Prologue
Oliver
“Do you want to die?”
For most people, there might be a fairly obvious and quick answer to this question. There’s a right solid chance that the answer might even come a little faster when there’s a gun in your mouth. But, I’m not most people, and the answer is slightly more muddied than that. Okay, yeah, sure, the basic answer is “no.” But it’s never that bloody simple, now is it?
A week ago, I might have given Bryce the finger and told him to go fuck himself—not because I have a death wish or because I actually want to die, it’s just the way I’ve lived my life. Hard, fast, and without brakes. I’ve been that way since I was five—why change things up for a limp-dicked prick like Bryce Barnes?
“Hey!” Barnes stares at me before turning to giggle like a fuckin’ schoolgirl with his mates. “Is he fuckin’ retarded?”
To be fair, it’s a little hard to talk with four inches of cold Desert Eagle steel between your teeth. It’s like being in the dentist’s chair when the cunt starts asking about your holiday. No, you daft geezer, I can’t tell you how Spain is this time of year with half your fucking hand in my mouth. It also puts into sharp perspective any question a man has ever asked a woman while she’s blowing him. I guess the difference is, you can tell the dentist to fuck off. You can take a dick out of your mouth.
Bryce Barnes’s gun is only leaving my immediate vicinity when he damn well decides, and there’s a good chance that his decision depends on what I say next. And as we’ve covered, speaking ain’t exactly an easy feat right now.
This is what you’d call a tricky situation.
“Listen, you stupid, stupid little fucker,” Barnes grunts and pushes the gun against the inside of my cheek. I can taste gun oil and dirt and the coppery taste of metal. The grit and grime of the abandoned warehouse bites into my knees through my jeans, and I can feel the trickle of blood down my temple.
On a good day, Bryce Barnes is not what you’d call a balanced, rational individual. That’s actually putting it lightly, like saying Ike Turner “wasn’t the best husband” or that Jeffery Dahmer wasn’t an ideal neighbor. In normal circumstance, it’s not like Barnes needs a reason to have you on your knees in the middle of a crime-scene-looking abandoned warehouse with a gun in your face. In my circumstance though, it’s warranted.
Well, to him it is. To me, justice would be taking that gun, sticking it down his throat, and pulling the trigger until I paint this place with whatever shit fills his head.
But here’s the problem: at the end of the day, I stole what was his. I put hands on what wasn’t mine. I saw something beautiful, and good, and pure, and I put my dirty hands all fucking over it.
All over her.
“Listen you limey little cunt,” Barnes hisses and leans close. The gun presses hard into the side of my fucking cheek, and I grunt.
“I said, do you want to die?”
The answer, if things were simple, is no. Like I said, a week ago, I might have flipped the geezer off, told him to go fuck his mother, or if I was feeling especially, well, me, maybe just go ahead and pull my dick out or something. But that was then, and this is now. And now, things are different. Things have changed.
Now, there’s a light in my life I never knew before. I never actually wanted to die before. But now, I want to live. But this situation isn’t that simple. Nothing ever is in life, especially when you’ve lived it at a hundred-eighty miles an hour on two wheels and no brakes like I have.
Barnes isn’t really asking me if I want to die. He’s asking me if I want to turn over and sell out my brothers, and my soul. He’s got me on my knees asking me the impossible—choose between the brothers and the club that gave me a second shot at life and who would walk through hell for me, and the woman I love.
That’s why my mouth is shut. Or, as shut as it’s going to get with his gun filling it.
“Blow his fuckin’ head off, Barnesy!”
I turn my eyes towards the peanut gallery and roll them at Jay, Barnes’s thickheaded cunt of a second in command.
“Mfmmmgg.”
Barnes frowns. “The fuck did you just say?”
I repeat myself. “Mfmmmgg.”
Barnes’s brows perk up. “Well shit, is reason finally getting through that fuckin’ head of yours?”
I shrug, and nod at Jay again. Barnes frowns and beckons him over. “Him? You’ll talk to him?”
I nod, and he grins. “That’s what I’m fuckin’ talking about! Morrison! Get the fuck over here.”
Jay shrugs and flicks his cigarette away. He strolls over until he’s standing right over me, and he nods at Barnes. His boss grunts and pulls the gun out of my mouth, and I gasp. I clear my throat and spit on the ground as Jay leans down over me. With those beady little eyes and that stubby little nose, the cunt always looks like a right pig to me.
“Well, what is it, douchebag?” he grunts. “You gonna tell us what we want to hear?”
I nod, looking at the ground, and he chuckles a wheezing laugh. “Speak, dipshit.”
I mumble something, and he scowls.
“The fuck was that? Speak English, fuck head!”
“He speaks English, dude.”
Jay whips his head around and glares at the other blokes from their crew. “I know he speaks English, retard! I meant American English!”
Barnes ain’t exactly recruiting PhD students into his crew out here.
The guy shrugs, and Jay turns back to glare at me. “Well?”
I mumble again, drooling slightly as I look at the ground. Jay scowls.
“You break his jaw, boss?”
Barnes frowns. “Nope.”
Jay leans down closer, right over me. I smile.
“Alright you dumb English cunt. You gonna tell us what we want to hear, or are we gonna—”
I jerk my head up hard, catching Jay right in the nose. He screams, spraying blood all over the place. But while the shit hits the fan and while he grabs his nose, I slam my forehead forwards, head-butting him right in the fucking bollocks. The little bitch goes down hard, screaming and clutching his balls while I just start laughing my ass off like a fucking maniac.
Barnes roars, grabbing me by the throat. And suddenly, metal fills my mouth again. I choke on the gun, suddenly unable to breath as I look up into the enraged face of the man who I stole from.
The man I took from.
The man who I’d do it to all over again, a million times out of a million times. Because what I took wasn’t his to keep. What I took was mine to hold, and to possess.
What I took was her, and I’d take her again, even if I knew every outcome would lead right here, to me on my knees with my death sentence filling my mouth with the taste of copper and gunpowder.
“Last. Fucking. Chance.” Barnes hisses through clenched teeth, glaring at me. “We both know the only reason I haven’t skinned you alive is because of what’s in this dumb fucking head of yours. You can spill it now, or I’m gonna spill your fuckin’ brains on this floor. And then?” he grins wickedly. “Then I’m gonna make her clean it the fuck up.”
As if on cue, there’s a screamed swear. My blood chills, and every muscle in my body clenches. I whip my head around, and I roar as I lunge to my feet. But Barnes and three of his goons shove me back down, and a blade goes to my throat.