I’m standing in a shitty little house in a nice suburb with Randall Jones tied to a chair. We’ve beaten him up, one of his eyes is swollen shut and his front two teeth are on the floor. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this fat, useless bastard isn’t it. Drool runs out of his mouth and onto his shirt, staining it with more of his blood. I give a disgusted grunt and walk into his bedroom, the bedroom he shared with Callie. The sheets are stained and there’s a blood smeared handprint on one wall. Bile rises up my throat as I think of what he did to her. When we first arrived, Randall bragged about all the things he’d put her through. After I beat on him for a while, he stopped bragging and started pleading. This made me hit him harder. Fucking coward.

“Kai, you right?” Fracture asks, deadpan.

“Why can’t we kill him?” I reply with no emotion in my voice. I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from the bloody handprint.

“Because Malek said so. Too much heat with this fucker’s brother and we don’t need that.”

Slowly, I turn to face him and his eyes are on the handprint too.

I point at it. “Tell me you think he’s a good guy,” I say dispassionately.

Fracture looks at me. “I’m a soldier, Kai, just like you now. If you were higher up the food chain, maybe, but you're not. Unless you’re thinking of making a move on Malek?” I shake my head slightly. “Pity, more than a few hope you will.”

I scowl at him and he turns and walks down the hallway, back to Randall. Just mentioning challenging Malek, my father, could get him into some hot water within the club. I’ve been around them long enough to know that more than a few of my new found brothers detest Malek, but he makes them a good living and he’s kept most of them out of the way of the law.

I stride back into the living room, Randall’s fat head rises and he spits blood on the floor in front of me.

“Randall, buddy, mate, all you have to do is agree that you’ll never see Cal—your wife again and this stops, we go away. Simple. I just need to hear you say the words and mean it, then we’re gone, okay?” I say to this miserable sack of shit.

Randall looks up at me and grins, more blood trickles from his mouth. “What name is she using?”

I clench my hand into a fist, raise it and stop millimetres from his face. This overwhelming desire to keep hitting him needs to be kept in check or I am going to kill him, with or without Malek’s approval. The home phone rings and all eyes go to the answering machine.

We’ve been here for the better part of a day and no one has called to check on Randall. We wait, all ears listening intently for whoever it is to leave a message.

“Randall, it’s Rance, pick up.” I look at Randall who grins at me. The caller, Rance, waits a bit then continues, “Found her and...I’ve put the cargo in my boot. See you soon.”

The caller hangs up and I feel my stomach drop to my shoes. Found her. That can only mean one thing. With my hand still clenched into a fist I backhand Randall across the face.

“Stop!” yells Razor. “We need to be smart. Our friends tell us that Rance is the local police sergeant here and this fucker’s brother. If you want the female back we’ll need him alive to trade, he’s no fucking good to us dead.”

“M-money,” Randall blurts.

“What?” I ask.

“The bitch owes me, and I want it all.”

I raise my hand again and Fracture grabs my t-shirt and walks me backward until I hit a wall. The force of it causes my head to bounce off it, jarring my teeth.

“Be cool,” says Fracture, forcing me to look into his eyes which have gone completely serious and alert. “We need a car, not his, something that can’t be traced to us or him. We need to be smart about this.”

I nod, Fracture lets me go. “Suggestions?”

“It’s a small town, if we steal anything, we’ll get caught,” Razor replies looking thoughtful. “If we use his car, but keep it clean, we should be okay.”

“He just said we shouldn’t use his,” I say looking between them both.

Fracture and Razor exchange a look, something unsaid passes between them then Fracture nods.

“Like he said, we’ll keep it clean,” replies Fracture as he stares at me.

By keeping it clean, they mean no evidence that we were ever in it. We all have leather gloves on so fingerprints aren’t left behind. I look at Fracture who nods in agreement.

“I’ll grab the bleach and some paper towel from the kitchen. We need to move. Randall here needs to call his brother back and meet him somewhere on the road.” Fracture looks down at Randall and smiles. “Looks like this is your lucky day!”

I’ve known Fracture for a long time, the look he has in his eyes right now tells me that he’s looking at a dead man, but Randall doesn’t know that, Randall nods and smiles to himself. The fool thinks he’s won.

I look at Razor who’s staring at me with a look of concern. It’s my first foray into their world as one of them; maybe he’s thinking I don’t have the stones. I grin at him and he widens his eyes.

“Let’s get this party started.” I flick open my knife and slash through all of Randall’s bindings, nicking his wrist on purpose. Randall yelps and I smile sarcastically. “Sorry, mate, did I get you?”

Randall rubs his wrist smearing blood. “Fuck you,” he mumbles.

The urge to put the knife into his neck crosses my mind, but I know we’ll need him to get Callie back. So I straighten my shoulders and shrug down at him. Razor goes further into the house to call my father and advise him of the unfolding events. Malek won’t be happy, he might think getting me into the club wasn’t worth this much trouble but he made a deal with me and I know he’ll keep his end.

Fracture has placed the bleach and paper towel on the dining table. He’s staring at Randall like he would a wounded dog that needed to be put down. Randall looks up at him and Fracture smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. I hadn’t realised how lethal he could be. No wonder my father sent him to accompany me.