Sin & Surrender (Lock & Key MC #12)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

WES

Nothing prepares you for your motorcycle flying out from under you, the whizz of bullets tearing past you. Hell raining down on you.

Nothing.

You grow up hearing about it, marveling at what the sensation of shooting back at an enemy must be like.

And then, one day…

On the road, a smooth road, on a perfect, sunny, blue sky day,

Feeling humbled and grateful, your bike’s engine thundering in your veins.

In a flash, it all turns ugly.

Insane.

Pops explode in the air. I lose control of my bike. I’m spinning out, and I hold the fuck on and tumble over when the time is right. Smoke and heat rise, engulfing me. Pain explodes, a burning sensation ripping over me. But I must act fast, and finally, I’m using that gun my father taught me how to use. Using it for real, not aiming at cans and bottles out in the woods.

Why is this happening?

Doesn’t matter, it is.

I’m covering Butler, he’s covering me. Shouts, panic, my pulse pounding, my blood roaring. I’m focused, adrenaline pumping through every cell in my body. I look back, but Butler isn’t there. I call out, but he doesn’t answer.

I run.

He’s motionless on the ground, and I scream his name.

His bright blue eyes are dull and lifeless in the impossible glare of the sun. Those eyes fade, he fades, and I shout his name to the sky. But nothing, nothing brings him back.

My gun clatters to the asphalt.

“Wes!” Lindy calls out my name, and a piece of my heart jumps. Hope.

But she sounds so far away. My knees buckle, and I fall to the ground next to Butler.

Sirens, sirens, sirens blare.

This is the nightmare I keep having. It comes, it goes, and I shove it away, but it seeps back inside me like a dark stain I can never fully scrub off, an odor I can’t escape.

The grief of my father’s death hovers over me still. Most of all, the guilt, the regret for things I can never change. And then, in the aftermath, the shame of my actions, the horror of what I might have done for the glory of revenge had it not been for Butler.

That was years ago. I want to live again in the light I once took for granted. I can’t say I remember what that’s like.

And now, through the smoke, in the heat of the flames that surround me, Lindy screams out my name again in that very same horror and helplessness I’ve known before. Yet she is full of passion, full of defiance, and her call ignites me to stay the course. To fight. Because fight we must. Or we die.

Crossed purposes. Broken destinies. Wild ambitions. Impulsive choices and lies, so many twisted blood-filled lies led us here.

Lindy’s voice, full of rage and agony, determination and desperation, breaks those chains, breaks my heart, and yet, fills it with purpose.

Lindy…

I push back, and my bleeding body surges one last time. My hand finally closes over the gun and squeezes the trigger.