The clang of the opening bell echoed through my ears, sending a jolt of electric energy surging through me. Adrenaline pumped through my bloodstream while muscles and ligaments tightened in anticipation when I came charging out of the corner of the ring. My gloved fists were positioned at chest level to either inflict harm or block a hit.

When you were facing down an opponent, timing was everything. Dodging in just a split second meant the difference between a right cross narrowly missing your jaw and one potentially knocking you senseless. Coming back from a block at just the right moment could also mean the difference in incapacitating your enemy and winning the fight.

I’d faced a lot of adversaries in my day. Most of the time, I was in crowded, noisy bars or in dimly lit back alleys. While I might use my fists defensively to protect my club brothers, I usually relied on other forms of weaponry. Tonight, however, found me under the bright lights of the boxing ring, facing down a fighter I’d never seen before. The one place I was most confident was in the ring. Between the ropes, I didn’t need to count on guns or knives to save my ass—my hands and my body were the only weapons I needed. They could inflict great pain and suffering while making me a champion.

At twenty-five, I’d been fighting most of my life. My old man had gotten me started when I was just a kid as a way to release steam. Considering that he was a former felon turned holy-rolling preacher turned MC president, he had experience defusing hot tempers with intense physical activity. What he hadn’t anticipated the day he brought me into his MC-owned gym was the natural talent I had when it came to boxing.

Tonight as I bobbed and weaved around the ring, throwing rights and jabs, I found my opponent ultimately to be such a pussy that I wondered if he hadn’t been paid to take a dive, aka lose the fight. But then in the fifth round, he found his second wind and started pummeling my face. I felt the stinging burn of skin slicing open along my forehead and eyebrows. Blood trickled into my eyes, clouding my vision. Instead of becoming a handicap, it merely fueled my rage.

As the rounds continued, I began to wear my opponent down. Finally, after the ninth bell, I clocked him one to the jaw and then to the nose. He staggered back, collapsing to his knees and then falling forward onto his face.

The referee smacked the mat to confirm that my opponent was out. When he jumped to his feet, he grabbed me by the arm and jerked it over my head. The crowd clambered to their feet in a loud rush of noise. A cocky grin slunk across my face as I did a triumphant turn, raising both my arms over my head, which caused the crowd to roar their approval. After giving them a fist pump, I started to the corner of the ring, where Boone, the Raiders’ official treasurer and my unofficial trainer, awaited me.

He thrust a bottle of water at me, which I gladly started gulping down. “Breakneck is AWOL tonight, so I texted Rev during that nasty fifth round to bring Annabel by to clean you up.”

“Aw, fuck, man, the last thing I need is shit from Rev because his wife has to patch my bloodied ass up from a fight.”

“Yeah, well, it was either Annabel or the emergency room.” With a snort, Boone added, “Besides, we don’t want to scar up that pretty puss of yours.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled as I snatched a towel off the ropes and started drying off some of the sweat on my chest.

“Need me to do that?” a voice purred behind me.

Glancing over my shoulder, I took in the scantily clad figure of a ring card girl. She was one of the hot-bodied women who walked around the boxing ring holding the numbered round cards above their heads. I had seen her around the last couple of fights. As she tilted her blond head, she gave me her best come fuck me smile. Regardless of the pain and the bloodied shape my face might’ve been in, my dick automatically responded to her call.

I turned around and took a step closer to her. “Think you could help me out once I get patched up?”

She pursed her red lips at me. “Maybe.”

“I’ll make it worth your while. Several times. I can promise you that.”

Her gaze drifted down my body before her eyes met mine again. “Okay, champ. We’ll see if you can have two knockouts tonight.”

“Give me half an hour.”

“Sounds good.”

Boone’s hand landed on my shoulder. “All right, lover boy. Let’s get going.”

When I hopped down, I came face-to-face with Rev. He grimaced at the sight of me. “Boone wasn’t lying when he said you’d gotten pretty fucked up tonight.”

“Doesn’t feel any worse than usual.”

Rev jerked his chin up at the ring, where my imminent piece of ass stood. “Doesn’t look like it’s affecting your ability to get laid, either.”

I grinned. “Nothing but being dead or in a body cast will stop me from getting laid.”

With a chuckle, Rev said, “You’re a piece of work, brother.”

We started through the crowd to the back hallway that led to the training rooms. Rev’s phone rang. After grabbing it out of his pocket and glancing at the screen, he motioned for me to go on to the last door on the left. When I entered, Annabel had her back to me, digging through a bag of medical supplies.

After sneaking up behind her, I bellowed, “Hey there, sexy.”

When the sound of my voice caused her to jump, I immediately felt bad. Although a year had passed since she was enslaved by a member of the Rodriguez drug cartel down in Mexico, she still had moments of being skittish when it came to men. “Sorry about that,” I said sheepishly.

Without looking up from her bag, she replied, “I should be used to it by now.” A smile curved her lips. “Or I should at least be used to you always acting like a dick.”

I threw back my head with a laugh. “True. Very true.”

As she glanced over at me, Annabel’s green eyes widened in horror.

“Don’t worry. The other fucker looks much worse,” I said, hopping up on the massage table.

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said.

“You know, I’m kinda offended that I’ve got a lowly vet tech tending my wounds rather than an MD.”

Annabel jerked her head up. She pursed her lips at me. “Yeah, well, I’m equally offended to have been dragged away from my date night to come down here to look after you.”

Giving her a shit-eating grin, I said, “Sorry, sweetheart, but when you married my brother, you married the club as well.”

“And for better or worse means skipping out on dessert to sew you up?” she asked teasingly.

“Sure as hell does.” After drinking in her appearance in a sexy black dress that showed off her legs and her tits, I gave a low whistle. “Although I do have to say it’s really better on my part because you’re lookin’ mighty fine tonight, Mrs. Malloy.”

Pink dotted her cheeks as she put the necessary supplies down next to me. When Annabel finally looked me in the eye, she did smile. “Always the flatterer.”

“Always. Of course, I would be a real dumb-ass to insult someone who is about to use a needle on me.”

“For once, you are very wise.”

As she started cleaning the cuts on my face and forehead, I asked, “So, exactly where the hell is Breakneck tonight that kept him from being here?”

“He’s on a date.” After a dramatic pause, she added, “With Kim.”

My eyebrows shot up in extreme shock, causing me to hiss in pain. “Are you fucking serious?”

Annabel nodded as she tossed the bloodied gauze in the trash can beside the table. I couldn’t say I was surprised that Breakneck was getting back in the saddle. The man had been divorced for years, and while he’d been known to hit it with a couple of the older club whores, he hadn’t gotten serious with anyone inside or out of the club. But holy shit, he was stepping out with Kim, the widow of our former president Case. It had been more than a year since Case’s murder, but for the most part, Kim still mourned him.

There had been no one else in the world for her since she was eighteen years old.

“That’s the latest from the gossip mill, huh?” With a snort, I added, “You old ladies sure run your mouths.”

“For your information, I found out from Rev, not Kim.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded. “Apparently, Breakneck had asked Rev’s advice about whether he should ask Kim out.” She dabbed some antiseptic along my forehead cuts. While it stung like a motherfucker, I tried not to act like a pussy in front of Annabel. With a dreamy look on her face, she said, “Personally, I think it’s a wonderful idea. They both need someone, and they’re both in the club.”

“Yeah, but boning your dead brother’s old lady is complicated for a dude.”

Annabel stared wide-eyed at me for a moment before grinning. “You have such a way with words.”

“Thank you.”

“Besides, I think it’s about more than”—she swallowed hard—“boning, as you say.”

“In the end, it all comes down to boning.”

“To you, maybe, but there is more to a relationship than just that.”

I winked at her. “Let’s agree to disagree on that one.”

“Fine with me.” She opened up the suturing kit, and I braced myself to have my broken skin stitched back together. “So tell me something.”

“What?” I asked.

“How exactly does your fighting fit in with the Raiders going legit?” When I gave her my best I don’t know shit about what you’re talking about look, she rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Bishop, I’m not an idiot. I know you’re not fighting just to unload some steam, and I know there’s big money on these fights. And before you accuse Rev of always running his mouth to his old lady, he didn’t tell me anything. I figured it out all on my own.”

I chuckled as I shifted on the table. Both Deacon and Rev had picked strong, hardheaded women. The best kind of old ladies were the ones who just looked the other way, didn’t ask questions, and kept their mouths shut. At the same time, you needed some strong-willed bitches to keep the other women in line, especially when it came to the president’s wife. Annabel had been through enough to make her strong as steel, and with time, I knew she would become a woman all the others in the club would look up to as their leader’s wife.

“You’re right. I don’t do it for shits and giggles. I do it for the prize money.” I cursed under my breath as the needle pierced my skin.

“Do I dare ask what you’re doing with all your winnings?”

I clenched my jaw through the pricking pain of the needle. “Although it’s a legit way to earn a living, I don’t always want to be a mechanic.”

Annabel’s hand stilled in her sewing. “What else is it that you want to do?” she questioned softly.

For a moment, I thought about blowing her off. I hadn’t shared my long-term goal with anyone, really. Maybe Deacon and Rev had an idea from my weekend pursuits of buying broken-down bikes and refurbishing them, but it wasn’t something I had actually come right out and said.

At my hesitation, Annabel continued stitching. “Oh. It’s something you shouldn’t tell me because it’s illegal.”

“Hell no. It’s nothing like that.” I drew in a deep breath. “I want to own a bike shop someday. I love rebuilding old bikes and restoring them.”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

“You do?”

Annabel nodded. “Of course I do. I think you can do anything you put your mind to, B.”

It felt pretty fucking fabulous having her support. “Thanks. It means a lot.”

As she finished stitching my eyebrow, her expression turned serious. “So you’re totally on board with the new direction the club is taking?”

Although the question shocked the hell out of me, I tried to keep my face impassive. “I always support my brothers.”

“That’s a very diplomatic answer,” she said as she snipped the suturing thread.

After a few moments of silence, I exhaled a deep breath. “I know some people—some brothers from other Raiders chapters—might think what we’re doing is the coward’s way out. That Deacon instigated going legit all because he was pussy-whipped by a woman. But that’s not how it is.”

“Exactly how is it, B?” Annabel questioned softly.

I gave a quick shake of my head. I didn’t like to get serious with anyone about my world, least of all a woman. But in her own way, Annabel had earned her stripes. “In the last five years, I’ve lost my old man and then my president. Deacon almost got blown up, Rev was tortured and almost died, and even I got shot. I’m twenty-five years old, and if shit keeps going the way that it is, I won’t live to see thirty. Each and every time you have to put a brother in the ground, it eats away at you. Even if I do make it past thirty, I sure as hell don’t want to have to lose any more of my brothers, especially not Deacon and Rev. It’s a vicious fucking cycle, and somewhere things have to change.”

“Death is the greatest motivator for you,” Annabel stated.

“Hell yeah.”

“You don’t worry about jail time?”

Shrugging, I replied, “I wouldn’t want to do time, but at least there’s an option to get out. You can come back to your family and your bike.”

Annabel smiled. “Rev keeps quoting this MC president who turned his chapter around. He said, ‘You can’t ride a bike in jail.’”

“That’s the fucking truth.”

“And at the end of the day, that’s really what is most important to you guys. Isn’t it?”

“Bikin’ and brotherhood is all that matters.”

Rev appeared in the doorway then. “Putting Humpty Dumpty back together?” he asked with a grin.

Annabel laughed. “Yes. I just finished up.”

“Good. Because he has some company waiting on him.”

When Rev waggled his eyebrows, Annabel groaned. “I don’t think I even want to know.” She tossed the last of her supplies back into her bag. “I would recommend for the next twenty-four hours that you take some ibuprofen—” When I started to protest that I wasn’t a pussy who needed anything for the pain, she held up her hand. “For the inflammation.”

I grinned. “Yes, Doc.”

My ring girl appeared in the doorway beside Rev. “You’re looking better,” she said, with a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile.

After Annabel took one look at my piece of ass, she rolled her eyes and grabbed her bag. “I would recommend icing your forehead as well, but I can imagine any further advice I give will fall on deaf ears.”

“Pretty much.”

She shook her head. “You Malloy men are stubborn to a fault.”

Lowering my voice, I added, “We’re also horny motherfuckers, so do yourself and my brother a favor by getting out of here and going home to bed.”

“You’re impossible,” she muttered, but when she glanced over her shoulder at Rev, I knew he’d be getting some by the secretive smile Annabel wore when she gazed at him.

As soon as Annabel left my side, my ring card girl took her place. After Rev closed the door, she said, “My name’s Candy, by the way.”

I nodded. I wanted to assure her I wouldn’t need to know her name because we wouldn’t be hooking up again. The only reason why it might have mattered was to make sure I called out the right name when I came, because with all the women I’d been with, they managed to run together.

After making quick work of getting her and myself undressed, I showed her how a true champion can have multiple knockouts in one night.