Fuck the law. I’ll kill them all.

Pure octane runs in my blood as I climb into my car. Tires scream on asphalt as I leave the driveway. A woman screams from the house. Neighbors sprint across the lawn, crying at the broken windows and bullet holes. A man in Bermuda shorts gapes at the wide-open door. “Madison?”

She could be dead. There wasn’t enough time to look. With each passing second, the rumble of motorcycles fades. Those soon to be killed assholes are getting away.

I gun the engine, blowing through stop signs. A bike throttles to the left. I follow the sound, weaving around parked cars. A woman walks onto the street. I lay on the horn. She jumps out of the way. I don’t know where to make the next turn. The road fills with smoke as I wrench the car right—total guess. Suspects in car chases almost always choose right-hand turns. The car squeals onto a residential street, and chrome winks at me.

The fucker’s there.

A red bandana wrapped around a man’s head flaps in the air. Leather vest. Crimson tailpipe. He’s Legion.

A black Saturn follows—probably Henri. He tries to box in the bike, but the asshole climbs the sidewalk. Pedestrians leap away, screaming. Braking, he turns onto the street and guns the throttle. I white knuckle the goddamn steering wheel, waiting for an opening. The biker speeds past parked cars, trying to squeeze through a gap between them and Henri, who veers left. The Saturn crashes into an Audi. Alarms screech as his car scrapes a huge dent. The biker weaves through. I follow, near enough to make out a skull tattoo on his lower back. He looks over his shoulder. Sees me. I see the, “Fuck,” bursting from his lips, and then my bumper taps his bike.

It makes a powerful left turn and chrome smashes into steel. His leathered body slams into my fender. His mouth opens in a scream that’s drowned by the loud, grinding shriek. My seat jumps a foot in the air. The wheels roll over the bike. I slam the brakes and glance in the rearview mirror. A wreck of twisted metal lies on the pavement, the rider five feet away, facedown. Smoke rises from the asphalt as the car grinds to a complete halt. I open the door and step outside.

A red streak on the baking cement leads to the biker, his leathers intact but his skin not so much. I slip the gun from my hip as I pass the carnage of his wreck.

I shouldn’t walk in his blood, but I don’t care about being cautious. Sense flew out the window when bullets blew a chunk of that table. It was way too close to Eva’s head. This time I don’t let myself become disembodied. I want to glory in this asshole’s suffering. His mangled arms should fill me with horror, and showing my gun to the bystanders huddled on the lawn is reckless. They turn their backs and run. High-pitched screams echo down the street.

I stop when I reach the biker. He rolls on his back. Instead of a face, it’s a pulpy mass. Doesn’t seem real. Resembles a hideous mask more than anything else. A shriek blasts out of that misshapen hole. It’d be a mercy to kill him, but that thought belongs to another man who doesn’t exist anymore. My wife’s face keeps flashing through my mind, and I place my boot over his throat. Just a little bit of pressure. He claws at my foot with shredded hands.

A man sprints in my direction. I freeze for a second before realizing it’s Henri. He probably abandoned his car. Out of breath, he jogs to my side. “Fuck. He is done.”

I ease my foot off the biker. “Who are you?”

“Bastien, he can’t talk, and we gotta go.” He points at a house, where white faces press against its windows. “Too many witnesses.”

The biker tries to haul himself upright. I sink my foot into his ribs. Nothing comes out of him but a wet gurgle. I grab his leather vest, lift his fat ass as I search his eyes for why. Why my wife?

I could do the same to him. Every asshole has people. I’ll shatter the bones in his body until he tells me their names. I drag him toward my trunk, and a pair of sirens stab my ears. Once it was a welcome sound.

Fuck.

Henri grabs my shoulder. “Are you fucking deaf? Let him go!”

I’m no good to Eva if I’m in a cell. Five or six cars. The switchboard must be lighting up with calls.

I have to leave.

His head makes a sickening thud as I drop his body on the pavement. The sight of him drowning in his blood isn’t enough. I want more. The red patch on his leathers fills me with rage. This was how they reinvented themselves: a drive-by of a fucking baby shower.

I grab my gun. Aim it at his torso. Fire.

Gore explodes from his chest as bullets pierce his body, which doesn’t move as I fire round after round. I wanted him to suffer—but the asshole is already dead.

I killed another man.

This time it feels good.

* * *

Saul wears one of his loud suits. A brown blazer and a stark yellow button-up with a cornflower blue tie. He insisted on meeting me at the mall, of all places. Sounded scared on the phone and he looks it. His eyes dart away, refusing to meet my gaze as he sucks on his lemonade drink, occasionally casting a mournful glance at his untouched glazed cinnamon bun.

He doesn’t want to be here. Neither do I.

“Did you think I’d kill you—is that why we’re in a mall?”

He gives me a sour look. “I don’t want any part of whatever the hell this is.”

Now I’m curious. I lean across the Formica table, dropping my voice. “You found something.”

Looking sick, he reaches inside his blazer and pulls out several glossy photos. “I was nervous as hell printing these.”

He places the photo in front of me carefully and doesn’t let go. His fingers curl around the paper as though he’ll rip it out of my hands.

Detective Carter stands next to Captain Ritter in what looks like an abandoned building or an unfinished basement. Saul flips the stack of photos. In the following photo, Carter and Ritter have walked forward a step, and three burly men enter the frame. Leather vests cover their chests, the red patches recognizable even from this distance.

Ritter and the Legion MC? “Holy shit.”

“You haven’t seen them all yet.”

Saul unveils the last picture, of the detective handing over a shrink-wrapped brick to the vice president of Legion MC.

Could be drugs, but I’m willing to bet my arm it’s money. Ritter and Carter are paying off the MC—why? “Damn. This is great, Saul.”

These photos would destroy them. They’re perfect—just what I need.

Saul yanks them out of my grip and stacks them on the table, looking around him wildly. “No offense, but I don’t want any part of a blackmail campaign.”

“It’s not what you think. I’m not after them for money.”

“I don’t care,” he says, laughing. “This is a little too hot for my liking.”

“What are you saying?”

Saul tucks the photos into his blazer. “Now—I know I promised you photographic evidence—so I’ll pay you a refund. Unfortunately, the ex-wife has me by the balls with these alimony payments and I can only give you half right now.”

I rise from the table. “You don’t want to rip me off.”

Saul falls from his chair in his haste to stand. “Look, buddy. You never told me I was dealing with bikers. I don’t screw around with patched members. Find another PI willing to risk his life for you—I sure as hell won’t.”

“Give me those photos, or you’ll die.” I grab his jacket when he backs away, pulling him close. “It doesn’t matter to me that we’re standing in a crowded mall. I need those prints.”

Panicked, he searches for help at the mostly indifferent shoppers. “I’m calling your bluff, Mr. Trout.”

I force my lips into a smile and flatten my palm against his chest. My heart pounds as I finger the gun holstered to my hip. Saul makes a frightened squeak. “Let’s think about this. You’re looking at ten years minimum for blowing me away in a shopping mall.”

“Maybe I don’t kill you here,” I tell him. “But there will be a day—maybe tomorrow, a year from now, who knows—when you’ve forgotten all about me, and you think you’re safe. You’ll be walking down the block with your future ex-wife without a care in the world. And that’s when you’ll hear it. A pop. The sound of your life blowing away.”

He flinches. “Jesus.”

I reach inside his jacket and yank the stack of photos from him. “I paid you to do a job and forget my name. So long as you keep your end of the deal, you’ll be fine.”

Saul stumbles from me. “The hell I will! If they knock on my door, you better believe I’m not taking a bat to my damn kneecaps to save your ass.”

“I’m impressed by your commitment to customer privacy. Don’t you guarantee that on your website?”

“Not when Legion MC comes knocking.” He marches to the table with the cinnamon roll and slumps in his seat. He runs fingers through his hair, which falls limp on his head.

I don’t want to beat his ass. Getting arrested in the mall would cut my plan short, and there’s Eva I need to think about. My wife and baby need me.

The chair scrapes the floor as I sit. “How often do they meet?”

Irritated, he bites into his roll. “Every other Thursday.”

“Is there always an exchange?”

“No.” He throws the bun into the paper tray. “Sometimes they just chat.”

He’s killing me. “About what?”

“You think I got close enough to eavesdrop? Hell no. My vibe of those meetings is that those two cops seemed nervous. Lots of pacing before the bikers show up.”

Must have Ritter in some kind of bind. This is bad. “I need to know what they talk about.”

He throws me a look of disgust. “Hey, if you want to spy on them, be my guest.”

The wheels in my head turn. Ritter and Carter have a relationship with the Legion MC, an enemy of the Romanos. Could they be colluding with them? What if the whole undercover operation was rogue?

My mouth goes dry. What if they wanted to use me for intel on the Romanos? They plucked the first rookie they saw to work for them. Told me I was helping bring down the Romanos. Wouldn’t be a lie if the information was fed straight to the Legion MC.

Oh my God.

A sourness hits my stomach like curdling milk. There’s no hope for me getting out of this. None. Ritter probably deleted my file months ago. There may be some at the station who remember my face, but Carter and Ritter never intended for me to make it out alive. The MC wants revenge and needed someone on the inside to do the job. When I refused, they opened fire on Madison’s house.

How did they even know we’d be there?

There’s a rat in Vito’s crew. With morale so low, I could see disgruntled members turning on Vito. Handing the MC information for scraps.

They used me to grease the MC, and they shot at my wife. Ritter and Carter knew full well I’d be there and didn’t give a shit. This spiraled out of control. First, I’m an undercover cop. Now I’m a pawn for the MC. My intel helped the MC take out members—but Johnny’s taking over. It was the last thing they wanted. With the territory under his command, they’d never be able to seize it back.

What better way to strike at the mob than a baby shower where everyone would be in attendance?

Saul sucks his lemonade noisily. “Hey, you okay, man? You look like you’re having an aneurysm.”

I stare at him as the world shrinks and pull out my wallet. I take half the cash—it’s only a few hundred dollars, and I won’t need it anymore. Saul blinks as I throw the bundle on the table, ignoring his questions as I walk into the crowd of Sunday shoppers.

I can’t fix this.

This is too big to handle myself.

* * *

I should tell Eva what I’m about to do so she’ll beg me to stop.

This is stupid—beyond insane. If they don’t pull out a gun and kill me where I stand, they’ll open me up. Torture me until I no longer resemble a man and bag me up. Everything inside me screams to grab Eva and leave, but I know what’ll happen if I run away with her.

In a month—maybe less—the money will disappear. My bank accounts are frozen. The fake IDs won’t go anywhere. Tracking us would be easy. They’ll find and kill me. Ritter and his goons might do it first. Every scenario I can dream of ends up with me dead unless I’m more valuable to the mob alive.

It’s a big gamble that I’ll probably lose.

The road to Rick’s Auto Repair is too short, and there’s not enough time to think of what to say. A large white sign stands at the street corner with peeling black paint: RICK’S AUTO REPAIR. I pull in the driveway and recognize the line of cars parked in the lot. The windows roll up, and I bake in the heat.

Vito bought the shop in the ’80s. It used to be a thriving place, but now it’s a greasy, rundown shack he uses to launder money. Captain Ritter pointed it out when we trained for my undercover role. When I finally got in the Romanos, which was a fucking ordeal, Rick gave me half off oil changes. Decent guy.

Rick relaxes outside the shop, the garage door closed for once. He sits on a concrete bench. Smoke makes calligraphy in the air as he takes a drag from his cigarette. His salt-and-pepper beard hides a very weak chin. He nods at me when he recognizes my car, gesturing his thumb inside.

They’re in there. All of them. The bosses of both families and their crew. My heart sinks as I recognize Johnny’s Benz.

Fuck me. My chances of surviving this just dropped dramatically. I’m prepared for Vito’s fury, the blows that’ll rain on my body, but Johnny’s a different beast. He’s impulsive enough to shoot me in the chest the moment I utter my confession: I’m a cop.

Don’t do it. Turn back.

I climb out of the car and shut the door. Every step might as well be my last, and my mind can’t stop running with everything I should’ve done. I should’ve called my parents. Said goodbye to Eva. Told her I love her.

Rick stands up and pounds on the wall, and a voice inside bellows for me to come in. He opens it for me, and I slide in.

You promised her you’d be back.

She’ll curse my name for years. She won’t be able to talk about me without a dagger of pain. My baby will never know me, but at least they’ll be safe. The agony twists in my heart, sharper than any blade, so potent. I thrust it aside because there’s no room for despair when I’m dealing with them.

There’s still a chance I might make it out of this.

I walk into the office. Metal rolls on my tongue as I bypass the desk to slip into the garage. It’s big enough to hold four cars and packed with Cravottas and Romanos, their hostile faces amorphous. I used to fucking hate them. Then I killed two men. One was impulse and rage; the other was cold necessity.

I’m not the same person I was. The world isn’t painted in black and white strokes. It’s a haze of gray, and I can’t tell who’s right and wrong. They have more honor than the cops I worked for, but that’s not saying much.

A man with a lean build paces the empty room with the air of a lion trapped in a cage. His sleeves roll up his muscled, olive-skinned arms. He stops at my footsteps. Flicks his lit cigarette. “Where the fuck have you been?”

Several men close in like starved hounds scenting blood. They sense the beatdown that’s about to happen.

No way I’ll make it out of here alive with both families packed in here. “I need to talk to you and Vito alone.”

He eyes me with suspicion. “Get out.” He nods to the enforcers shadowing him like small boulders, and they squeeze out of the doorway along with the rest of the crews.

A cough alerts me to Vito’s presence, who sits in a plastic chair, straight backed. Even though I loathe the guy, I can’t help but admire his poise. The man’s dying of cancer, but a half-dozen bikers shooting up his daughter’s baby shower seems to have reinvigorated his energy.

The men slip past me and pack in the office, several of them spilling outside. When the room empties, Johnny repeats his question. “Where were you?”

“Chasing a biker. Henri didn’t tell you?”

“That was an hour ago,” Johnny says in a high, cold voice. “You lie one more time, and I’ll put a cigarette out in your fucking eye.”

Vito gives him a look. “That’s my son-in-law.”

How am I going to do this? “I was meeting with my PI.”

They glance at each other, confused. “Private Investigator? For what?”

My heart slams against my chest. “It’s a long story, but I had him tail two cops. Detective Carter and Captain Ritter. They’re working with the Legion MC.”

I pull out the images Saul took and spread them on the workbench. “You can research them now and find their profiles.”

Johnny impatiently sifts through them as Vito slips his phone from his pocket and searches for the names. “Jesus, he’s right,” Vito says, eyes widening. “They’re cops. Look.”

He shows Johnny, who compares them to the photographs. His suspicion darkens as he confirms their identities. “How do you know all this?”

“I used to work for them.”

The cogs move in Johnny’s head, fury blazing on his face when the pieces snap into place. “Tabarnak.” He wheels to a bewildered Vito. “Did you know this?”

“Know what? What is he—”

“He’s a cop!” Johnny says. “He’s an undercover fucking cop.”

The word seems to run through Vito like a sword. He loses his composure. Doubles over. “No,” he says softly. “He can’t.”

“When I met you six months ago, I was a police officer. Then I fell in love with your daughter, and everything changed.”

“Motherfucker!” Vito springs to his feet, grabbing my shirt with a surprising amount of strength. His eyes bleed pain. “You piece of shit. You lied to me!”

I could easily toss him, but I let his fist smash into my jaw. Fuck, it hurts. I duck the next one. “Put your anger aside and listen.”

“Fuck you! You took advantage of my daughter!” He swings at me, arms whistling through the air. Johnny watches with mingled rage and annoyance.

“You need to hear me out.” I seize his hand and force it to his side. “Stop fighting me; you’ll pass out.”

Vito heaves deep breaths as I guide him toward the chair.

The sound of a hammer echoes in the garage. I stare down the muzzle of a gun. Johnny’s. He’s not in any mood to negotiate. “Why the fuck shouldn’t I kill you?”

“I’m the only guy who knows what’s happening and I can help you both.”

“You fucked us—”

True. “I don’t expect to leave this place alive.”

“You guessed right,” Johnny says, all grit.

“The cops I mentioned,” I say, louder than ever. “They’re dirty. They’re behind this. Those men might’ve not been the ones that shot at your wife, but they fed the information to the MC because someone told them about the shower.”

“Yeah,” Vito says. “You.”

“No. It wasn’t me,” I hiss through my teeth. “I wouldn’t hurt Eva.”

“Bullshit,” he says.

“You were right when you said I was a decent man—that’s because I am. I swear to God, I love her and would never do anything to risk her life. I told you to clear the room because I know there’s a rat in your crew.”

Johnny lowers the gun slightly.

Just keep talking. “All I need to do is meet with them one more time, and I can find out who it is.”

“And in exchange, I guess you want to live?” Vito shakes his head, smiling. “I will carve you up like a fucking ham.”

This is going well. “You can do that, or you could listen to what I have to say.”

“I’ve heard enough.” Johnny raises his gun. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

There’s a bang as the door swings open. Henri bursts through, eyes full of menace. Another man follows, looking just as forbidding as Henri. They must have overheard.

I grab a wrench hanging on the workbench and swing as they tackle me. Johnny’s shout for them to stop is swallowed by the rage of four men. I won’t let them take me standing—I fucking won’t.

A man gags as I thrust the wrench into his stomach.

Something crashes into my skull. My knees give without a whimper, and the tool drops to the concrete. Fists rain on my back, my head. My vision is crossed. The wrench is a foot away. I stretch my hand. A boot crushes it.

The world drifts into muffled shouts and thumps.

And then blackness.