Prologue
Drew
Iknew the difference now.
I'd been to Hell and back with the devil riding wingman, and I'd dropped my soul in the depths of a bottomless pit where everyone I'd ever fought and killed had been laid to rest.
That was the thing with any kind of war. It broke you down piece by piece and made you analyze your whole being. You no longer felt human, just a machine made of parts—a machine that had the ability to be both evil and good and to see no difference in either act.
Kill or be killed.
In the midst of battle, emotions don’t register, but when the dust settles and the bloodstains are tattooed upon your hands, what’s left is a shell of a body and an endless confusion that flows so wildly under the river of your blood, all you can feel is how I had felt.
Lost.
Returning to the club after so long in prison was like returning from war. I'd seen things I shouldn't have. I'd been put through shit no man would ever expect to endure. I'd tasted my own blood more times than I'd tasted bread. I'd watched men die at the hands of sadistic bastards whodeserved to take their last breath beneath my angry, pulsating fingers. I'd had to stand by and remain silent. I'd watched the innocent suffer and the guilty reign supreme. I’d become one of them, and I'd become numb.
Numb, bitter and cold. So fucking cold.
It was the way the pieces of my machine had functioned to survive.
My brothers didn't exist in that world.
I didn't exist in that world.
And when I finally walked free and tasted clean air in my lungs, I'd forgotten who the fuck I was.
Untilsheshowed me.
When I thought Ayda was about to die, I knew. I knew without question who I was and my purpose in life.
That’s why I was standing where I was, both fists balled-up and pressed against my forehead while my brothers gathered behind me. For thick, heavy men, they moved quietly when it was needed of them. They knew when to bring the riot, but they also knew when to act invisible.
The night was as black as the bottom of the ocean and the moon barely shone through the trees. No stars graced us that night. I doubted anyone wanted to bear witness to what we were about to do or what we had already done. The blood felt heavy on my hands, and even though we’d gotten the result we’d wanted, there was a part of my mind that was beginning to wander back to her. I couldn’t let Ayda in too soon. I couldn’t allow myself to see anything else but the end goal. Until all the Emps were buried beneath six feet of rotten earth and hard soil, I wouldn’t rest. I had to keep my family safe. That would only happen once they were gone.
“Let me see your faces, you cowards,” she cried shakily.
Not one of us moved. We stayed in place, staring her down like a sea of death, willing to do whatever we had to do to bring the Emps to their knees. The ski masks we wore kept us hidden, and the uncertainty of who her enemy was had the girl’s eyes frantically searching all around her. As I stood over the body of her—now dead—Emperor boyfriend, with one foot rising to land on his chest, the only sound that could be heard besides her breathless whimpering was the sound of my boot crushing down on his bones.
“They’ll find you,” she cried again. “Cortez will find you and he will kill you, every single one of you. You won’t get away with this. Even if you… if you kill me.” She paused, stumbling over her own words as her thick mascara bled down her face and stray strands of hair stuck to the wet spots on her cheeks. “You’ll regret this. H-he will finish you.”
Nobody moved. Not even an inch. Not until the silence and our calm broke her so much, we were convinced she was certain of her impending death.
“Finish it,” she eventually sobbed, turning away from us and closing her eyes in preparation.
This was the side of the job I hated—the side where the innocent paid the price for the guilty’s actions. It was the part of being a monster that seeped into my conscience and made that small flicker of doubt flash through my mind.
Stepping over the dead Emp's body, my feet broke all the twigs beneath my sole, and each time my boot fell onto the ground, I purposely dragged out the crunching sound to make her wait. To me, she was one of them now, and the time for worrying about their tribe was a long distant memory of a better time before my brother, Pete, had died in the ring.
Bending down in front of her, her body sat tied to thebase of the thick tree trunk, I twisted my head from side to side and let my eyes shine down on hers. She couldn’t see me. Who wanted to stare their fate in the eye and see nothing but evil and hell glaring back? Not this girl. She’d never expected to be on the receiving end of the brutality. It was only when I eventually spoke and my hands reached down to grab her knees that I think she finally began to understand.
“You’re going to watch as I tear your world apart in front of you. Every limb, every tooth, every single hair on his head will fall at your feet. By the time we’re finished, you’ll bebeggingme to kill you. By the time this is through, you’ll have forgotten how to breathe. Then, and only then, will you get to leave. You’ll walk away with your worst nightmare forever etched on the backs of your eyelids.” My fingers squeezed her tighter until a small cry of pain and fear escaped her cracked lips. I leaned closer, my teeth grinding as I spat out my final warning. “Then you’ll go to Chester Cortez, and you’ll tell him that the Navs are circling and if he so much as gets close to Babylon, he’ll be starting a war he can’t win. The Hounds have our backing. The next man to attack their family will end up being torn apart like this brother here. Make it known.”
Her eyes opened slowly. Each lash fluttered heavily and rapidly as she tried to take in some breaths through the sobs of tears that were drowning her face. When her eyes locked with mine, I lifted one hand away from her knee and rolled up the sleeve of my black hoodie to show her my mark. The Navarro Rifles trademark gun was drawn heavily upon my skin, and the look in her eyes told me enough.
We’d won the battle that night.
We’d probably win the next few.
