whole deal. I explain about Brooke being in town. He doesn’t remember her name — Angel’s too old to have been in school with her. I tell him she’s an FBI field agent now, and that she’s in town looking into potential human trafficking in the area.

Angel’s face freezes into a stony expression as I finish. “You’ve been talking to a fed,” he says flatly.

“Yeah.”

“This is the point where I ask you if you’re fuckin’ nuts, brother,” he snarls.

“Look,” I sigh. “Brooke used to be…” I stop for a moment, considering my words. “She used to be a friend of mine,” I finally say. “She ain’t here for the club, brother. She’s here looking into some bad shit. She couldn’t care less about what goes on with us.”

“Except she has a fucking witness that literally just fuckin’ told her that one of our men is part of this goddamn ring she’s tracking!” Angel’s voice rises in anger.

“But you know as well as I do that ain’t the case,” I retort. “It can’t be. The girl had to be making a mistake. Look, it’s lucky I was there to hear about this. This way, we don’t find out about it when the feds raid our clubhouse looking for evidence.”

Or maybe not. Maybe it’s the worst fucking luck in the world that I was there. If the girl hadn’t seen me in her hospital room, she would never have pointed the finger at our club in front of Brooke.

But the damage is done now. We gotta deal with it.

“Look. It’s good that the club knows this.” I repeat, looking Angel in the eye. “Maybe, I dunno… maybe I bring you to talk to Brooke. Or shit, maybe we investigate this on our own.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters, tossing down his smoke. “I do not need this right now.”

“Sorry, brother. I should have brought it up another time.”

“No. No,” he shakes his head tiredly. “Okay. Look. Let’s talk more after this drop is done. I want to know everything. Every. Fucking. Thing.”

Just then, Angel’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out of his pocket and glances at it. “Bullet sees movement. They’re coming.”

Angel looks over at Brick and gives a short, shrill whistle. Brick nods back. Just then, an SUV pulls into the lot. I watch as the doors fly open, and four men jump out. Behind them, an old, beat-up pickup drives in. I glance at the truck to see how many men are in it, but something out of the corner of my eye flashes just as Brick yells something over to my right.

“Gun!”

I hit the ground just as a bullet sings by me, hitting the back of our van near the gas tank. I scramble behind a tire for cover and return fire. There’s no time to think, no time to register any of my brothers’ positions as a rain of fire power flies in both directions. I aim and shoot, then aim and shoot again, adrenaline rushing through my veins as I hit one of the men and watch him go down. Dirt and debris explode around us as the deafening sounds of our bullets echo in all directions. I hit another man, who hits the dirt and lies motionless, one leg twitching in front of him. It’s a small victory, but the fact is, our handguns are no match for their semi-automatic rifles.

“It’s an ambush!” Angel shouts.

I scramble to my feet and run behind the van. Off to one side, I see Angel’s taken cover behind a cement pillar next to an old gas pump. He returns fire, giving as good as he gets. I can’t see Brick, but I hear gunfire coming from the far side of the gas station so I’m assuming that’s where he is. Bullets continue to assault us. One of the ambushers manages to shoot out a window of the van, and the glass shatters all around me, raining down like spiked hail.

“Motherfucker!” I shout, and pull myself up to look through the hole where the glass used to be. I fire off three rounds, quickly, then duck again. I don’t know if I hit anything. But just as I’m pulling myself back down, I think I just glimpse something that makes blood run cold in my veins.

A familiar patch. One I’d know anywhere.

A skull, outlined with eight segmented legs, like the fingers on a skeleton. Spiders.

Moving fast, I dive into the passenger door of the van and reach for an AR-15 we keep mounted to a gun rack near the floor. I ram a loaded high-cap magazine into it and slide out, then lift myself up to the broken window again and start firing. I watch in satisfaction as one of theirs screams and falls back, half of his head blown off by one of the blasts. I keep shooting until the mag is spent.

Suddenly, the gunfire stops, leaving us surrounded by an eerie silence. In front of us, there’s no more movement.

“Lords!” calls a voice from behind the trees. It’s Bullet.

“Status!” Angel barks back.

“Men down! Enemy neutralized!”

Warily, I emerge from behind the van. Angel does the same. Guns still drawn, we step out toward the bodies on the ground in front of us.

“Brick!” I yell.

“Here!” he calls. A second later, he appears. “You all good?”

“Yeah,” Angel shouts. “Got grazed, but I’m good.”

Bullet comes out from across the road, limping. A dark blotch of red seeps through his jeans below the knee. His eyes are wide and angry.

“Sarge and Horse.” His voice is husky, rough.

“What about them?”

Angel says the words sharply, as if daring Bullet to tell him bad news.

But Bullet just shakes his head.

“They’re gone.”

The three of us drive across the road and load Sarge and Horse’s bodies into the van. Bullet’s shot in the calf, so we leave him to watch over the bodies of the enemy. As I’m walking back across the road, I see Bullet aim and take fire into one of the dead men’s chests.

“He still movin’?” I ask as I look down.

“Nah.” Bullet hawks loudly, then spits on the corpse’s face. “Just wanted to plug this motherfucker one more time.”

“You all right?” I ask him, nodding toward his leg.

“I’ll make it,” he grunts. “Got some tampons to stop the bleeding. I always carry ‘em since the first time I got shot.”

I give him a grim laugh. “That’s right. You still got that one lodged in you, don’t you? Shit, you’re gonna be settin’ off metal detectors for the rest of your life.”

“We’ll see,” he shrugs, his voice tight. “I’ll let Smiley decide when we get back whether this one needs to come out.”

Angel and Brick join us, the four of us staring down at the motherfuckers who killed our brothers.

“This means war,” Angel says simply.

“Yeah,” Brick agrees. “And they ain’t left any doubt who the war is against.”

As we look down at the dead — at their patches — two things are clear.

The Outlaw Sons were never in this to do a deal with us. They were in it to end us.

Them, and what’s left of the Iron Spiders.