Bullet (Satan’s Pride #15)

Prologue

My Name Is Bullet

Guard hands me my jacket with the Satan’s Pride insignia.

As a newly patched member of the Pride, my name is Bullet.

I’ll use it proudly. It’s not like my given name means anything to me.

There’s no wonderful story about how I was named after a great-grandfather who was a hero in the war, or that my mother read a romance novel and the main character was named Aaron and she wanted me to have a name that resonated with her.

I was a toddler left in a mall when I was about eighteen months old.

I was found by a security guard, crying as I looked for my mother.

I sat in the mall office the entire day, waiting for her to return.

The only thing they found in my pocket was a note with my first name on it.

It’s a good thing she did that, because who knows what name they would have saddled me with?

Aaron was a decent name. It’s my last name I could do without.

It’s not because of what it is, but how I got it.

I was immediately put into foster care after leaving the mall that day, and since the social workers were in a rush to place me in a foster home, they filled out the papers with the name Aaron Foster, as in foster care. It’s both hilarious and maddening.

All these years, I could have searched for my birth mother and gotten answers.

But when it came down to it, I figured she didn’t want me.

I could have changed my name to anything I wanted.

When I was a young boy, I’d watch superheroes on television and think of a new name for myself, but in the end, it didn’t matter what my name was because there wasn’t anyone important enough to call it other than my foster mom.

My years in foster care weren’t horrible.

I was lucky enough to stay with a woman named Helen until I turned sixteen.

She would have kept me longer, but Helen was getting on in years, and she couldn’t really manage financially to keep me.

She was a retired schoolteacher who became a foster parent because she loved kids and couldn’t have any of her own.

Her husband, Paul, died in a tragic car accident before Helen took me in.

I think having kids around kept her going.

I wasn’t her first foster child, but I was her last. She needed someone to love, and I was lucky enough to end up in her home.

Helen was loving and kind, but when it came to school and homework, she was no-nonsense.

Unfortunately, shortly after my sixteenth birthday, she got sick, and when the state deemed she wasn’t fit enough to look after me, they opted to move me to another home.

I decided one night that I wasn’t going and took off.

It was both the best and worst decision of my life.

I wasn’t prepared for what the streets had to offer.

Up until that moment, I thought I’d had a tough life.

I thought being abandoned by my mother and living in foster care was difficult.

It wasn’t until I was sleeping in an alley, scared for my life, that I realized how good Owen and I had it.

We would have gone back to Helen’s if we could, but that wasn’t an option.

She was moving into an elderly care apartment, which would give her the independent life she wanted, but with assistance available if needed. There was no room for us.

Owen and I bonded when we met in foster care.

We clicked right away and took care of each other from the bullies at school.

With both of us being abandoned, we had a rocky start to life.

Owen had a rougher edge and was much more street-savvy than I was, but I learned fast how to take care of myself.

When we hit the streets one night, we ended up in an alley.

We weren’t there very long before a looming figure came into the alley and threatened us.

I didn’t know the guy, but Owen called him DZ.

He was bigger than Owen and me put together.

DZ was built; his arms bulged with muscle.

I didn’t know then, but he was part of a local gang, and he thrived off beating the shit out of the homeless.

It was how he got his kicks, and that night, he had his sights set on me.

I’ll never forget his stone-cold tone when he told Owen, “Take off, kid. I’ll let you off the hook tonight.

” Then DZ sneered and gave a derisive snort, jerking his chin in my direction.

“I’ll teach him a lesson. When I’m done, he won’t be able to walk again.

” I don’t think DZ knew the loyalty that Owen and I shared or what we’d been through together.

To say that I was freaked out would have been the understatement of a lifetime. It was a true test of our friendship. Owen could have walked away and left me to the crazed man wielding a switchblade, but he didn’t.

Instead, Owen answered with “Fuck off. We stick together.”

DZ wasn’t going to let a punk kid get the better of him, and when he went at Owen, I totally lost it and jumped on DZ’s back and hit him repeatedly as hard as I could while Owen escaped from under his grasp. Owen kicked at him, and when he saw I was free, we both made a run for it.

That night, we knew that our friendship would last. Owen and me, we’ve stuck it out together.

We’ve had each other’s backs, and let me tell you, we’ve been through hell and back.

Owen isn’t a big talker. He has trust issues.

I still think that something happened before he got to foster care that is rooted deep in his soul. Maybe something he can’t even recall.

I swore I’d never tell another soul, and I’ve kept my word.

Tonight, Guard has given us our new names. Owen is Crush. Guard says that it suits him because he’ll crush anyone who threatens the club or the brotherhood. I’m Bullet because I’m fast and always ready to go at a moment’s notice. Whatever my brothers need, I’m the first to step up.

Owen and I take off our prospect jackets and put on our new jackets as fully inducted members of Satan’s Pride MC. We’ll wear them proudly until the day we’re taken from this earth.