Prologue
ERIC TUCKER
Before the Rescue
“Torch it.”
The words passed over my lips as I watched Drew and Ayda get the hell out of the yard that day, the two of them heading out to seal Sinclair’s fate with bullets, blades, and revenge.
An odd feeling of vertigo washed over me as I watched my son drive down a path leading to death and destruction. I should have been terrified. Instead, I was proud of the man he had become—a man who took care of business—a lion at the top of the food chain, willing to protect everything around him, even if that meant sealing his fate.
I turned to Slater; his expression blank apart from the obvious desire to call me fucking crazy shining from his eyes.
He was loyal, ready to throw himself under the bus for the greater good if he needed to. I’d always admired Slater for that—appreciated the way he loved Drew and respected the love he held for The Hounds of Babylon MC.
Now I was asking him to step up and do what I knew would hurt him.
“Torch it,” I repeated.
Slater’s nostrils flared, and his chest expanded as he filled hislungs with courage and fortitude.
“The whole place?” he asked quietly.
I swallowed, the thought of Slater torching The Hut, the yard, and everything around it, making my stomach twist like strings of fiery acid were choking it. The sun always seemed to shine when I had a hard decision to make. It wasn’t really my decision to make at all, but there I was with the light in my eyes, squinting at the sky before I took a good look around me and made the decision anyway.
We’d built this world from blood and sweat. My fellow men and I had molded a future from grassroots—a safety net around us made from bricks, wood, and stone. Now I was contemplating setting it alight and destroying it within seconds.
It would free my boy.
It would give Drew a way out—a chance to think about a new life with Ayda and maybe… maybe a fucking child.
I knew what the right thing was. I knew burning it all and setting him free was the way to go.
“Eric.” Slater nudged me, interrupting my thoughts. “You want me to torch The Hut?”
Turning back to Slater, I blew out all the air from my lungs.
Another time, maybe.
“No. Training room only.”
He deflated at once, still keeping himself upright as his obvious relief bled out of him in puffs of air.
“Burn all the evidence of Owen’s blood in there before the cops get here. Make it look like everyone is trying to put the fire out, not start it. You, Jedd, and Deeks… you need to step up now, do whatever it takes to distract attention from the massacre in there. Don’t let them know we know Sinclair was a rat. Don’t let them know anything is wrong among our brothers.”
Slater nodded slowly, and I looked up at the other men standing around the steps that led up to The Hut. They were gathered around the club’s VP, Jedd, waiting for him to guide them. Big men covered in grease and ink who looked like innocent children, some with theirhead in their hands while others paced back and forth, worried like orphans that knew they’d soon have nowhere to call home.
“Slater?”
“Yeah.”
I looked him right in the eye and held his gaze. “You know how to act, right?”
“Act?”
“It’s time to put on a show for the ATF. No matter what happens, you don’t let them in that training room. You got that?”
“I got it.” He looked at Drew’s bike then back to me. “What areyougoing to do?”
“Whatever the hell I need to do to make sure my son gets away with what he’s about to do to Sinclair.”
“Drew gets sloppy when he’s broken, Eric. You need to be ready for the wreckage. We all do.”
“I’m ready. I hope he smears Sinclair’s blood across all of the asphalt in Babylon. I’m here to clean everything up for him now, no matter what that means for my future. His forever is my only concern.”
