I woke the next morning to an empty bed.

Rolling over, I smiled as I saw a hastily scrawled note from Chaser on the bedside table. Talking with Gasket. He really did have horrible handwriting.

After a hot shower, I found my way to the garage in search of the two most important men in my life. Glancing around the dark space, I couldn’t spy them, but I found another crew instead.

“Sloane!”

I grinned as Ratchet waved me over. A whole bunch of familiar faces had gathered around the motorcycles that Chaser and I had stolen from the Hollow Riders. It still felt weird calling them that. Kind of pathetic, actually. I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing—it really wasn’t something to joke about—and went to stand with the guys.

“Hey,” I said, punching Spike in the arm. “Long time.”

“Couple of weeks,” he replied. “You good?”

“It depends on your definition of good.” I made a face and glanced around at the others.

Stewie, Hopper, Ratchet, Spike, and Watts all had a beer in their hands and seemed happy enough to see me despite all the shit I’d gotten them into.

“How’s Rhodes?” I asked, remembering he got shot at the cabin. That night and everything before it seemed as if it was covered in a haze—as if it had happened to someone else. I wondered why that was.

“Butcher patched him up,” Hopper said. “He’s in San Fran with Deluca lookin’ after the girls.”

“Don’t let Shondra hear you refer to her as a girl,” Spike said with a laugh.

“She’s my woman,” the biker immediately shot back and flipped the younger man the bird.

I frowned, knowing the guys missed their other halves. I hoped whatever Chaser and Gasket were discussing would help bring a swift end to this. If I was separated from Chaser… Well, hell had nothing on it.

“Wanna beer, Sloane?” Ratchet asked.

“It’s a bit early for that,” I replied, raising my eyebrows.

“Dark days call for partyin’ when we can,” Watts quipped.

I tensed and looked at the two motorcycles. “Anything we can do with these? Scratch off the serial numbers? Strip them down?”

“You want to strip down a motherfucking Harley Davidson?” Spike’s mouth fell open. “Have we taught you nothing?”

“That was Rocket’s bike,” Ratchet said with a snicker. “Bet he’s madder than a bee all shook up in a jar.”

“A bee in a jar?” Watts scoffed. “Who’s a girl now?”

“Don’t say derogatory things about the fairer sex,” I declared.

“Don’t worry about that,” Spike said with a wink. “You’re not a girl, Sloane. You’re a woman.”

The bikers burst out into laughter, the sound echoing off the walls. I snorted and shook my head.

“Thanks.” I thumped him on the shoulder. “But I’m taken.”

The laughter increased, and a couple of the guys began roughing one another up. The alcohol was starting to get to them, and I wondered if they’d have poor old Monroe run off his feet later.

Turning, I surveyed the garage, my gaze raking over the racks of tools, tires, and equipment. Apart from us and a few motorcycles, the place was empty. No cars were being worked on, no customers were knocking on the door, the music was off, and the telephone unplugged. The usually noisy shop was so quiet it was eerie. If I closed my eyes and listened hard enough, I was sure I could hear the ghosts of Fortitude members past, coming out to play.

Taking another turn, I spotted Chaser’s sleek, black motorcycle in the back corner, and I smiled. One of the bikers must’ve brought it back from the cabin after the cleanup and kept it here. I was glad someone had the foresight to save a beauty like that.

“So that’s what happened to Chaser’s bike,” I said. “I was wondering if he’d lost it for good.”

“You got a taste now?” Spike asked with a grin.

“I felt the wind in my hair and a wave of bullets at my back,” I declared. “The rush was…”

Chaser grunted, signaling his presence, and I looked up at him. He was so stealthy.

“I’ll trade you a Harley Sportster for it,” I said, pointing at his sexy, black motorcycle.

“It’s stolen.”

“So?”

“I like my motorcycle,” he declared. “Get your own.”

I made a face and turned to Spike. “And he says he loves me.”

The poor guy choked on his beer, causing the others to laugh again.

“Gasket’s calling a meeting,” Chaser said to the assembled men. The smiles faded from their faces and hands tightened around their beer cans. “Common room, now.”

His tone suggested talk was going to get serious, and they knew exactly what that meant. A fight was on the horizon, and it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. It was surreal watching them turn from big teddy bears into the frightening bikers I knew they embodied. We could laugh and joke and talk nonsense, but when it came down to it, these were guys who’d committed crimes beyond comprehension. At least they had the chops to attempt to turn their lives around. Some people were destined to get stuck in the cycle…like Rocket and his crew.

I grasped Chaser’s hand as we followed the bikers into the compound. This was it. Speeches would be made, the plan set out, and Fortitude would unite, or it would all fall apart. Obviously, we were counting on it sticking together. One last battle to win the war for forever. Everyone’s forever.

The common room was packed as we entered. Forty burly bikers were arranged on every available surface and leaning against the walls. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and tension, causing me to cough slightly. Chaser glanced at me, then tugged me forward through the mass of bodies.

“This is big,” I heard someone say. “Something’s going down.”

“Yeah, it ain’t good,” another man replied.

“You think Gasket found the renegades?”

“Don’t know, but Chaser and Sloane are back.”

“Ringer said they had a shootout with Rocket out in the desert.”

“Seriously?”

“Listen up!” Gasket bellowed as I sat on the arm of a sofa next to Spike.

Chaser leaned against the wall, half in shadow, surveying the room.

“I know I’ve asked a lot of you these past weeks,” Gasket went on. “More than I should. We’ve been split down the middle, forced into a civil war with men we once called brothers, lost good guys to their bullets, forced part from our women… I know it’s tough, but we have one last thing to do.”

“What? Suck Chaser’s cock?” someone shouted from the back of the room. There were a few answering snickers from the shadows.

“Sorry to break your heart, but there’s only one woman I let suck my dick,” Chaser drawled, causing a few laughs to cancel out the dissent.

“The Hollow Men and their…Hollow Riders are a threat to us all,” Gasket went on. “We need to be in this together, or we have no chance of beating them.”

“Why should we take our fight to the Hollow Men?” Bones asked. “Our fight is with the renegades.”

“Because they threatened Sloane,” Gasket stated. “They threatened her, and they destroyed Chaser. Now they’ve got their sights on us.”

“No thanks to them!”

“Fuck this.” Chaser stood and looked at each man in turn. “You all know me,” he said, glaring at Bones. “You know what I did for the club. You know what I was to Marini. But you don’t know who I was…or who I am.” The room was so silent I could hear each man breathe in and out. “The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. We face an organization so dark they put the things Marini did to shame. If we’re going to trust and fight alongside each other, then you should know my story.”

“Just what we need,” someone muttered. “Another secret fucking past.”

“Fortitude is a family,” Chaser stated. “This Fortitude. And true family doesn’t keep secrets.”

I smiled up at him, proud of his strength and resolve to stand up to these men. This story wasn’t about me. It never was. It was about Chaser. I was just lucky to be a part of it.

“Before I came to Fortitude, I was an FBI agent.”

The room erupted, and several guys stood, including Ratchet.

“What?” he exclaimed. “Are you fuckin’ serious?”

“I was an FBI agent, but the system screwed me over,” Chaser went on, holding up his hand. “I was working undercover in the Hollow Men’s ranks, but they worked out who I was…and kidnapped my wife.” Several men sat down at this, their faces turning white, and several pairs of eyes glanced at me. “They refused to help, so in a moment of desperation, I went to Marini. That turned out to be a stupid idea because he did shit…” He took a deep breath. “I stood before King and pleaded for her life, but he killed her anyway. I was stuck. The FBI hung me out to dry, and Marini forced me into paying a contract he deliberately never fulfilled, so I shut down. I killed for him. No one ever confirmed it, but you all knew who I was. I was the Fortitude hit man. The shit kicker. I did it because I had nothing else. Everything was taken away from me…” Chaser glanced at me. “Until I met Sloane.”

I flushed as I felt the entire roster of Fortitude MC turn and stare.

Chaser swallowed hard before he continued. “After I came to Fortitude, I forgot about the revenge I wanted for my wife. I forgot what it felt like to have someone care. I relished the kill. I liked not being able to feel the pain anymore. I was broken…until Sloane put me back together. So who am I? FBI? Assassin? Biker? Fucked if I know.” He shook his head. “But what I do know is how to fight, so that’s what I’m going to do. Now I fight for Sloane. I fight for Fortitude. And I fight, not only for my forever but yours. The Hollow Men are going down. Rocket and the renegades are going down. And I’m going to make King suffer for what he did to my wife and for what he’s threatened to do to Sloane. He’s going choke on his own blood just like Madison did.”

The room was silent for so long I couldn’t tell which way things were going to fall. The mention of the law had put everyone on edge, but the fire in Chaser’s eyes when he vowed the ultimate revenge was chilling. I knew what he was capable of, but these men didn’t. He’d kept himself apart for years, hiding his true nature, but now it was all coming out.

“We’ve tried to do it on our own, but we failed. That’s why I’m asking,” he went on. “We can’t take these sons of bitches down without you.”

The bikers glanced at each other as if they were deliberating telepathically. There was so much I still didn’t understand about biker code of conduct. Fortitude was a democracy now, but that didn’t mean they would help us because Gasket said so.

Please, please, please… I crossed my fingers and my toes.

“Then let him choke,” Hopper said, rising to his feet. “No one threatens a member of Fortitude and gets away with it.”

“Let him choke,” Spike said, adding his voice.

“Let the motherfucker choke!” Ratchet shouted.

One by one, the men of Fortitude MC stood, adding their consent, thumping their feet on the ground. I slipped my hand into Chaser’s as I rose.

“You’ve got a way with words,” I murmured into his ear.

He grunted and leaned into me.

“This is the job to end all jobs,” Gasket said. “The Hollow Men and their Hollow Riders are our enemies. They threaten not only our lives but the lives of those we love. That shit doesn’t fly in my club.”

“I’ll say,” Ratchet drawled.

“So how are we going to take down these assholes?” Watts asked. “They’re out of our league. This is mafia shit, man.”

“We’ve got an ex-FBI agent on our crew,” Hopper said, glancing at Chaser. “He’s got the training, right?”

Chaser nodded. “When I was undercover, one of my objectives was to obtain access to a server that held the Hollow Men’s operational data,” he explained. “It was always going to be a long shot, but by working my way up the ranks, they would’ve eventually trusted me, and then all I had to do was wait for my chance.”

“Computer shit?” Spike asked. “None of us know anything about servers or data.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chaser said. “I’ll take care of it. I knew the encryption key was always held by King, and the passwords changed every thirty minutes, but I wasn’t able to confirm the rotation.”

“That was a long time ago,” Gasket said. “What makes you sure it’s still the same?”

King held an access key? I racked my brain, trying to remember everything I could about him from that interrogation room. His power had almost overwhelmed me, but I’d been lucid enough to study his appearance and stature.

“Wait,” I said. “What does this key look like?”

“It could be anything,” Chaser said. “With the advances in technology, it could be concealed in anything.”

“So it’s not an actual key?”

“No. It could be anything with a chip inside.”

Watts rolled his eyes. “That’s useful.”

“Wait…” I held up my hand a tilted my head to the side.

I closed my eyes and brought his image to mind. If he weren’t a psychopathic evil mastermind, then he would be considered handsome. I bet he used his looks and money to lure unsuspecting women into his den of nightmares all the time. Women looking for the fairy-tale ending that was never coming. The thought made my skin crawl.

If King kept the key close, it had to be on his person at all times. A ring? A cufflink? A glint of silver under his shirt. I looked up at Chaser and knew that if I was right, we were screwed. What else was new about this story?

“He had a chain around his neck…something silver under his shirt…” I said. “It could be it.”

“You saw the guy?” Ratchet asked, his mouth falling open in surprise.

I nodded. “I saw the guy all right. He threatened to have me convicted of murder if I didn’t hand over Chaser. I’m currently a fugitive from justice.”

“Uh…” Ratchet made a face.

“It was self-defense,” Chaser snapped.

I shrugged. “What he said.”

“That’s useless,” Gasket said.

“Not entirely,” Chaser countered. “Back then, it was, but now we want to kill the son of a bitch. If we can take the evidence and deliver it to the authorities, then we have the chance to take out the entire operation.”

“If King is gone, someone else will take his place,” Gasket said. “Then we’ll be stuck in an endless war.”

“So it’s not just a drive-by we’re planning?” Spike groaned and rubbed his temples.

“No, it’s a full-scale dismantle job,” Hopper said. “Strip the shell, disconnect the battery, remove the wires and filters, drain the coolant and oil, then take out the engine.”

I shot a look at Chaser, my lips curving into a grin. Good analogy.

“Once we start, we can’t stop,” Gasket said. “There’s only one way to finish this for good, and it’s a crap shot, but we have no other option but to dive into shark-infested waters and go for broke.”

The assembled bikers muttered among one another, but at least no one got up and left. Several men looked shaken up by the prospect but didn’t lose their cool.

“What’s the plan?” Watts asked. “Where do you want us?”

“Mayhem detail,” Chaser said, his eyes shining with mischief I’d never seen before. Man, it was hot.

“Hell, yeah,” Spike said, fist pumping the air.

“We need a crew to engage the Hollow Riders,” Gasket said. “And four teams to create chaos in the Halcyon.”

“The casino?” Hopper asked. “In Las Vegas? That place is going to be tighter than a virgin’s—”

“Yeah,” I said, jabbing a finger at him. “It’s going to be tight, you might get arrested, but we need a distraction to get inside.”

Gasket narrowed his eyes.

“Chaser and I are going after King and his server of death,” I declared. “You guys are going to strip the engine for us.”

“You’re going into that hole?” Stewie asked, looking shocked. He hadn’t said a word until now, which showed how much he cared. It was sweet, really, but unnecessary.

I nodded. “Like Spike said earlier, I’m not a girl, I’m a fucking woman. I want to see that son of a bitch choke.”

The mood in the room lightened, but there was still heaviness on all our shoulders. A lot of blood was going to be shed in the coming days, and they were going forward with it, knowing they might never come home. There was no payment, no spoils to plunder, so why were they still here? Chaser said it earlier. Under Gasket’s presidency, Fortitude had become a true family, and family did shit because they cared…no matter the risk.

“Right,” Gasket boomed, rising to his feet. “Get your shit together and your head in the fight. We ride in two days.”

“Two days?” I asked Chaser. “Why the extra time?”

“I’ve got something to do first,” he replied.

“Like?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

Once all the bikers had dispersed, Gasket approached Chaser. “I knew, but I…” He shook his head. “Thanks.”

“For?” Chaser tilted his head to the side.

“Telling the truth. About who you are.”

Chaser looked slightly uncomfortable as the older biker grasped his shoulders, but luckily, there wasn’t a hug involved. I wasn’t sure Chaser could handle it.

I watched the two men’s bromance ignite, and I hoped to God the plan would work. For all our sakes.