Prologue
Piper
In the main room, Lip, Saint, and Big Chief sit at the poker table laughing. Delilah stands next to me at the bar, silently helping me keep my shit in control by holding my hand. My palm is sweaty thinking about being pregnant. Will Saint want to be a father? I know his past has served him cold towards moving forward. My eyes skim to Lip. He’s seriously been the best dad any girl could ask for. My dad was a piece of shit, a sperm donor and nothing more. Lip stepped up and took the place of a father when we had no matching DNA. Surely Saint wouldn’t abandon me.
Rad stands on the other side of the bar, his back turned toward us as he watches the game.
Knowing I’m pregnant, it’s like I instantly feel the baby inside of me now, there’s a heaviness. I wonder how far along I am. Is it a boy or girl? Will Saint want to keep it? He lost his daughter, and it’s defined his whole life. How will he feel about my being pregnant? This could change everything between us.
Rad suddenly turns, and his eyes pierce into mine.
They’re scarily familiar. My brows furrow and my heart skips a beat looking into them.
“What?” he clips rudely.
Shaking my head, I open my mouth to say something but think better of it. I just keep looking at his eyes until they drag me back to the day of the accident.
“Hey, someone is on our tail!” I told Big Chief, but his fucking pipes are so loud I know he can’t hear me. “Hey!” He tensed against me but doesn’t respond.
Turning back around, I squint my eyes, trying to see through the broken glass but the van suddenly speeds up, exhaust smoke clouding behind them just before it nails the back of our motorcycle with its bumper, sending Big Chief and I sailing.
I come back from the flashback, Rad’s eyes look so familiar because he was driving the fucking van that hit us! Taking a step back, my mouth wide, Rad’s face pales as if he knows that I know it was him. Quickly he walks around the bar and looks down to me.
“Piper?” A warning laces his voice.
“It was you!” My voice raises, catching everyone’s attention.
Rad looks to the room before back to me.
“It was him, he hit Chief and me!” My eyes fill with tears as I remember the villainous eyes through the windshield seconds before Big Chief and I went sailing.
Lip stands.
“What the fuck is she talking about, Rad?”
Rad lolls his head as if he’s bored.
“Well fuck. I really wanted this to go differently,” he rasps before grabbing me and turning my back to his chest. I scream, my knees trembling with fear.
“Piper!” my mom cries just as Rad puts a gun to my head. I stiffen, my blood running cold realizing that I might die this very second.
“Easy, brother.” Zane tries to talk Rad down, but Rad just pushes the barrel of the gun into my temple harder. I wince.
My mom suddenly pulls a .45 out from under the pool table, aiming it at Rad.
“Let her go or I swear to God!”
Rad points the gun toward her and pulls the trigger. My ears ring from the gunshot, and my mom drops to the floor.
“Mom!” I try to run to her, but Rad pulls me closer, not letting me help her. Lip steps forward to go to her, but Rad aims the gun at him, making him stop in his tracks.
“This is not you, let’s talk about this.” Saint slowly stands, worry in his eyes.
“And you know me? Is that what you think?” Rad laughs, and I cry harder. He sounds crazy, I’ve never heard him sound like this before.
“Reality check, motherfuckers. I’ve been in this club how long now, been your best friend for years, Zane, and none of you knew I was Lock’s son!” Rad hollers. My eyes slowly raise to the photo hanging on the wall of Locks, the Devil eyes that looked so familiar.
They were the very pupils of our enemy.
“Locks didn’t have any children,” Shadow informs.
“None that you all knew about.” Rad sneers.
“What do you want?” Zane asks with a soft tone as if he’s talking a mentally sick person off a ledge.
“I’m here to collect what my dad was owed!” Rad slowly begins to walk toward the club’s doors, stepping over my bleeding mother, and holding me as his hostage. He violently kicks Addie who is at my mom’s side, making her fall into the bar stools. Zane roars but is stopped short as Rad fires his gun at him, a bullet slamming into his chest.
Dragged outside into the night, I sob, Rad’s arm tightly around my collarbone as he heads to Big Chief’s truck.
“We’re going to go for a little ride, Red.”
1
Piper
Inside Big Chief’s truck, the motor roars like a feral dragon ready to release its fury at any second. Rad’s foot pressed onto the accelerator as far as it’ll, go the tires claw at the asphalt trying to keep up with his demand to go faster.
“Whoooo!” Rad hollers psychotically, one hand on the wheel with the other tangled in my hair, jerking my head toward him. My hand strangles the door handle, trying to keep my lower part of my body as far away from him as I can. I’m scared to know what his vile hands could do if he got I all of me next to him.
“Goddamn, this thing can haul some ass!” His wild eyes dilate from excitement as we drift around a corner. My nails dig into the leather of the seat trying to find purchase before I’m thrown around the cab from his insane driving. His hold on my hair tightens, strands snap, and my stitches pull at my scalp so tightly it brings water to my eyes. He’s holding me like a bitch because he knows I’ll try to jump out of the truck first chance I get. Any other time he’d be right, but knowing I’m pregnant… I’m not so certain I could justify leaping into a ditch.
His free hand pounds on the steering wheel, his lips rolled onto one another as he looks out the window, his head bobbing to the music blaring through the speakers. He glances at me with dilated eyes, hair falling from his messy ponytail and flying around his face. He screams the lyrics from “Heartbreaker” by Pat Benatar as if we’re on some kind of joy ride. It makes my teeth grit, nostrils flare. We careen around another corner, the tires screeching.
“You’re fucking insane if you think you’re going to get away with this!” I scoff. My body feels light, my heart racing as anxiety climbs through me like a swift storm. Ignoring my threats, he turns the volume up on the steering wheel, his off-key voice singing even louder than before. Jesus, he’s fucking nuts. How did we not ever see this side of him before? This whole time we thought he was some humorous surfer boy, but in reality, it was a façade of a fucking lunatic.
God, I wonder if my mom is okay? And Zane, he freaking shot Zane! This is such a fucking mess.
“Why are you doing this?” My voice wavers, the betrayal he’s placed upon the club hitting my very core. Living the life of the motorcycle club, you shouldn’t have to worry about disloyalty. We’re family… or I thought we were. Is there anyone else in the club that isn’t who they say they are?
He turns the music down and rubs his jaw with this free hand in deep thought.