PROLOGUE
KNOX, PRESIDENT, FLORIDA CHAPTER
Someone connected to my chapter gave up Jackal’s location. Worse than giving it to the cops, they gave it to a man who just tried to put Jackal’s future husband and wife in the ground. It slices like a knife between the shoulder blades.
It won’t be hard to figure out who it was.
After all, Gator Flats ain’t that big. Two thousand people scratching out a living, clinging to the edge of protected wetlands, praying the swamps don’t overtake them.
Airboats outnumber cop cars. Fish camps launder money.
And the meth labs come and go like seasonal tourists.
I roll into the club compound just as the sun is disappearing behind the cypress trees. The place is built high. Flood proof and braced for a hurricane, it has more dock space than garage.
Wild rock blasts from inside. Life goes on like nothing is wrong.
I scrub my hand over my face. Found a few more gray hairs this morning. Some might say I’m getting too old for this shit. But this is my life’s calling. It’s the only thing I’ve built that didn’t rot and ruin under my care.
I’ve been president for seventeen years, which is more than any other Outlaw.
I’ve dodged the law and bullets with my name on ‘em even longer.
Learning the rat was a woman reminded me of a truth my father told me; women are a liability, leverage, or loss.
Sometimes, they’re all three if you’re stupid enough to confuse your wants with needs and make a permanent commitment to one of them.
Families get you killed. They give your enemy something to aim for when they can’t hit you head-on.
Club girls keep things clean and play dirty if you don’t. They like it if you treat them with sugar, but know the rules mean there are no promises and no futures.
And their loose lips can get you killed if they reveal secrets.
The role of president fits like a pair of old slippers. I could do it in my sleep.
Sometimes, I wish it wouldn’t run quite so smooth. I miss the days when some of the cartels would try to creep into our state to sell their drugs. We’d meet them head-on. Stop their fucking trade.
You move through my territory, you pay. Drugs, weapons, I don’t care what your haulin’, as long as it’s not women and kids.
It made us rich. New Jersey rich, minus the tech wizard who lifts them millions whenever they want it.
But I’d rather earn my money and get callouses on my palms from the effort. I want to look my enemies in the eye before I put them in the ground.
Now, it’s all secrets and technology and a battle that doesn’t always come at you head on.
I’m still sitting on my bike when a truck cuts past the access road. An old Ford, faded blue. Windows down despite the humidity.
Maren Caldwell, the daughter of the badge that killed my brother, drives through the town like she owns it. All fiery red hair and the attitude of an angry ‘gator.
She doesn’t slow as she passes the compound, doesn’t even look my way. I hate that she exists so close to my world, yet can’t be controlled.
I hate she’s so fucking beautiful that I forget there’s more than a decade between us and a bucket load of history.
But as her taillights disappear into the distance, I remember this.
I was forged in this swamp and raised in the dirt and silence of this town.
And someone just forgot what this silence is worth.