Prologue
Chase
Eight years ago:
Icouldn’t escape. Couldn’t close my eyes and forget because all I could see was how her eyes used to light up. Her bright smile made my shitty life worth living. Nothing more than memories now. Haunted pictures in my thoughts, taunting me with things I should’ve never touched. Her soft skin. The smell of her floral perfume. The sounds of my baby boy’s giggles. They were too light for my world, and I drug them down into the bowels of hell. And now, she was gone.
My Sam.
My wife.
I could still hear her voice in the back of my head, ‘all we need is love.’
Know what my love did? Fuck all. That’s what love was good for. Love didn’t do shit when I was walking up to the car. It didn’t warn me that something was about to happen. It let me smile at her in the backseat, waving our baby boy’s tiny hand, completely oblivious to reality. Because that’s all love was. A blind illusion of happiness. An illusion that went up in flames along with that gas station.
The bottle in my hand sloshed as I shuffled along the rocky path. It was quiet. Nothing but me, the sounds of the ocean below, and the geysers roaring to my left. It was pretty; the way moonlight softly illuminated the rocky edges of the bluff. This was the kind of place I should’ve taken Sam on a date. She would’ve liked it. She would’ve liked to live too.
Was it the gas station attendant or the mother and child that were saved? Were they the ones thrown back into that icebox? No. It was me. Not the innocent souls that would make the world better, but the youngest son of the Lost Souls president. Who the fuck was I? A shady motherfucker that ran his first scam at the ripe old age of five, that’s who. There was more blood on my hands than the first plague of Egypt, and Fate saved me.
Death I could accept. Some motherfucker was always trying to take what we had or claim Lost Souls territory. Threats came with the life, just never thought that threat would come from within. And not from some new recruit that had yet to earn their cut. Trust was earned, not given. Jax was not someone I would’ve kept an eye on, considering the motherfucker was my brother.
Kicking a rock, I took a swig of whiskey. This was my third bottle, and each time the alcohol flowed down my throat, I kept hoping it would burn away my pain. The ironic part was the conversation Sam had with me when all this shit started. She made me promise if anything ever happened to her, I’d move on. I moved on alright. My brother wanted a war, so I fucking gave him one. I didn’t just take out the fuckers with split alliances; I wiped out their friends, family, and anyone who might’ve smiled at them on the street. And still, I didn’t get the prick I wanted.
My brother spent all that time protecting me on the playground, only to destroy everything I cared about. Why? Because our old man gave me control of the club. Jax never did like being passed over. Before I could find my brother and bleed him dry, he took half the crew and disappeared.
“Should’ve seen that shit coming,” I snickered and tipped the bottle to my lips.
Stumbling closer to the edge of the cliff, I looked over at the roaring geysers. Red, just like Sam said. I watched the water spray, thick crimson droplets glittering in the moonlight. Blood. That’s all I saw lately. Everywhere I looked, every building I saw, every face I passed was tainted red.
I tripped over a rock in my path, causing me to stumble and aggravating the wound I patched up two days ago.
“Fuck,” I grunted, cupping the sting in my side.
Fucking Harris. If I had been paying better attention, my brother’s right-hand man wouldn’t have gotten the drop on me. Prick shot me in the side and took off. Word went around the next morning that Chase Mathers was done. So, I figured fuck it, let them believe I was gone. No reason to hide from a dead man.
I tipped my blurry vision to the jagged rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The ocean water crashed off the sharp edges, sending swirling mist in the air. Maybe dead wasn’t a bad idea? What the fuck was left here for me? Would it be so bad if I just gave up? There was something I had to do first, though.
Kill Derek Adams.
My fist tightened around the whiskey bottle. The only reason I came to this fucking town was to gut the deputy sheriff. Rip his heart out like he did to Sam when he disowned her for marrying me. She was heartbroken for months, crying at night for the brother that brushed her aside. Derek was the only family Sam had. She hadn’t even thought twice, gave up everything for me. And now I was going to make sure her brother shed ten tears for every one of hers.
I released a growl and threw my head back. I couldn’t stop seeing that sweet smile. Not once did my wife complain about the dark world I drug her into. She’d made it her mission to make sure there was some light in my life. At the end of the day, I had something worth fighting for: a family. What was I going to do without them?
My eyes once again fell to the rocky edges below. Sharp spikes of stone that could end it all. One wrong step and lights out. No more pain. No more loneliness. Just the blissful serene of nothingness. Who knows, maybe there was another side, and I’d see them there? I wiped away a tear rolling down my cheek and swallowed more whiskey. I’d give anything to see them again.
‘It’s okay Chase; you can let go.’
Sam wasn’t here. She wasn’t whispering in my ear, but I answered anyway. “They have to pay.”
‘No they don’t,’ her sweet voice wafted through the air. ‘You can stop fighting, Chase. Just let go.’
I shifted closer to the edge of the cliff, brows furrowed as rocks skipped down the rocky side. Would my body bounce like that?
‘Come join us. Maddox misses his daddy.’
My son’s name brought tears to my eyes. He was such a happy kid. Always smiling like his Momma. I didn’t think I could love anyone more than my wife until my little boy wrapped his hand around my finger. He was so tiny and vulnerable.
I failed him.
