Chapter One
Maddox
One week earlier
After two months crisscrossing the country on my motorcycle, I felt like I had seen just about everything. From rowdy biker bars in Louisiana to the sleek mountain roads of Colorado, I had chased every cheap thrill I could think of and stumbled into a few more I couldn’t have imagined.
Of all the things this country had to offer, though, I saved the scariest for last.
That was my ex-boyfriend, Declan. Posted up at his new home on the outskirts of Las Vegas, he had managed to make a life for himself that was just as sketchy as the life we used to share back in Seattle. And now, steering my motorcycle up the dusty road that led to his house, I was about to get a good look at what he had made of himself.
I killed the engine and hopped off my bike, taking a moment to remove my helmet and leather jacket. I spit out a wad of saliva, thick with grit and dust, and squinted through my shades into the sun. The front door of the old ranch banged open, and Declan stepped out onto the porch, a mutt of a dog circling his feet.
“About damn time,” he hollered. “Get your ass over here and say hello.”
I chuckled as I crossed the yard, joining him on the porch with a quick embrace and a pat on the back. It had been well over a decade since Declan and I broke up, after some destructive years running around together in our twenties. Declan had a way of bringing out my worst instincts, and I knew he felt the same about me. But no matter how much fun it might have been causing havoc together, a time came when we knew we were likely to end up dead or in jail if we didn’t call it quits.
There was no need to drag shitty memories back to the surface then. Declan was standing right in front of me for the first time in years, and goddamn if it didn’t feel good to see him.
“You look like shit,” he chuckled. “Come inside and have a beer with me.”
“I’m forty years old, and I’ve been riding a motorcycle for two months. Sorry I didn’t have enough time to pretty up for you, buddy.”
“You go prettying up for me, next thing we know, I’ll be trying to rob a bank to impress you again.”
“I didn’t realize you’d ever stopped,” I joked back.
Declan’s place was about how I would have expected it to be. It was messy, but not exactly trashed. The air conditioner was pumping, and all the windows were closed, and he had put on some metal music I didn’t recognize over the hum of the machine. I tried not to pay attention to the half-smoked joints that littered the tables or the gun he had sitting on the kitchen counter.
I might have given up the life, but Declan never did. He’d started new hustles and new games after moving to Vegas. Rather than ask the details of his Nevada business, I preferred to let sleeping dogs lie. Declan and I were never able to rein each other in anyway, so there would be no use in trying now.
He grabbed a couple of bottles from the fridge, using his lighter to flick the tops off. Sitting up at the counter together, I got a good look at his face. He had lines in the corners of his eyes, just like I did, and the fat scar on his neck still looked pink and raw. With his bushy eyebrows and a mouth full of gold teeth, there was no mistaking it was Declan standing in front of me, sexy as fuck and hard-edged as they come.
“Vegas treating you well?”
He shrugged, pulling from his beer. “I can’t complain. There’s plenty of business in this town, and I manage to get my hands on a decent chunk of it. The heat is a bitch, and I’ll never have quite as much fun as we used to have raising hell in Seattle, but Vegas is as good a place to land as any.” He gestured toward his back yard with a thumb. “Hell, I got a pool.”
I glanced out at the pool, an inflatable raft shaped like a giant cheeseburger bobbing in the water. “Fuck, man, even I don’t have a pool.”
“That’s what you get for being the black sheep of the family. Once your folks cut you off, you lose the free pool.”
“Worth it,” I grumbled. “Anyway, I can’t complain. I got the family vacation home in my name before they disowned me.”
Declan started laughing to himself. “You remember how pissed off your dad was when he caught you selling weed in high school?”
“How could I forget?” I said, chuckling along. “He came busting into my room when you and I were supposed to be studying, screaming so hard his face was purple.”
“And he just kept throwing twenty-dollar bills at you!”
I dropped my voice to imitate the old man. “You want money? Here’s your fucking money, punk!”
Declan wiped a tear away from the corner of his eye. “Thank god he didn’t come in five minutes earlier. If he had figured out what we were really getting up to behind that door, he would have blown a gasket.”
It was true. For how upset I made my father, I couldn’t imagine how pissed he would have been if he had figured out I was gay while I was still living under his roof. Instead, he just got mad at me for stealing, selling drugs, getting into fights, and every other hotheaded thing I had done over the years.
Not that he hadn’t given me plenty of reasons to act out. Considering the family I grew up in, it was no wonder where my destructive impulses came from.
“What about you, man?” Declan asked. “Am I going to get you to stick around here for a few days? Maybe get into a little trouble for old time’s sake? You know that a city like Vegas has plenty of men, plenty of booze, and plenty of sin waiting for you.”
