1
LOCKE
Six years ago
I miss my brother.
It was my sole thought as Priest wedged his fists between my shoulder blades and shoved me out of the van. That, and I was getting too old for this fuckin’ shit.
I hit the ground, jarring every bone in my body, knowing I was lucky the van was stationary. My back still hurt from the fuckery of last time, melding with the ache in my heart, a dull, dragging pain that seemed to be my entire personality these days.
“Dad, you’re no fun anymore.”
“Get moving.” Priest jumped out behind me. “Pick a weapon and find some fucking balls.”
I heard him spit.
Somehow that offended me more than anything else.
I miss my brother.
Fuck.
And my kids. The only comfort I found was the sick reality that they were beginning to missmeless and less. By now, I was just that dickhead who never showed up when he said he would and had fuck all to show for it.
“I saidmove.”
Priest kicked me.
Anger flared hot in my belly, muscles bunched to retaliate. But the energy was fleeting, eclipsed so fast by apathy that I almost laughed.
Kill me. I don’t give a fuckin’ fuck.
Not a new thought, but the silence that greeted it was deafening, and the ache in my chest grew deeper roots waiting for my brother—mytwin—to step in with the grounding authority I’d spent my whole life clinging to.
It wasn’t going to happen.
Not tonight.
Logan never came to brawls—in person, or in my loopy head. Cos on nights like those—likethese—I wasn’t his brother. I wasn’t Willow and Nicky’s dad. And I sure as hell wasn’t anyone worth the fuckin’ effort of a telepathic lecture.
Priest nailed me again. I took the hint and trudged my feet faster to the other vehicle. Yet another beat-up van where brothers of the Dog Crow MC queued up for pipes and bats from the open boot, Bishop and some other cunt handling the inventory.
Bish cast me a sympathetic glance. “What do you want? Pipe? There’s a couple of coshes around here somewhere.”
He spoke like he was offering me a choice of sandwiches. And I accepted a heavy bat as if it was nothing more than a cigarette, cos that was the life—the one that flew in the face of every day I’d lived before I’d found myself in this hell pit.
“Keep your head down,” Rocco murmured as he passed the spot I’d been relegated to that night. “Don’t fight the Kings too hard. It’s not them you want to kill.”
I didn’t want to kill anyone, and I’d made it this far without ending someone’s life.
Not that it mattered. What I wanted had fallen by the wayside too long ago for me to contemplate without taking the bat in my hand to my own skull—a state of mind Rocco would’ve seen if he’d been here, but the VP of the Dog Crows was somewhere else. Priest had made sure of that when he’d brought his thick-as-shit plan to the boss.
If I did ever want to murder anyone, it was him. And Drummer. The club’s enforcer. The handjob with the bad beard who called us into a huddle.
I stood off to one side, knowing my place. But he yanked me forward, and in another brief flash of anarchy, it took everything I had not to weld my boots to the ground. A raging heartbeat that let me know I was still fuckin’ breathing.
Drummer smacked his fist to his palm. “They ain’t got no council on the road tonight. Just that baby enforcer and the pretty VP. We’ll hit ’em hard and fast. Take their load and their fucking bikes. Let them know they can’t ride on our roads without cutting us in. Right, boys?”
