My cellmate’s name was Clint. Every time he spoke, he had a western drawl to his voice that instantly made me think of Howard Sutton. But Clint was nothing like the chief of police. He was short—shorter than me—and fat. His snores sounded like thunder and kept me awake most nights. I preferred the noise to the silence, though. The silence made me think about too many nice things, miss people, laugh at the memories and sometimes cry at the losses.

I’d lived a good life, and it wasn’t over yet. Some men lived to the ripe old age of a hundred, but never really lived at all. They go through their days doing what they think is expected of them. They study at college. They meet a pretty, shy girl. They dance with her one night then take her out for a stroll. They kiss her. Make love. After a few months, they declare their undying affection for each other because that’s what’s expected at that stage. They buy a house, move in together, get married and have at least two kids. Three kids if the woman feels like she isn’t getting the attention she needs off her man and demands it from another baby. The man works in an office for sixty hours each week, counting down the minutes until he’s set free. Well, kind of free. From one set of shackles to another. Freedom from work means entering the prison of domesticity. They dream of retirement… because that’s when life begins. But when they get there, they’re too old to fuck like they once wanted to. They’re too brittle to run through forests and escape the police that are hot on their heels for petty crimes. They’re too inexperienced to ride a bike in the wind at hundred miles an hour with nowhere to be, the open road in front of them, and only the sun to chase. They’re retired, but they’re just waiting to die.

I never wanted to get like that.

I was middle-aged and happy enough to go.

Whoever was running my life had decided that I’d had enough fun for one visit to this Earth. I’d screwed hundreds of women, had my dick sucked every other night, and I’d woken up beside some of the prettiest faces. I’d had the best family. No man had ever been loved more than me. I’d had true freedom—freedom away from the laws of mundane society. Even when I’d been in prison during my first stint, there’d been a freedom to being bad.

Nothing was expected of me. I never lived for a goal I didn’t want. Every day I woke up among the richest family—rich with love, loyalty, and respect.

I’d had the whole goddamn universe in my life, and now it was time to give that over to someone else.

“The sun. It’s too bright,” Clint moaned from his bed. I stared up at the ceiling, imagining the way he was scrunching his face up, throwing his arm across his eyes and wiping off his drool-stained chin.

“Don’t expect the sun to stop shining because you can’t handle its glow,” I muttered quietly.

“Have you slept at all?” He groaned as he rolled his legs off the side of the bed and bent over.

I coughed softly, swallowing the taste of death as quickly as I could. I felt it more now. I felt it in every fiber of my body. The cancer was a sadistic mistress, taking residence in a body it didn’t have permission from, slipping its claws into all my vitals and taking ownership, leaving me with no choice but to succumb to her and face the consequences.

“A couple of hours.”

“Today’s the day, huh?”

I nodded against my pillow, studying the flecks of paint on the ceiling that were peeling off.

“You sure this is the only way?”

“It’s the right way, Clint.”

“You’ve done well to hide it.”

“The pain will only show if I allow it to.”

“It shows,” he told me roughly. “You’re just a good actor.”

I smirked, thinking about all the secrets I’d kept from my club over the years. Things for their benefit only. Eric Tucker had been forced to leave Babylon for reasons out of his control. He’d done what he’d had to do to save his son… I just hoped his son understood when all the facts and the histories were laid in front of him to study. Drew Tucker wasn’t the easiest man to convince. He was stubborn. He was brutally violent. He needed outside pain to cover up his internal pain. He was hard-headed. He was arrogant. Did I mention that he was stubborn?

But, my God, he was the most incredible president our club would ever see.

No man was as loyal. No man wore his patch with as much pride. No man would have spent every waking hour on the phone to the prison and the police trying to get me out of this place. He never gave up on those he loved. Drew Tucker would rather be stabbed in the heart with a rusty blade and left to bleed out than see one of us hurt.

I knew what I was doing was going to cripple him. I’d seen the pain he’d worn every day since Pete’s death. But I could not let his future be ruined by another stint in prison when I was about to die anyway. He was going to have to grieve my death no matter where I was. I’d rather it mean something than be wasted.

I smirked as I thought of the son I’d never had.

Those five years without him had been tough. Every day, I’d thought of ways to get him out. I’d lived to free him. I knew he was doing the same for me now.

The only thing that reassured me he would be okay had come in the form of Ayda Hanagan—the broken little waitress with the heart of a lion and the roar of a beast.

She would never let him fall again.

I’d never seen any couple more perfect for each other than those two.

I imagined their wedding day and the vows they would make. I imagined her with a swollen belly that Tucker would fall asleep against every night. I imagined their long lives together, and I wished that they, more than anyone else, would make it to the mark of a hundred years together.

Clint blew out a breath beside me, and I rolled my head on the pillow to look at him.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For being the confession booth I needed in these last few weeks of my life.”

“The stories I could tell.” He smiled, showing off two gold teeth among the rest.

“But you won’t.”

“Prison honor.” He beat his fist against his heart, and I smiled with a hint of regret. Clint was someone I could have been good friends with on the outside. He was someone I could have taken under my wing and introduced to my brothers. He was honest and open to real talk. None of the small stuff. We’d spent nights awake, bleeding our horror stories out on one another. He’d been a soothing balm on my itching, plague-ridden skin.

“Are you ready?” I asked him, knowing what a big thing this was for him to do.

Clint looked into my eyes and offered a sad smile. “I have all the letters. I’ll make sure they get them.”

“And you’ve remembered all the stories I’ve told you. So if any of them ever come knocking on your door, you can tell them—”

“How much they were loved and how happy you were to do this.”

I nodded, feeling the first flashes of death start to loom above me.

“Hound for life,” I whispered.

“And in the afterlife,” he finished for me.

“Especially then.”

I pushed myself up and immediately started coughing. The blood rose in my throat that morning. It was thicker than before. Like glue. Glue that tasted like acid. A daily reminder that the cancer within me wasn’t cute, it was deadly. I didn’t have long left. If anything, I’d been lucky to make it so far.

Clint and I got dressed, pulling on our orange uniforms and making our beds the way we’d done for the last nineteen mornings since I’d been brought in after firmly pleading guilty over my brothers’ cries of no in the courthouse. I slid my most prized possession out of its hiding place and slipped it into the pocket of my pants, noticing the way Clint eyed it the entire time, even when it was hidden behind horrible prison material.

Poor Clint.

Good Clint.

The guard eventually arrived at our cell to let us out for breakfast. The key went in the door, and I closed my eyes, listening to the turn of it carefully. Sounds, no matter how nasty, were something that should be recognized and appreciated more. They were a part of life. Like smells. Like colors. Like touches. Sounds made surroundings real.

This was very fucking real.

When the door opened, we were guided out and down to the food hall. The usual crowd was there. Some old MC rivals, some old MC friends. A few of the outlaw biker community littered among the regular murderers and rapists of the state of Texas.

Clint and I collected our breakfast, and I felt a particular pair of eyes on me from the corner of the room. The same pair of eyes that looked at me sadistically every morning.

Prison Guard Jon Taylor.

The guy who’d given Drew so much shit while he served his time inside.

“Don’t look at him,” Clint said as he shoved a mouthful of oatmeal into his mouth.

I didn’t respond. All I could do was smirk as death swirled a finger up my spine and reminded me of its arrival.

It’s almost time, Harry.

We ate in silence. The less noise we made, the less we’d be attacked.

The time came for us to leave, and we walked over to the trash unit and emptied our trays before we walked away empty handed.

Row upon row of prisoners lined the hall. It was a sea of badasses. And I had my eyes set on two. It was only when I saw the back of Ramirez’s head—the one Emp who deserved to die more than any of them—as I approached, that I felt death take a back seat as the adrenaline rushed in.

“I’m gonna miss you, brother,” Clint muttered as he walked beside me.

I smirked, pushing my hand in the pocket of my pants and feeling the sting of the small, sharp blade that sat there.

Thank you, Sutton.

“You’ll see me soon enough, my friend.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Clint laughed.

“You ready?” My heart picked up pace, beating harder than ever before as it cried out in ecstasy Yes! This is the way we go! We die for something. We die for a reason. Not from disease!

“Ready.”

With a gentle tap at the bottom of my spine, he pushed me forward, and I made my last move as a soldier. I launched at Ramirez with all the power he’d launched his fist into Pete’s face, lifting the weapon out of my pocket and aiming it straight for his neck.

He didn’t have time to blink before I’d grabbed his chin, pulled it back and driven that blade straight through his artery.

Some people didn’t deserve to live. If I was going to die, you could bet your ass he was too.

The blood splattered everywhere at once, spraying his neighbors as it burst like a fucking pipe.

“Howl for The Hounds, Ramirez,” I whispered in his ear as he gargled on his own taste of death. “Drew Tucker says hi.”

It all happened quickly then. The world spun at my feet. The noise became electric. A fascinating sound of the reaper arriving on a speeding train with the smoke blowing all around me and the chaos being drowned out the cries of criminals and death’s laughter.

Jon Taylor arrived, his kicks strong and his baton powerful, driving into my broken body with the exact force I needed from him. I smiled the whole damn time. The whole fucking time as I went down, bleeding around the two men I’d wanted to get near me the most. My cancer stained the floor. It tainted the air as I let myself go out the way I wanted to. But not before I saw Jon Taylor hanging over my broken body, pulsating with anger. So much anger, he didn’t see Clint stepping up behind him… or the blade he held in his hand.

One last kick turned my whole world black.

I went to sleep with the promise of a peaceful night ahead of me.

The love for my brothers swelling in my fading heart.

And a feeling of victory.

Small victory.

After a huge, beautiful, dirty life.

Death, it seemed, was ready to take me. And I was ready to go and see Pete.

No regrets.

Not a single one.

I love you, Babylon.