“Y—yes,” I stammer, though everything in me wants to stay hidden. “I can follow the creek back.”
“Perfect. Stay on the line with me until you reach them.”
I crawl out from behind the waterfall, rain pelting down but lighter now. In the distance, red and blue lights pulse through the trees, casting eerie shadows across the forest floor. The siren wails have stopped, replaced by an almost deafening silence.
My slipper-covered feet find the path automatically. Each step feels like moving through molasses, my body rushing forward and holding back at the same time. Something terrible waits at the end of this path. I know it. I feel it.
“I can see the lights,” I tell the operator, my voice small.
“Good. The officers know you’re coming. When you reach the edge of the woods, call out to identify yourself.”
I break through the tree line into our backyard. The house is lit up like a carnival, with police cruisers and an ambulance parked haphazardly on our lawn. Officers move about with flashlights, their faces grim masks in the dark.
“Hello!” I call out, my voice cracking. “I’m Sasha Halvorsen! I’m the one who called!”
Two officers turn, spotting me. A female deputy rushes forward, her hand instinctively moving to block my view of something—someone—lying in our front yard.
But it’s too late. I’ve already seen him.
Dad’s body, sprawled on the grass. Blood—so much blood—staining his white T-shirt black in the night. His eyes open to the sky, unseeing.
“No,” I whisper, then louder, “NO!”
I lunge forward, but the officer catches me, her arms wrapping around my shoulders.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”
The phone slips from my fingers. My knees buckle. A scream tears from my throat—raw, animal pain erupting from somewhere deep inside me. The deputy holds me as I thrash against her, desperate to reach him.
“DAD!” I wail, my voice unrecognizable to my own ears. “DAD!”
The world narrows to his still form, to the rain washing his blood into the earth. Twelve years after losing Mom, I’ve lost him, too.
He’s gone. My father is gone. The only person I have left in the world.
My chest splinters open with grief so intense I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t process. Nothing exists beyond this moment, this unbearable tearing sensation as everything I know and love is ripped away.
2
HAVOC
Ialmost spin out on the turn to Viking’s driveway, my back tires skidding in the rain. My heart’s pounding in my ears. I haven’t felt this way since Fallujah. My lungs have been working overtime since he called, begging me to come protect his daughter, Sasha, from Forsaken scum.
Even though Viking went nomad after the Forsaken Kings killed his old lady, handing the gavel down to me, he’s still my brother, still the founding president of the Wicked Sinners MC.
I ignore the red and blue lights glaring through the raindrops, hopping off my bike. It’s when I see the bodies on the ground that I finally stop moving. One of them is a Forsaken grunt. The other is the man I would’ve laid my life down for, both in Iraq and Stateside, running our club.
“Fuck,” I breathe, grabbing my rain-slicked hair with both hands and pulling. “Don’t do this to me, brother.”
“Jenson.”
Numb, I turn around to face Morris, Briar Fork’s police chief.
“I’m sorry about Erik, son. I know you two were close,” he says, blinking water out of rheumy eyes. Morris is years past when a sane man would retire from the force. He went to school with my old man and has a soft spot for me. One I tookadvantage of several times when handling club business in a way that would have most cops lock our asses up for life.
I shake my head. What should I fucking say? Viking’s dead. Over a decade ago, the Kings vowed to take him and his whole family out, and now they’re two for three.
“Where’s the girl?” I ask Morris, my voice sounding like it’s coming from someone else. “Viking’s kid?”
