Property of Prime (Kings of Anarchy MC: Michigan #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Prime

I hated quiet mornings at the clubhouse.

Not the normal ones, those were fine.

The kind where Skull complained about coffee, Lost snored on the couch, and someone’s music leaked out of a bedroom door because they forgot headphones existed.

Those mornings were noise and life and the kind of chaos I’d kill to keep.

This wasn’t that.

This was the kind of quiet that hummed under the skin. The kind that tasted like grief and unfinished business.

Bernice was dead.

And somewhere out there, the bastard who did it was still breathing.

I stood in the common room with a mug of coffee cooling in my hand and stared at the muted TV with the sound off. I wasn’t watching it. The news anchors moved their mouths without meaning. The ticker at the bottom talked about a storm two states over.

None of it mattered.

Behind me, the hallway was quiet, and the last door closed.

Shay was behind that door.

She’d been there less than a week, and my whole world had shifted around that fact.

I took a slow sip of coffee and turned to look down the hallway.

She hadn’t come out yet.

Didn’t blame her.

The past days had been too much for any person to process. Yanked out of her normal life by a stranger in a cut. Then dropped in the middle of a biker clubhouse on a haunted-ass island and found out her picture was in some psycho’s file that was killing people.

And Bernice dying in front of her.

Welcome to Skull Island.

God damn.

Footsteps creaked behind me.

Anchor came over to me like he’d aged ten years overnight. He probably had. He was carrying a mug, but I’d bet good money it wasn’t his first.

His eyes tracked down the hallway.

“You slept?” he asked.

I huffed. “Yeah, sure.”

“So that’s a no,” he muttered.

“You?”

He didn’t answer.

We both knew what that meant.

Anchor leaned against the bar to my left and took a sip of his coffee. “How is she?” he asked.

“Quiet,” I said. “Didn’t leave the room all night. Didn’t call out. Did cry loud enough to hear through the door, though.”

Anchor’s jaw tightened. “You heard her crying?”

“Yeah.”

He shot me a look.

I ignored it. “I stayed in the chair by the door in the hallway,” I added. “She knew I was there.”

He nodded once. “Good.”

The word didn’t feel like enough.

Nothing felt like enough.

I rolled my shoulders like that could loosen the tension lodged under my skin.

“She’s going to have questions,” Anchor said.

“Yeah,” I answered. “So do I.”

He lifted his mug. “We need to know why she’s a target.”

“We know that he thinks she matters,” I said. “We don’t know why.”

Anchor’s mouth flattened.

I clenched my hand tighter around the mug. “You talk to Pearl yet and find out any more about what Bernice said?” I asked.

He shook his head. “All we know is we have to find ‘her,’ but we have no fucking clue who ‘her’ is.”

I nodded.

Nothing made sense.

We all knew Bernice’s last words.

Pearl had been the one holding her hand at the end, but half the damn club was in the room.

“Find her,” Bernice had whispered.

Maybe she meant Shay? Maybe she meant someone else completely. We had no way of knowing because Bernice was dead, and last I checked, none of us knew how to talk to the dead.

A big part of me wondered if Bernice had all of the answers that we needed, but we hadn’t asked her. Not until it was too late.

Anchor finished his coffee in one long swallow and set the mug on the bar.

He rubbed his eyes. “Vin’s going to start digging through old records. I want Piney and Skull to re-walk the northern trail once the fog thins. You…”

“Stay with Shay,” I finished.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “You good with that?”

Not really. I wanted to do everything. Go through old records, keep Shay safe, and even raise Bernice from the dead to find out just what she had known.

But I didn’t hesitate.

“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

“Good,” he replied. “Because you’re not just babysitting. You’re the wall between her and whatever the hell is stalking this island.”

“I know.”

“We don’t know why he wants her,” Anchor said.

“No,” I said. “But we know he does.”

“And that’s enough to keep her under our protection until we figure out the rest.”

“Anchor.”

He looked at me.

“You ever think maybe Bernice knew exactly what she was doing when she said ‘find her’?” I asked. “Maybe she knew something else was coming.”

Anchor’s gaze went flat. “I think Bernice knew a hell of a lot more than she ever told us.”

“Think she knew this psycho personally?” I asked.

He exhaled heavily. “If she did, she took his name with her.”

The hallway door clicked softly.

Both of us turned.

Shay stepped out.

She wasn’t dressed for being hunted by a madman, though what would that even be?

Just leggings, an oversized gray T-shirt, and tall white socks with tan slippers. Her bright red hair was pulled up in a messy knot that looked like she’d done it with her eyes half closed.

Her eyes alone told the story of the night.

Red-rimmed.

Shadowed.

Sharp anyway.

She spotted us instantly.

Her gaze darted from Anchor to me, lingered on my cut, my boots, and then my hands.

Then it flicked to the rest of the common room.

Empty.

Just us.

She wrapped her arms around herself. “You guys don’t sleep?” she asked, voice raw but steady.

Anchor shrugged. “Sometimes.”

She nodded and stepped fully into the room. “I understand that.”

I was glad she was out of her room.

I could see her.

Stupid, maybe, but I didn’t care.

I knew she needed her space, and I needed to handle her carefully, but damn if that wasn’t hard as fuck. When I had heard her crying last night, it had taken everything in me to not rip the door off the hinges and tell her it was all going to be okay.

I set my coffee on the table and turned fully toward her.

“Morning,” I said.

She snorted softly. “Is it?”

“Technically,” I said.

It pulled the corner of her mouth up for half a heartbeat.

That felt like a win.

Anchor straightened and shifted into Prez mode.

“Shay,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

She stared at him like he’d asked her if she enjoyed being run over by a truck. “Tired. Confused. Terrified,” she said. “Hungry. Is ‘emotionally wrecked’ a feeling or a diagnosis?”

“Depends who you ask,” I muttered.

Her eyes flicked to me again, and this time they held for a beat longer. “You ever going to sit down?” she asked.

“No.”

Her brows lifted. “Why?”

“If you’re up, I’m up,” I said.

“That mean you slept for the couple hours I did?” she asked.

“Pretty sure I don’t have to answer that,” I answered.

Anchor rubbed his mouth, like he was hiding a smile he didn’t want showing up this morning of all mornings.

“Why am I here?” she asked suddenly. “Really.”

There it was.

The question that had been hanging between us since I walked her up to that room last night and told her it was “safer here.”

Anchor motioned to the table. “You want coffee?”

“I want answers.”

He nodded. “That’s fair. But you’re getting coffee too.”

He poured her some anyway, set the mug at the edge of the table, and leaned his hip against it.

She didn’t move closer.

She stayed halfway between the back hallway and the common room rug, as if distance and neutral ground were the only things keeping her upright.

I watched every twitch in her expression.

She was scared.

She was exhausted.

She was pissed.

I could still see the fire in her eyes, though.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she said suddenly. “I don’t know who this psycho is that put me on a list. I don’t know any of you that are connected to this. Why am I on the same list as—”

“You’re here,” I cut in, “because you are on that list. That’s it. That’s enough.” That was what we needed to figure out.

Her jaw worked. “But why me?”

“We don’t know yet,” Anchor said.

“But I think it has to do with the island,” she said quietly. Not a question. A statement.

Anchor and I both froze.

She glanced at the windows. “I remember this place,” she whispered. “Not the clubhouse. The island. The water. I always see it when I close my eyes.”

I shifted my weight.

“What do you remember?” I asked.

She swallowed. “I was young. Like, not even three. Lights. Screaming. My mother dragging me. The water glowing.” She wrapped her arms tighter. “I was a kid. And she never talked about it again. Just… never.”

Anchor’s eyes narrowed. “How long ago was this? Your mom never mentioned anything about it after?”

“Uh, well, I’m twenty-six now, and I think I was maybe two and a half?” Shay said. “And she never told me anything. Just that Skull Island wasn’t safe. That we were never going back.”

“And yet here you are,” I muttered.

Shay’s eyes snapped to me. “Not by choice.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I get that, but being here is likely the only thing keeping you alive.”

“You don’t know anything about me or why I’m here,” she snapped. “For all you know, I’m one breath away from ending up dead like Bernice.”

“Yeah, you could be right, but I don’t think you are.

And I know enough about you,” I said. “Know your file photo wasn’t old.

Know you were living in your car. Working.

Keeping your head down while trying to get your life right.

You were dragged into this, and you’re not going anywhere until we figure out who this psycho is.

Your chances of staying alive are a hell of a lot greater being here with me than being a sitting duck in your car. ”

Her shoulders sagged just enough for me to see the fear slip through her anger.

“I don’t know anything,” she whispered. “Not really. Just flashes. Feelings.” She looked at Anchor and me. “But none of you guys are in them. It’s just water, and bright lights, and…”

Anchor’s voice softened. “Whatever you’re remembering might not have anything to do with this. It could have just been a bad trip you and your mom took.”

She laughed once, harsh and humorless. “Well, that sucks.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It does.” But I thought it was too much of a coincidence for what she was remembering to not have anything to do with this.