Prologue
Tiny
Three years ago
I hunched over my beer in the corner ofThrottle, trying to make my nearly seven-foot frame smaller in the wooden chair that creaked beneath my weight.The celebration swirled around me, brothers from the Kiss of Death MC shouting, drinking, and partying.All supposedly for me, but it felt like sandpaper against my frayed nerves.Fifteen years inside made noise hit differently.Made everything hit differently.The smoke hung thick enough to taste, mingling with spilled whiskey and the sweat of too many bodies packed into too small a space.Some of that I was used to, but it was still different.A bar in Nashville, Tennessee was a far cry from the barracks back in Terre Haute Prison.I ran my fingers down my long, thick beard, braided tight like a Viking’s, and I kept my eyes down.Freedom was supposed to feel good.This just felt like drowning in a different kind of cell.
Someone raised a glass, shouted my road name.“To Tiny!Back where he belongs!”
The irony wasn’t lost on me.Nothing tiny about me except the name they gave me when I first prospected, back when I was just a ridiculously tall kid with too much bulk and not enough sense.I nodded at the toast, took a swallow that burned all the way down, and wished again for the quiet of my cell.At least there, nobody expected me to smile.
A door clanged somewhere in the bar, and I flinched.The sound shot me straight back to Terre Haute as if I were still there.Time had seemed to stretch out like a road with no end until one day they let me out.Something about good behavior and being a model prisoner.As if fifteen years of keeping my head down could erase what I’d done.
I didn’t regret killing the bastard.Not one fucking bit.The memory of my sister’s face when I found her so bruised and bleeding, that animal on top of her.The way his skull felt beneath my hands.The sound it made when it broke.Some men needed killin’.
“You look like you’d rather be facing a firing squad than a homecoming.”
I looked up.Knight sat across from me, sliding into the chair.His voice was smooth as honey, nothing like you’d expect looking at him.Tattoos covered nearly every inch of visible skin -- his face, his neck, his hands.Even the whites of his eyes looked colored in, giving him an otherworldly appearance in the dim bar light.But his smile was genuine, and of all my brothers, he was the one who might understand.
“Too much,” I said simply, gesturing vaguely at the noise around us.
Knight nodded.“Takes time to decompress.Took me months after my three-year bit, and that was nothing compared to what you did.”He kept his voice low, meant just for me.“Nobody expects you to be right as rain, brother.Xavier said to drink a few for him.Knuckles has him helping with something at Terre Haute.He should be out in six months tops.”
“I didn’t see him before I left.No one said he was comin’ in.I could have stayed.”
“Which is why we didn’t tell you.Knuckles wanted you out of prison, so here you are.He wasn’t expecting to send Xave in before you got out, but the timeline got moved up.”
I took another drink.“How’s it work out there now?World’s different.”
“Smartphones everywhere.Internet’s in everything.People take pictures of their food before they eat it.”Knight’s mouth quirked up.“But people don’t change much.Still want the same things.Still hurt each other the same ways.”
I thought about that.“Club changed?”
“Yeah.Things are stable and strong since Knuckles took over.We’ve been working closely with the Miles family.Guy’s a real hardass, but he’s fair.And we don’t hurt innocents.”He grinned.“We’ve been working with a judge and a lawyer in the city to bring Knuckles’ people here.He said he wasn’t risking the place going back to the way it was when Slash was alive.”As intelligence officer, Knight’s cyber skills kept us ahead of both law enforcement and rivals.No doubt he used those skills in helping to funnel the right people in our direction.
“Heard you were the one who found the loophole in my case.Got me out early.”The words felt inadequate for the gratitude I felt.
Knight shrugged.“You did the work.All those GED programs you ran inside, the mentoring.I just made sure the right people saw the right paperwork.”
A commotion near the bar pulled my attention.A drunk in a business suit, out of place in this bar, had his hand wrapped around a female server’s wrist.She was trying to pull away, her face a mask of practiced patience cracking around the edges.
“C’mon, sweetheart, just one drink with me,” the man slurred, yanking her closer.“You’ve been teasing me all night with that ass.”
The server, Mike’s niece, I remembered vaguely, twisted her arm.“Sir, I need you to let go.Now.”
Something hot and familiar uncurled in my chest.I watched her gaze dart around, looking for help, but Mike was in the back and the brothers were too caught up in their own revelry to notice.
Knight followed my gaze.“Shit.”
I stood.Didn’t mean to make a scene of it, but when I unfolded to my full height, the conversations nearby stuttered to silence.I didn’t rush.Didn’t need to.My long legs ate the distance in a few strides, my shadow falling over both of them like night.
The drunk looked up, and up, and up, his mouth going slack as he registered my size.I could see the calculations happening behind his eyes.The Mohawk down the center of my otherwise shaved head, the full beard, the club colors, the muscles that strained against my shirt were all impressive, but mostly, I knew, he was seeing how easy it would be for me to break him in half.
I didn’t speak right away.Just stood there, letting him stew in it.When I did speak, I kept my voice soft, almost gentle.“You’re going to let go of the lady.Now.”It wasn’t a request.The drunk’s fingers sprang open like he’d been burned.“We good here?”I asked the server, who was rubbing her wrist.
She nodded, relief plain on her face.“Thanks, Tiny.”
I turned my attention back to the drunk, who seemed to be recovering some of his liquid courage.“Listen, man, I was just --”
