Chapter One
King
Revenge is sweet.
That’s what they say anyway. But it wasn’t until I crawled out of the wreckage, picking shards of glass from my skin, that I realized how true that saying really was.
I could practically taste the revenge on my tongue, I was salivating in anticipation of the moment I would be able unstrap a belt from my arm and wrap it around the senator’s fucking neck for crossing me.
It had only been minutes since I’d killed a man.
But it had been a long time since I’d taken pleasure in it.
Adrenaline like I’d never known, in an amount great enough to wake a corpse, coursed through my veins.
I was high on it.
I fed off of it.
It was like I’d pushed my nose into a bowl of blow and inhaled over and over until I felt like I was invincible.
A motherfucking god.
And until I fixed the fucking mess I’d made, I wasn’t planning on coming down. I felt sorry for any motherfucker who had balls big enough to try and stand in my fucking way.
That was the moment I’d first heard it.
Him.
Preppy.
Time to show those cock suckers they fucked with the wrong kid from the wrong side of the motherfucking trailer park. Preppy’s voice was as clear to me in my head as if he stood beside me.
I was going fucking insane.
By the time I’d crawled out from the woods and made my way back to the house Bear was just getting off of his bike. When he saw me, he tossed his cigarette to the ground. He marched toward me with hard, angry steps; his forehead creased with lines, his fists clenched. The dry grass crunched under his heavy steps. “Listen, motherfucker, I didn’t want it to come to blows, but the way you fucking handled that shit just ain’t fucking right. She deserves better than that, better than this, better than to be fucking lied…” Bear stopped when he saw the mud and blood I was covered in. “What the fuck happened to you?”
I pushed past him, ignoring his question, running toward the house, taking the steps three at a time. I threw open the front door so hard, the screws from the top hinge shot out and clanked down onto the deck. “Pup!” I called out. A small part of me held out hope that somehow she had found a way to stay. But the second I entered the house I didn’t have to search the rooms to know she was gone. I felt the emptiness. “Fuck!” I roared, picking up one of the kitchen chairs. I launched it across the room, where it skipped over the glass coffee table, cracking it down the center, punching a basketball-sized hole in the thin drywall as it came crashing to a halt.
Bear followed me into the house. “Are you going to tell me what happened or you gonna tear the fucking house up some more?” I moved passed him on my way to the garage. I needed my bike and some provisions.
The kind of provision that required bullets.
“Nothing a fucking body bag couldn’t fix.”
One handcuff was still locked on me, the other end was open and dangling from my wrist, the chain stained with the fake cop’s blood. As soon as that fucker was dead and the car crashed against the tree, I’d pulled myself over into the front seat. Thank fucking god the handcuff keys were still in that fuckers pocket. “I see that,” Bear said. “Where the fuck is Doe?” There was a protective tone in his voice, which rubbed me the wrong fucking way, but I’d deal with that later.
After I got my girl back.
“The good senator fucked me over. There was no Max. And the last time I saw Pup, she was kicking and screaming as I was being carted away by a guy hired to take me out.” The image of her struggling in the senator’s grip made me see red. “Make a few calls,” I clipped. “Find out where he might be taking her.”
“Fuck.” Bear said. Instead of pulling out his phone he bent over and rested his hands on his knees.
“What the fuck now?”
Bear pinched the bridge of his nose. “There was a reason why I came back here, man. Besides to kick your ass for fucking shit up with Doe. I’m thinking that before you solve this problem with a spray of bullets, you should probably know that it might not have been the senator who was trying to send you to ground,” he said, standing up straight and leaning up against the wall where he lit a cigarette.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? He was the one who had the guy arrest me. Of course it was him.”
Bear shook his head. “He’s a problem, but he’s not our only problem. Rage called not twenty minutes ago, and as you know that fucker’s got eyes and ears everywhere. Word is that the shit that went down with Isaac isn’t over. Far fucking from it.” He ran his hand through his hair and the ash from his cigarette fell to the carpet.
“I made that fucker’s head explode myself. Looked pretty over to me,” I argued.
“No, not Isaac. He’s fucking worm food, but someone who’s fucking pissed about Isaac not being able to continue selling his shit in Florida on account of him being dead. Someone who ain’t afraid to kill entire families to get to the people who wronged him.”
I stiffened, knowing exactly who he was talking about. “Eli.”
“Yeah man,” Bear confirmed. “And if I was a betting man I’d put my money on it being Eli wanting to take you out over daddy dearest.”
Eli Mitchell was who Isaac had filtered his drug money up to. Well, he did until me, Preppy, and Bear ended him and most of his crew. With his thick rimmed black glasses and his short stature, no one would never think the guy was capable of half the shit he did on a daily basis.
When you wanted to scare a rabbit out of a hole you sent in a smoke bomb. Eli’s version of a smoke bomb was killing anyone you’ve ever loved until you showed yourself and he could finally kill you too.
“The intel I’m getting says Eli’s still in Miami, but he’s making a move, and soon. The MC is on lockdown, afraid of the blowback. Pops is pissed as fucking hell.”
“First Isaac and now fucking Eli,” I said. “Can’t catch a fucking break. Sometimes I feel like I would have been better off staying locked-up.”
“I feel ya, man. Same here. This isn’t just biker shit anymore. This is cartel shit. Bigger, badder…deader,” Bear said. “And I can’t put Grace in lockdown. I know she’s more a mom to you than your cunt of a mother ever was, but Pop’s ass is all sorts of chapped lately. He don’t want no one in the MC bringing civilians into the club, especially during lockdown, but we need to find somewhere safe for her to stay for a while.” Bear looked up at me and as he spoke I realized what he was trying to tell me. “I ain’t got anyone close enough to me that warrants killing, who isn’t in the MC, but you sure as shit do.”
Pup.
“Fuck!” I shouted, realizing I couldn’t bring her home. I turned and punched the wall, making a dent clear through the drywall to the cement stucco on the outside of the house. Pain shot up the bones in my arm all the way to my shoulder, but pain was a better feeling than the feeling lying just underneath it. The feeling of failure. “It’s my fault Prep’s dead. Should have never let him start the Granny Growhouse shit. Should have…” I ran my hand over my hair. There was too much to list. Happiness, sadness, and regret filled every inch of space within the last few months of my life. There was so much I would go back and change. I thought all that was missing from my life was Max. But now it was Max, Pup…Preppy.
And no matter what I did, who I killed, Prep was never coming back.
“What’s the plan, man?” Bear asked.
“We’re going to get to him before he can get to us…tonight,” I said, cracking my knuckles. The time for a pity party was over. I had more people to kill.
“Ballsy move, man.”
“Maybe, but I have to find out where Pup is first. I may not be able to get her the fuck out of there, but I have to get to her. Tell her what’s going on.”
Bear nodded. “I can find out where she is. Get her a message to her,” he offered.
I shook my head. “No, this message needs to be delivered personally. It’s the only way she’ll listen.”
“I can understand that, cause if I were her, I’d want to chop your fucking balls off by now,” Bear said. I flashed him a look to remind him he was stepping close to the edge of whatever patience I had left. “I’ll find out where she is,” Bear mumbled, pulling his phone from his pocket. He stubbed out his cigarette into the ashtray on the windowsill and lit another one. “All this shit, it’s fucking ballsy, man. You got a head injury or something?”
I stepped onto the deck and leaned over the railing, breathing in the salty night air. “Yeah, as I matter of fact, I do. I suffer from the same condition Pup does.”
“And what’s that?” Bear asked, following me out and leaning up sideways against the railing.
“We both forgot who the fuck we were.”
Bear dialed a few numbers; I could hear the ringing through the speaker as he held it up to his ear. “You remembering now?”
“Yeah, I’m remembering now.”
“And who exactly are you?” Bear asked.
“I’m the fucking bad guy.”