different paths to get to the same place, that our stories were a lot more similar than I’d initially realized. I too was learning more about family than I ever had before. “So you’re really not afraid? Because honestly,” I said, a lump forming in my throat. “I don’t know what I would do if something happened to B…” I stopped and squeezed my eyes shut, willing away the unwanted thought.
Ray put her hand on my shoulder and I opened my eyes, peering into her doll-like icy blue’s that projected nothing but sincerity and sympathy. “No,” Ray said. “I’m not.”
“You’re crazy,” I said. She’d lost so many people she’d loved, so why wasn’t she afraid of losing King too? “Why?” I asked again.
“King promised me he would be okay,” Ray said, “and he always keeps his promises.”
I wanted the same to be true for Bear, for him to promise me he’d be okay and swear to me that he’d come out of all this alive. As much as I loved the broken promise that had brought us together to begin with, it was one I really wanted him to keep.
“I just wish there was something I could do to help,” I admitted.
Ray nodded. “I feel exactly the same way, but aside from grabbing a gun and storming the compound we are S.O.L,” Ray said with a laugh, “or unless you have an army laying around they could borrow.”
I jolted upright as an idea went off in my head like I’d been struck by lightning. Circuits were connecting. An idea was taking shape. I turned to Ray. “What if I did have one?”
“One what?” Ray asked. Her lips turned to the side in confusion. I leapt to my feet.
“Stay here, I’m going to grab my phone. I’ll be right back!” I yelled.
“But one what?” she asked again. I turned around before going into the house and smiled wickedly.
“An army.”
I disappeared inside and ran to the kitchen table when I remembered that the phone was in the truck. I jogged out the front door and stuck my hand through the window, grabbing the phone off the seat. I dialed and waited but there was no answer. “Crap,” I said as I typed out a text and hoped to God he would get it and know what it meant.
I jogged back up to the house, still looking down at the phone, waiting for a reply, when I ran into something hard.
Someone.
I didn’t get a chance to see who that someone was before I was zapped by a bolt of blue lighting. Hovering somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, I could still hear the crickets chirping and Ray calling out for me as I was carried away, bombarded by the sensations of both familiarity, and dread.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Bear
The only thing my old man ever gave me was the promise of the gavel and his fucking temper.
Cocksucker.
With Preppy’s death, I reached an entirely new level of anger, a feeling so far beyond anything I’d ever experienced before, I never thought I’d be able to unclench my fists or take a deep breath again.
For a while I let it destroy me from the inside, like the cancer that took Grace, tearing apart the very foundation of who I thought I was, and leaving a fraction of the old me in its place.
By comparison, the anger I felt when Prep died was a mere blip on the fucking radar compared to the out of body rage I experienced when Ray called to say my girl had been taken.
Ray hadn’t seen who it was, neither did Wolf or Munch who were in the back yard watching the girls. When Munch saw Ti duck inside he didn’t know she was going out the front of the house. They ran out just in time to see a van driving away.
They may not have seen who took her, but they didn’t have to see it for me to know who was behind it. If he thought for even one fucking second that taking my girl would in any way give him the upper hand that fucker was dead wrong. All it did was move up the war, his imminent death, and the probability of torture unlike he’d ever known before.
Go get her, Bear.
Preppy’s ghost voice was the most serious I’d ever heard him, and that filled me with even more rage, and something else I wasn’t familiar with ever feeling.
Terror.
The plan had always been to storm the MC. Take back what Chop had taken from us. Take back the club. Not once while making those plans had I feared for my own life, but now that Ti’s life was in the hands of the man who’d already caused her so much damage, and was capable of inflicting so much more, the fear within me was damn near overwhelming.
Life and death had always been very factual for me. We all lived, and we all died, and I was fully prepared to take a bullet when my time was up. I was okay with my death, regardless of when it came.
I wasn’t okay with the death of Preppy.
In thirty years, if I’m still walking the earth, I still won’t be.
If something happened to Ti, the pain I would inflict would be endless because my pain would be endless.
Hurry. Ghost Preppy said.
I throttled my engine and forced my bike to breakneck speeds. I ran every red light, stop sign, and dodged every stopped car. I lead our group, which consisted of Wolf, Stone, and Munch, with King taking up the rear. Gus was meeting us there. We weren’t the largest group, but we had a lot of talent between us, and it was that talent that I was relying on to get my girl back. Then and only then, when I knew she was safe, would I take my time to dispose of my old man for good.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew it was all a trap to lure me in—no fucking doubt about it. I even think Gus was fed false intel on purpose about the club being out on a ride, but trap or not, Chop had brought the war to his doorstep and I was about to reign down a hell on him like he’d never imagined possible. If there was any part of my old man left who thought I might be incapable of laying him out because he was blood, he was about to learn just how wrong he was.
Dead fucking wrong.
I frantically flew into the night and used the thoughts of my girl to fuel my hatred and push me forward.
The war we had been preparing for had officially been moved up, to right fucking now.
Hang on, Ti. I’m coming.
I was going to get my girl back and I was going to bathe in the blood of any motherfucker who stood between us.
I wasn’t just after revenge.
I was on a fucking hunt.
I kind of missed the psychotic part of me that had been lying dormant since Preppy died and welcomed the thought of mounting Chop’s severed head on the fucking roof of the MC as a warning to any other piece of shit who thinks they can cross me and somehow get away with it.
The Beach Bastards wasn’t Chop’s club anymore.
He wasn’t their Prez.
They didn’t exist.
Or at least, they wouldn’t after I was through with them.
Ti may have taught me how to be a man again, but I shoved the man to the side, because right then I needed the biker, the devil, the fucking demon who would shoot without question or hesitation. Cut without feeling. Hurt without hurting.
On my bike, with Logan’s Beach blurring around me, I became the soulless monster who was willing to spill rivers full of blood for my girl.
There were a lot of motherfuckers heading to hell tonight.
After I made sure Ti was safe, I didn’t care if I was one of them.
I laid down on the throttle and pushed my bike to her limits. I barreled down the road toward the compound, unsure of how the fuck I was able to see the road, because in my vision all I could see was red.
Blood. Fucking. Red.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Thia
“No! Don’t put that in my arm! I don’t need it. I swear. I’ll be good. I’ll be calm. Just please. Don’t! I promise. I’ll be calm. I promise!” I screamed, and struggled against several men and women dressed in grey scrubs as they held my arms and legs down on a gurney. A petite woman with short black hair held up a syringe to the light and flicked it a few times before inserting it into the IV drip already in my arm. She looked down at me unapologetically bef
ore pushing down on the plunger.
Then it all went out of focus.
Everything.
Including the room.
Suddenly, I was alone. I sat up on the gurney with ease. My wrists and ankles no longer tethered down. I was in the same room as moments before, same pale green walls, but this time it was empty.
At least I thought it was empty.
“And I used to think Bear was the smartest of us three fuckateers,” a male voice said, followed by a short burst of laughter. “Actually, that’s not true. I’ve always been the smartest one, it’s a scientific fact. Also, my cock’s the biggest. It’s important you know that.”
I lift my head to find a man leaning against the window, his arms and legs both crossed. He’s just a shadow under the light of the moon until he unfolds himself and starts to walk toward me. As he moves, the shadows do too, and I can make out his features. He’s tall, though not nearly as tall as Bear. He’s muscular but very lean. He’s wearing a short-sleeved, white shirt and khaki pants, with an orange bow-tie, and black suspenders. His arms and hands are decorated in tattoos and his sandy blond hair is tied back in a high, messy ponytail, but that is the only thing about his look that’s even remotely messy. His shirt is neatly pressed and his pants have a crease on each leg that runs straight down the front. His beard is shorter than Bear’s, somewhere between stubble and a beard, but immaculately groomed.
“Who are you?” I ask. “You know Bear?” The man comes up beside me to sit down on the gurney, and that’s when my fuzzy brain starts to recognize him, but I can’t remember how I recognize him. I try to stand up from the gurney but when I make a move to stand, I wobble. The man grabs my arm to steady me and sets me back down.
“Of course I know that fuck. He’s one of my best friends,” he says, like I should already know this. “You’re fucking smoking hot,” he says looking me up and down. “You wanna make out?”
“Huh? What?”
“But since Bear’s my friend, no tongue though. Okay, maybe a little tongue, but only because you asked. No dick though. I draw the line there. Okay, only all the way in, but only for like an hour or two. Sound good?”
“What?” I ask again, rubbing my temples and trying to clear my mind so I can get a grasp on what exactly is going on here.
“Okay, okay, just until we both come. Or just me. Or whatever. Ground rules are important when starting a new relationship. I saw that on Oprah and that bitch knows her shit. If you don’t follow her book club you should.”
“Who are you again?” I ask and as I look at him, it finally registers how I recognize him. From the photo in Bear’s apartment. He’s telling the truth. He’s Bear’s friend.
Bear’s DEAD friend.
“I’m Preppy.”
“But you’re…” I start but Preppy waves me off.
“That’s not important,” he says dismissively.
“How are you here?” I ask.
“Shit you ask more questions than Doe. I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Doe?”
“Ray,” he says. “But if you want to sing the entire song from the Sound of Music I’ll have to find a pitch pipe and I’ll need to lube up my vocal cords.” He looks between my legs. “I think I know how to—”
“Preppy, can you focus for one sec?”
“Mmmmmmm?” he asks finally looking at my face. He reaches out and plays with a strand of my hair.
“Please just tell me why you’re here. Why I’m here.”
“You’re here because people suck, and I’m here for you because you need me and because I didn’t know when I was going to get a chance again to introduce myself to Bear’s girl.”
“But you’re…”
“Still not important,” he says.
“Then am I in a mental hospital?” I ask.
“No, why would you think that? Are you crazy? Did Bear catch a crazy one? He’s supposed to toss the crazy ones back. Didn’t I teach that bitch anything?” Preppy asked with a huff.
“I don’t know why I think I’m in a mental hospital, maybe because I’m sitting on a gurney talking to Bear’s best friend, who’s dead?”
“Awe that’s cute,” Preppy says, running the back of his index finger across my cheek. This man is a stranger to me. This gesture is an intimate one, like we know each other, so it should creep me out and make me jump back, but instead I find myself leaning into his touch, finding comfort in it.
“What’s cute?” I ask.
“That you think that even death could keep me away from my family,” Preppy whispers.
“I’m so confused,” I admit, falling backwards onto the gurney. Preppy follows and when I look to my right, I find him lying beside me and looking right at me. I could feel his cool minty breath across my face as he spoke.
“When you see King and my girl Doe can you please tell those bitches that Preppina the Magnificent would have been a way better name than Nicole Grace? That shit sounds like she’s already in line for the fucking nursing home. I’m going to have to watch over her just to make sure she doesn’t get beat up on the playground and trust me that shit is no fucking fun. I used to get into fights every single day, and even though I won every single one of them with my brawn and wit, I don’t want that for little Preppina.”
“Okay?” I say, unsure of what I am really agreeing to or what exactly it means.
“Now sleep, baby girl. Because I have a feeling that this big bad biker I know is coming to rescue his ole lady,” Preppy says. He leans forward, and for someone so harsh with words, he plants a gentle kiss on my lips.
“He’s coming?” I ask as Preppy tucks me in.
“Fuck yeah, he is. He’s coming to rescue your fine ass and then, if you’re lucky, he’s going to come everywhere else.” Preppy barely takes a breath between sentences. “I love that big fucking brute. I never doubted him for even a second. Or just for a minute. Maybe it was 50/50 for a while, but the bitch is lucky he came to his senses, because I had this whole plan laid out to haunt him by starting his bike in the middle of the night. Ghost Rider style.”
“I still have no idea what’s going on,” I admit to the confusing man.
“Shhhhhh, pretty girl. Get some rest, will ya? I’m sure Bear is gonna throw some D like a champ once you get some energy back, so you’re going to need to rest up unless you want to tap out from that shit, and I’ve seen that fucker in action. I mean to this day he’s never found that camera…” Preppy looked off into the distance. “Good times. Good times,” he mutters, smiling as if recalling the memory.
Preppy brushes my hair off my forehead and again looks me up and down, his gaze lingering for a beat too long on my midsection. “But in all seriousness, there is one thing I need you to remember, Ti, baby. Promise me that when you get the chance, you’ll do one thing for me and you can’t forget.”
“What’s that?”
“Run.”
With that Preppy walks back toward the window and in the time it takes me to blink, he’s gone. As my eyes again grow heavy and the call of sleep becomes all too powerful to ignore, I could swear I hear him mutter, “Do any of those fucking dildos know how to use a motherfucking rubber?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE