Karma (Forsaken Outlaws MC #1)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

About eight months ago…

Karma

I had a bad feeling about this job from the start. A prickling just under my skin, making the tattoos covering it burn. Especially the whore and the good girl on my arms. One is an angel, wearing a pretty summer dress and holding flowers, the other a demon, dressed in leather and holding guns. Both are covered in blood. Both are me. The angelic good girl burned hottest. As though she knew she’d die all over again on this night.

I should’ve listened.

The job started the way they all do. A quiet, dark night, an empty, silent street, the hum of adrenaline and nerves in the air around me deafeningly loud. We’d been hired by a small MC to lend extra eyes, ears, and guns to a drug deal they’d orchestrated in their attempt to fatten up into slightly bigger fish in the cesspool that is the pond they swim in.

Grim and Reaper said yes, because they hardly ever say no to a job anymore. I didn’t object because I hardly do anymore. There’s nothing noble in what we do like I once thought we might. All we do is chase the money. All we do is survive. All we do is exist.

I want to say I didn’t sign up for that—that I signed up for more. But the truth is, those things were the only ones that were ever promised me.

The sound of Harleys going fast rips through the silence of the night and the nervous buzzing in my ears. Soon our clients will be here. Then we’ll flank them and escort them to where they need to be to drop off their cargo—cocaine, or heroine, or maybe just plain old meth. I don’t know. I didn’t ask because I don’t care.

“Get ready to ride,” Reaper’s raspy, deep voice comes through the headphones in my helmet. After all these years, his voice can still send a fleet of butterflies with electric wings straight into my belly. It’s a cold night tonight so it’s barely a pang. But it’s there. “Let’s get this over with so we can go home.”

Those words are just for me and Grim—his lovers of fifteen years. The electric butterflies don’t burn at those words. They flutter in very welcome and happy warmth.

“I’d like that,” I whisper.

“Me too,” Grim replies.

Reaper just chuckles in that same raspy, deep voice of his.

The bikes are getting closer. I can see the riders, five of them, black mounds on black rides, headlights off, not even the chrome parts of their bikes indistinguishable from the darkness on this moonless night.

They ride right past our position, going so fast the wind caused by their passage slams against the visor of my helmet.

“Follow them,” Reaper instructs in his Prez voice, and we do. All ten of us—the Forsaken Outlaws—start our bikes and ride into the street. And for what? To protect a bunch of lowlifes looking to score a low payday? Next time, I’ll speak up. Next time, we’ll pick our jobs better. Next time…

My half-frozen brain doesn’t get to finish the thought before a second deafening sound rips through the night. Louder than the sound of bikes, louder than the buzzing in my ears, louder than life.

Machine guns. I haven’t heard them often but I’d know the sound anywhere. Bullets are raining down on us, the sparks they cause as they hit pavement the only light on this frozen night.

“The fuck?” Grim says stealing the words right out of my mouth.

“Disperse,” Reaper says. “Head for the bridge. Shortest route.”

Bullets are whizzing past me on all sides. I duck low over the handlebars and gun the accelerator.

In the rearview, I see Reaper, magnificent and huge just like always. My protector. Always there for me. Always right behind me. Even now as I veer left into an alley at top speed, my rear wheel almost spinning out. But it doesn’t, because it was he who taught me how to ride. Taught me how to live. And he did it well.

I see him shudder behind me, probably cursing my daredevil ways like he always does.

His voice rips through the headphones again. No encouraging words this time, no orders to keep us safe. Just a grunt—deep and feral. And an exhale as soft as the touch of a butterfly’s wings.

I hope so hard the grunt isn’t from what I fear it is that there’s no other thought in my mind. We’ve outrun the bullets, they’re not raining down on us anymore and he’s still right behind me, riding fast.

I speed up even more and ride into safety under the bridge at top speed, pebbles of concrete flying all around as I run to him.

The river rushes past to my left, darker than the night, the cold rising off it terrible. There’s no warmth under my skin left, no burning.

Reaper rolls to a slow stop just as Grim, Psycho and Ivy come in hot.

I run to Reaper, expecting, hoping, he’ll step off his bike and open his arms for me. Instead, it’s me who catches him as he stumbles off his bike. And we’d both go down if Grim wasn’t right there to catch us.

“What the fuck happened?” Grim says, his voice so tight it sounds like rock grating against rock.

I’m touching Reaper all over, trying to find the source of his weakness. His riding jacket is soaked through with his blood. It steams in the cold night. I fumble with his zipper to get to the wound, but it won’t budge.

“Leave it,” he whispers as Grim lays him down on the cold ground. “It’s too late.”

I shake my head and pull harder on his zipper. Until he lays a very weak, shaky hand on mine. “I took these bullets for you, my sweet princess. I’ll die a happy man knowing I saved you.”

He’s the only one who sees a princess in me. Or anything sweet. To everyone else I’m just a warrior, hardened by years of fighting hard.

“No, no, no,” I mutter as I finally get the zipper of his jacket to budge.

His strong chest is a sea of red, hot, steaming, black blood bubbling up from the depths to feed it with unstoppable speed.

“Yes,” he says, the death rattle following that terrible word. “This is it. Goodbye.”

He cups my cheek in his warm, blood-covered palm and looks up at Grim, who is standing statue-still above us.

I watch the warmth leave Reaper’s dark eyes, watch them turn as dead and cold as the night once the final shuddering breath leaves his strong body.

Grim’s scream rips through the silence, full of anguish, pain, disbelief and all the love we both had for this man. It reverberates through my chest, louder than my racing heart. His scream is loud enough to tear right through the fabric of this world, exposing the nasty, seething, steaming mess that it’s made of. I wish that chasm would swallow me up too. But it’s a wish I’ve often had and it’s never come true yet. Those bullets he took for me… I’d gladly have taken them myself.

I rise and wrap my arms around Grim who is once again just standing there, as still as a rock, his eyes locked on Reaper’s.

“We’ll get those fuckers,” Grim says in a voice that sounds so much like Reaper’s last dying breath I shudder.

“Every last one of them,” I say as he wraps his arms around me and holds me tight.

I was covered in blood when they found me, when they saved me, and now I’m covered in Reaper’s blood as he leaves us. There’s no bright future before me this time, no promise of love and safety. Only pain. Only darkness. Only a grave where a piece of my heart will forever lay next to Reaper. Until I go to my own.