Prologue
Eagle
Few reach a moment in life when they seriously consider whether this world is worth taking another breath for. That place where pleasure and pain meet. Where you realize love and hate are the same thing. Where your life plays out in slow motion inside your head and you wonder: If you could change one thing, would it make a difference?
I can’t stop the rush of thoughts as Stone chokes me. Reggie has my feet pinned. And I don’t give a shit.
As Stone applies more pressure to my trachea, I see spots and white light. I struggle to breathe, but don’t fight him. I refuse to flail like a little bitch. Death is a welcome release. I’ve bled for my club. Taken four bullets. Buried eight brothers in six years. Fucked a hundred women.
And only loved one.
And she’s gone.
So why shouldn’t I give up?
I close my eyes as Reggie pulls me up and strips my cut off. It marks my indisputable surrender. Give up the patches and die.
“Always thought these patches were too good for you,” Stone murmurs, and slams my head against the concrete floor.
Skull-splitting pain sets in, and I stretch my arms out like Christ on the cross, ready for whatever is coming.
“Do it, motherfucker,” I say.
“Open your eyes first,” Stone says. “I want you to remember this moment.”
If there’s an afterlife, the last thing I want to take with me is the memory of Stone’s ugly mug. So I laugh.
“Something funny?” Cold steel bites into my throat.
I don’t like the numbness. It pisses me off more than the asshole threatening me. A few years ago I wanted to live—I had every reason to. Now, it would be so easy to die. Her face flashes in my mind—that smile, one that could melt any biker’s heart. She was pure. Real. Worth fighting for. Worth dying for, but not like this. What would she say if she knew I was about to go out like this?Fight, Eagle.Live for me, for us.I hear her voice saying those words, like she was next to me. And then I know, as long as I’m breathing, her memory will stay alive. My eyes pop open. “Yeah,” I say. “If I can smile, then I must want to live after all.” I catch Stone’s head between my hands and jam my thumbs into his eye sockets so hard he screams.
The blade hits the floor and I toss Stone aside, knowing his death is imminent from the injuries he sustained.
“Fuck . . .” Reggie scrambles to his feet and looks for a way out.
The only exit is through me.
We’re in an abandoned warehouse on the west side of the city. No one lives or works in this shithole of a neighborhood. So no matter what happens, one of us will end up fodder for the maggots. I spot my cut on the ground, angry I let them take it off me. First rule of the Iron Norsemen MC, never give up your colors.
“Let’s forget this happened,” Reggie says.
“Pick it up and hand it to me.” I point at my vest, ignoring his words.
His gaze flits around the shadowed space. He’s sweating and nervous. I outweigh him by sixty pounds, and never understood how he earned a place in any MC. Especially my rival club—the Dead Dogs.
As Reggie stoops to get my cut, I grab the knife off the floor and stab him. The blade is buried six inches deep in his chest. He falls immediately, my leather still gripped in his hand. I walk over and stare down at him.
“Was it worth it?” I ask.
Blood trickles out the side of his mouth and he coughs violently. “Angel is dead. We thought . . . I thought . . .”
“That I’d lay down and die?”
Glassy eyes meet mine. “Yeah.”
I rip my cut from his grasp and put it on. “So did I,” I admit. “But everything has changed.”
I watch in sick fascination as he bleeds out, the spark in his eyes fading.
