Prologue
PIGGY
Sitting at the table, I try not to look at the stage.
I’m here to focus on Goffredo Hagerty, not the sexy as fuck women on the stage.
I’m a cop. I can do this. I need to act professionally.
And I know that I can. Except when the main stage light dims, and then comes back again, something gold and glittery catches my attention.
Turning my head slowly, I blink at the sight in front of me. The glittering gold sight. Dark red hair, gold bra and panties, gold shoes, and her entire body shimmering with gold paint or makeup or something. But that isn’t why I’m staring with my lips parted in awe.
I know her.
All of her.
Every fucking centimeter of her skin. The way she tastes. The way she feels. I know it all, and she knows all of me, too. As much as I try to focus on the task at hand, on Goffredo, I can’t. Not when she is up on that stage.
Not when I haven’t seen her in over ten years.
Back then, she was eighteen years old. I was thirty-two years old and should have been a lot fucking more mature than I was. I let her get away. No, that’s a lie. I watched her walk away after my pigheadedness pushed her away.
She dances. Her body shimmers in the low-cast lighting around her.
I watch as she spins around on the pole.
Her body suspended in the air, every fucking muscle engaged.
She’s stunning. I always knew she could move, that she was graceful, but seeing it like this, I know it shouldn’t turn me on the way it does.
A million different thoughts swirl around inside my head. Anger, regret, and possession. I feel them all deep in my core. This woman dancing on that pole should be at home in my bed. She should have been there the past ten years, but she’s not, and it’s all my fault.
There is a noise to the side of me that drags my attention away from the stage. That’s when I watch that little prick, Goffredo, being dragged out of the club in cuffs. It’s quick and discreet. If anyone else notices, they don’t react.
One of the Raleigh police officers jerks his chin in my direction as he walks over to my table. I watch as he sinks down beside me. I don’t even know his name, and I don’t ask, either. He starts to tell me about the sting and the arrest.
I’m trying really hard to listen to him, to pay attention to everything he’s saying, but I can’t give him the focus he deserves. All I can do is think about that woman on the stage and how much I want to watch her up there.
“Shit went just as planned. Guy took that bait, knew she was young, and gladly and gleefully offered to pay her extra. What a sick fuck. They’re going to love him in prison,” he murmurs, chuckling at his own words.
I can’t help but laugh as well. I mean that asshole assaulted, in every way possible, Cidney Whitaker. Not only is she Ivy’s cousin, but she’s essentially Goose’s woman even though he hasn’t officially claimed her yet. That was after he shot Lightning in an attempt to get to her.
The drama of it all is convoluted and stupid.
He must have something wrong with him upstairs, because no person in their right mind would have behaved the way he did. And I could maybe excuse him shooting Lightning, if it was a mental break or some such shit, but not what he did to Cidney.
Never.
He cannot live after what he did to her, and thankfully, he won’t. Once he’s sentenced and put into the system, Hogg, who is serving a life sentence, is going to ensure that Goffredo dies a slow, painful death.
It’s just desserts that will keep us from going to war with his family, considering we’re, as a club, contracted to protect their shipments on the road. A tangled fucking web of convoluted bullshit. That’s what it is. And I’m glad to be one step closer to being done.
“You ever thought about getting out of the mountains and working for us?” the officer beside me asks.
Jerking my chin, my lips twitch into a smirk. “I like the mountains,” I say.
“It’s a good place to maybe work a few years after retirement, but you’d made a lot more money here.”
I shift in my seat, trying to hide my smile because he has not a single fucking clue that I make more a year as a member of the Vicious Reapers MC than he makes in five years. At least I’m hiding my involvement well enough.
“I like the peace and quiet. The city is too much.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, I could see that. Hey, maybe I’ll come and hang out for a while, see what the quiet mountain life is about.”
“Any time,” I say.
It’s a lie.
I don’t need him or anyone else knowing what I’ve got going on in Thunder Rock. I got it fucking great there, and the last thing I need is Internal Affairs breathing down my neck. He shakes my hand, then stands to leave. I hang back, my gaze slowly shifting to the stage again.
She’s gone.
My golden goddess.