Not at the prospect vote.
Not the first time I rode through the compound gate on a borrowed bike with a duffel bag from Chicago and a head full of ideas about brotherhood.
Here. On a ridge in the dark with gunpowder on my hands and a woman's blood on my conscience and the knowledge—permanent, branded, mine—that the people I was supposed to protect got hurt because I gave the keys away to someone who smiled while she copied them.
By the time Ruger arrives with the full patches, and the time they retake the compound and pull Marco's crew apart, shit will be hitting the fan.
Ruger already knows the truth about Kinsey Callahan.
Striker's daughter, Ruger’s cousin.
The girl I'd been sleeping with for months, the one I thought was a college student with an engineering major and a curious streak, was a pipeline.
Every word I whispered to her went straight up the chain to a man who used it to burn us.
The hours after blur. Ruger arrives with the full patches. They retake the compound, clear the buildings room by room, and pull Marco's crew apart.
By the time Church is called, every brother who can still stand gathers around the table.
The air in the chapel smells like gun smoke and sweat and adrenaline burning off.
Ruger doesn't yell. He stands across the table, covered in someone else's blood, smoke still in his hair, and looks at me with the one expression I can't survive.
Disappointment.
Ruger is still for a long time. The room is so silent I can hear the fluorescent light buzzing above the table.
"I'm going to give you a chance you don't deserve." His voice is low, measured, each word placed like a brick. "One. You prove to me and every brother in this club you're worth the patch you're chasing. You earn back what she cost you, inch by inch, and you don't complain about the distance." He pauses. "Because it's long. And it should be."
My chin drops. "Yes, sir."
He walks out. The brothers follow. One by one, until the room is empty and the buzzing light is the only sound left.
I press my palms flat against the table and lean into them until my arms shake. The wood grain blurs.
Never again.
Not one more person. Not one more breach. Not one more time someone looks at me and sees the kid who let it happen.
I push off the table and stand straight.
I will prove myself to the club, if it’s the last thing I do.
CHAPTER ONE
Saylor
My alarm goes off just before six, and my hand’s on it before the second beep.
Not because I'm a morning person.
Because the walls in this apartment are thin enough to hear my neighbor's cat sneeze, and the last time my alarm ran for more than ten seconds, the woman in 4B left a note on my door about respecting shared spaces.
The note was unsigned, but I know her handwriting. I know everyone's handwriting in this building.
When your name is a loaded weapon, you learn to pay attention to small details.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed.