“Sloane!”

I watched her sprint into the desert after Marini and sprang into action. I’d barely taken a step when a hand grasped my ankle. Looking down, I saw Rocket clawing at me, blood seeping from between his lips.

“Bastard,” he rasped. “I’ll kill you, you piece of shit.”

“Get the hell off me.” I aimed my gun, but he knocked my knee out from underneath me, and I stumbled.

The shot went wide, ricocheting off the hard ground and disappearing into the darkness.

Shit, shit, shit! I needed to go after Sloane. Who knew what was happening out there.

Rocket lunged and knocked me to the ground. We fell in a heap, the force dislodging my grasp on my gun, and it skidded across the packed dirt of the clearing. His movements were sluggish as we struggled, and it didn’t take me long to get him on his back.

He was weak, the gunshot must’ve clipped an artery. Soon the blood loss would cause him to lose consciousness, and it would all be over. This was a last-ditch attempt to get another blow in before he bit the dust.

“Coward,” Rocket exclaimed, thrashing beneath me. “You were never Fortitude.”

Curling my hands around his neck, I squeezed, my face contorting as his eyes bulged. Sweat poured down my face and back as the heat from the fire radiated across the clearing.

He deserves it, I thought to myself. He deserves what he’s getting and then some. When had I become an executioner? Seven years ago that was when. I’d made an unspoken promise to Sloane that I’d stop being that person. The man who pulled the trigger…but he would’ve killed her. He would’ve caught her, freed Marini, and nothing would’ve changed. Sloane would be in the hands of King before the sun had risen.

I tightened my grip on Rocket’s neck.

“Chaser!”

I glanced up at Gasket, who’d appeared out of the smoke, and Rocket coughed beneath me. Just kill him, a voice in the back of my mind said. Just end it already.

With a roar of frustration, I smashed my fist into his temple, and he went slack. With any luck, blood loss would get him before he woke up.

Gasket eyed him before grabbing me. “We need you around the side,” he said. “We’ve got the rest of them boxed in.”

“How many?” I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm.

“Hard to say, but we’ve got more.”

“Where’s Sloane?” He glanced around, his forehead creasing. “Where is she?”

I narrowed my eyes and nodded toward the desert. “Marini got out.”

“What?” He took a step toward the darkness, but it was my turn to hold him back.

“I want to go after her, too, but we’re stuck here. She knows what she’s doing.”

“Are you sure about that? It’s her father out there.”

My lip curled. “If you’re implying she’ll hesitate, I’d think again.”

He snarled before pushing me off him. “We need to end this. Now.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice.

I picked up my gun and followed him around the corner of the cabin, ducking behind the row of cars and joining the others.

I counted over our remaining men, knowing Hopper and Deluca were out defending the women in the desert someplace. We were down a few, but I knelt beside Spike, Watts, Stewie, Bones, Ram, and Ratchet. Behind another car were more faces I didn’t know but were on our side of the divide.

“Rhodes?” I asked.

“He was shot,” Spike said. “Butcher’s got him.”

I nodded as Gasket peered around the trunk of the car.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he called out over the expanse. “Throw down your weapons, and this can all end right now.”

A voice echoed from behind their barricade. “Eat shit!”

I raised an eyebrow. “Creative.”

“Fortitude as you knew it is over,” Gasket went on, ignoring my sarcasm. “We can’t go back now. Only forward. Marini was leading the club on a path to destruction, and you know it. Is that how you want to live your lives? Murdering for sport? That was never the Fortitude way.”

“EAT. SHIT.”

“I think they like the taste of shit,” I said, leaning against the car.

“Courage in adversity,” Spike said with a sigh.

“They’ve lost a lot of guys,” Ratchet noted. “There’s only gotta be a dozen of them left.”

“You want to shoot it out?” Ram asked. “We’re running out of bullets.”

“So are they.”

“Wait.” Spike slammed his fist against my shoulder, forcing my attention to shift from the standoff behind me to the darkness in front.

A figure emerged from the desert, and I knew it was her. Sloane shuffled across the rocky landscape, the revolver hanging in her hand. She looked like a goddamned zombie.

Thumping Gasket on the chest, I went to meet her, ducking low in case the renegades opened fire, panic flaring. It was an emotion I hadn’t felt for a very long time, and it unsettled me to my core. Was she hurt? Did Marini…

“Sloane?” I stood before her.

She stared at me, her eyes vacant.

“I killed him,” she said, shaking. “My father…”

Gasket’s head turned at her words, his face clouded with shock. “You what?”

“Marini is dead!” Ratchet roared at the remaining renegades. “Give up now, and no one else has to die!”

“I killed him,” she muttered, the revolver slipping from her fingers and colliding with the ground with a clatter.

“There’s a problem with that,” the voice shouted. “We don’t believe you!”

Sloane glanced over her shoulder. Following her gaze, I sucked in a sharp breath as I realized what had taken her so long.

“Gasket…” I gestured toward the edge of the clearing.

The old biker whistled, and Spike went to investigate. He cursed and bent over to finish the job Sloane had started.

We all watched in silence as he dragged Marini’s body into the light of the inferno, in full view of everyone…including the men who’d come to fight for his freedom.

Sloane stared down at the carved-up remains of his chest, and I knew she’d fired at point-blank range. Marini had been executed with his own gun. The gun he used to…

Sloane let out a choked sob and went limp, her limbs crumpling beneath her. I caught her at the last second and eased her down to the ground, my heart speeding up.

The moment she fell, chaos erupted.

The renegades fired, the night a chorus of bullets. I threw myself over Sloane, shielding her from the spray, hoping to God we would get through this. I’d promised her… I’d promised her everything without saying the words. Even Sam had seen it in her grief, but feeling it wasn’t the same as saying the words aloud.

Engines roared into life, and I raised my head, the light from multiple headlights blinking across the clearing.

“They’re on the run!” someone shouted.

“We can’t let them go,” Watts said.

Gasket slid to his knees beside us and pressed his palm to Sloane’s forehead. “She’s burning up.”

“She…” I was having trouble reconciling that she’d killed her own father, and by the looks of it, so was she.

“Go,” Gasket said. “Get her out of here.”

I glanced at the retreating bikers.

“They’re not your problem,” Gasket said. “Sloane can’t stay here.”

I nodded as he rose to his feet and strode across the yard, silhouetted by the fire. He lifted his fingers to his lips and whistled, the sound slicing through the air. “Everyone with me!”

He threw his leg over his motorcycle and rammed his heel down on the kick start. Shit, his bike was older than he was.

As the roar of motorcycles filled the air, I scooped Sloane up into my arms and carried her toward the nearest car. The convoy tore out of the clearing and onto the road, pursuing the remaining renegades toward the highway as I bundled her into the passenger side seat.

Fastening the belt, I paused, combing her hair away from her face with my fingers. Shit, the things she’d been forced to do… No wonder she’d collapsed. She wasn’t made for this. Killing her own father. No one should have to do that. No one at all.

“It’ll be okay,” I murmured. “I’ll get you out of here.”