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I don’t let myself look back at Walker, not even once. If I do, I’ll break. I don’t get to break. Not now.

I drift through the farmhouse, a shadow with my shoes clutched tight, the taste of his mouth still seared into my lips. The hallway is long and narrow, walls yellowed by years of cigarette smoke, patched with faded family photos and motorcycle club insignia.

Dust motes swirl in the strip of pale light sneaking through the kitchen door. My heart pounds in my throat, brutal and relentless, drowning out every scrap of reason. His hands are still on my skin, his promise echoing in my head, “Freedom, little toy.”

But that freedom isn’t mine. Not yet. Not until I finish what I started.

He doesn’t wake. Or if he does, he lets me pretend I’m clever enough to slip away. I leave his cut draped over the foot of the bed and take nothing but my blade and the keys I stole back from his pocket. I’m done being someone’s property.

The storm has passed, and everything outside is slick and raw, the world scrubbed clean and trembling. The farmhouse sits on the edge of a dying cornfield, rows of broken stalks glistening with rain. The barn, a bright red monstrosity, is a silhouette against the lightening sky. Dawn barely stains the horizon as I throw my leg over his bike.

The engine snarls beneath me, hungry and restless, like it can taste the violence in my blood. I pull away before he can find his way outside after the noise I’ve made.

I have a plan. I’ve built it in my head, brick by bloody brick, ever since I realized Walker “Judge” Creed is the one thing I was never supposed to crave. The only way out is through.

I’m going to end this.

I’m going to kill my father.

I call him from a burner, my voice steady. “Meet me at the old quarry.”

The place where, when I was a kid, he taught me to shoot, where he made me a killer. Where I stopped being his daughter and became his weapon. I know he’ll bring men. I know he’ll think it makes him untouchable.

He agrees. Of course he does. My father, Tyrant, loves nothing more than a stage for his power plays.

I ride like I’ve already lost everything. The wind cuts me open, stripping away every lie I ever told myself. I run the plan through my head again and again—park out of sight, keep the knife hidden, draw him in close. One slice. Quick. Clean. I can do this.

But when I crest the hill, I know something’s wrong. The quarry yawns open below, a scar in the earth lined with jagged rock and rusted machinery.

There’s more than one bike and my father’s black SUV sits near the edge, its tinted windows reflecting the pale morning. Two prospects, both Saints, big men in worn leather cuts, move in slow circles by the hood, guns drawn and eyes restless. He’s already turned it into an ambush.

Fuck.

I don’t slow down. I can’t. If I run, he’ll chase me until there’s nothing left. I kill the engine, heels grinding into the gravel, and force my chin up.

He’s waiting. Samuel “Tyrant” Anderson smiles that cold, dead smile, arms folded across his chest. He’s taller than I remember, frame thick from years of fighting and feeding on fear. His hair is iron-grey, cropped close, face carved with lines that tell a story of violence and victory.

“Thought you’d try to run, Poppy.”

I bare my teeth. “I didn’t run. I came here to end this.”

He laughs, low and mean, and gestures. The prospects close in, guns raised.

“You think I didn’t know? Always letting me down. You think I haven’t been watching you fuck up my plans since the day you met that Nomad bastard? You never were strong enough, Poppy. Never one of us.”

I keep my hands loose, fingers twitching around the knife’s handle, but I’m outnumbered and outgunned, and every instinct screams at me to run.

He moves fast. Too fast for a man his age. A fist cracks across my cheek, splitting skin and flooding my mouth with blood. I go down hard, gravel biting into my knees.

The pain knocks something loose inside me, and suddenly I’m not here anymore.

I’m fifteen again, and it’s my first job for him. My hands are shaking around the cold grip of a gun, sweat crawling down my spine. The man kneeling in front of me is crying, begging, his wedding ring glinting in the light. He has a photo tucked in his wallet—his wife, his daughter—he shows it to me with trembling hands. “Please,” he whispers. “I have a family.”

I don’t want to do it. He’s not a monster. He just crossed my father, and now he’s on his knees, praying I have mercy. My finger can’t find the strength to squeeze the trigger.

My father’s voice is a blade at my back, “Do it, or I do.”

I can’t. I lower the gun, shame burning my skin. And then there’s the roar of a shot. My father’s gun, not mine. The man’s blood splashes my hands, hot and sticky.