Caught by Cole

Prologue

COLE

Ten years ago

The whole deal was wrong from the start. I told my father as much, before we rode over to the warehouse where the exchange was supposed to happen, but he brushed it off.

“Don’t be a fucking pussy, Cole, the deal is good.

We need this.” My dad Frank had always put profits before safety, so his dismissal was no surprise, but still, the feeling of unease sat in my gut as we rode out of town.

The reality was, even though my dad didn’t bother reminding me, we needed the money from the deal tonight to buy him some breathing room.

The truth was that Frank Bailey’s debt had never curbed his spending, and thanks to that, the whole MC had to put their necks on the line.

At least Marcus was young enough to be left out of this bullshit.

Thank fuck. My brother was just a kid, so he had a few more years at home before Frank decided that he needed to join the Harbor Hounds.

I’d been fourteen when he’d started taking me over to the bar and garage that he ran on the interstate.

The Clutch. One hard night in that place had made sure that I was no longer a kid.

I’d kept Marcus away from it so far, and if I had my way, that would never change.

He was meant for better things than riding in the dark to shady deals that could land you in the hospital, jail, or dead.

No, the Harbor Hounds and my father’s legacy were my cross to bear, and I’d gladly carry the burden if it meant keeping Marcus safe.

We turned off the small narrow road onto a farm track and parked. My best friends, Gage and Maddox, flanked me as my father looked toward a single light shining outside the ramshackle building in the distance.

“We go the rest of the way on foot,” my dad said, and nodded to his seconds-in-command, Beatie and Errol.

We were ten men altogether. Enough for a run-of-the-mill deal, but way too few for shit going sideways.

We walked along the soft, marshy field toward the farm and the outbuilding lit by the solitary bulb burning in the dark. That damn gut instinct that something stank about this whole thing only grew stronger.

It should have been a simple transaction.

We had the money, they had the drugs. An exchange would be made, and everyone would be happy…

except the supplier’s accent had changed every single time on the phone, and I had no idea who we were really dealing with, only that it wasn’t the same person.

That was the kind of shit that made me nervous.

But Frank Bailey didn’t do nervous, especially not in his eldest son, the one he’d decided would inherit his business one day.

So, I kept my mouth shut, and my hand on my weapon.

Inside the outbuilding, rusted old equipment sat under huge cloths, and the stink of decay and rot hung heavy in the air. The silence felt loaded somehow. Wrong.

My father and Errol moved into the middle of the room, while the rest of us hung back, and a few stood outside to watch for an ambush.

I didn’t see exactly what happened. I was too focused on the movement of a shadow from the upper floor, when the first shot sounded.

People dove to the floor and suddenly, we weren’t alone in the building. Bullets pinged off surfaces, ricocheting around wildly. My father dove down, and Errol covered him, shooting from the hip.

“Fuck! Stay down, Cole,” Beatie snarled at me.

I caught sight of Gage’s face. He looked… shocked.

He’d had the same look only a few days before, when I’d body checked him during a basketball game at the court beside the lake. What the fuck are we doing here? We were little more than kids, and tonight, we could die right here, in the dirt. Lives wasted.

I moved, but not fast enough. A weight barreled into me. It was Beatie. He knocked me off my feet and covered my body with his.

Silence fell, and then the sound of engines started up outside.

“Those fuckers took the money!” Frank yelled, getting up and giving chase.

People were running, and I was sliding out from under Beatie to get up and follow behind them, when someone grabbed my ankle.

I nearly fell but was still able to pull my gun and aim it at whoever had grabbed me.

Recognition hit me just before I pulled the trigger.

Beatie lay in a pool of blood. I hadn’t even realized that he’d gotten hurt. He was Beatie, huge and hearty and always there. How could he be hurt?

I dropped to his side and searched for the hit.

“Listen to me, Cole,” he wheezed out.

“Don’t waste your energy, just hold on,” I babbled. I was only twenty-one, and I’d never seen a man die before.

“Too late for that,” he muttered and coughed. Blood ringed his lips. Well, shit.

“Just listen. Do a dying man a favor and listen.” He clamped a hand around the back of my neck and held me pinned, just above him, his eyes locked onto mine.

“Tell my boy I loved him and it was all for him…every single day was for him.”

“You tell him yourself,” I ground out.

Beatie shook his head, and his hand lost strength. He relaxed back against the ground.

“Don’t be like us, Cole. Find a way out,” he murmured, his eyes growing dimmer.

“Ain’t none of this shit worth a life.”

Then he closed his eyes, and he was gone.

It was raining hard by the time I got off my bike outside a small house at the edge of town.

Errol rode flank. Making sure I got there safe or just making sure I got there…

it was unclear. If it was the latter, clearly, he didn’t have much of an opinion of me.

Being the reason someone’s husband wasn’t coming home deserved a face-to-face conversation, painful or not.

He stayed on his bike as I slid off. My father stood waiting for me by the door as I took my helmet off and joined him.

I couldn’t feel the cold of the rain. Beatie’s blood had long since washed off my hands, but the heat of it sinking into my skin as he died in my arms would never fade.

It was permanently etched inside me now. My hands would never be clean again.

It was my fault.

“Let’s keep this brief, and not impose further than we already are,” my dad muttered, scrubbing a hand down his face.

He banged on the door, and moments later it opened. Beatie’s old lady took one look at us, standing there in the rain, and broke down in tears. That was what it was like, being the wife of a patched-in man… you never knew when the night would come when your husband wouldn’t make it home.

She fell to the ground as Frank reached out to pat her on the shoulder.

“Rosie, I’m so sorry,” he said, voice like gravel.

Behind her, a little boy stood in the hall, watching us with curious eyes. Couldn’t have been more than seven years old. My father took Beatie’s cut from over his arm and passed it to his wife. His widow. Blood on the patch, half-washed by rain.

Then he turned and left, his boots heavy on the pavement.

I reluctantly followed, feeling like more should be said, something, anything, but words fell short.

The little boy hadn’t moved. He stood staring at the vest like he could make his dad come back if he could just stare hard enough.

“He was a hero. He saved my life,” I told the grieving family. The mother looked at me then with resentment, and I could feel the words she wished she could say.

It should have been you.

I didn’t know how to tell that little boy and weeping woman the last words of a dying man. It all felt too real and raw, too terrible. I’d tell them next time I saw them, when I hadn’t just given them the worst news of their lives.

Instead, I looked at that little boy, even younger than Marcus, and I made a silent vow. I’d look after that kid, no matter what. I’d make sure Beatie’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain. I’d take responsibility.

This I vow.

The rain kept falling, washing blood off the roads, but not off my hands.

22 years old

The visitor’s room at the state penitentiary that hosted Frank Bailey was overflowing for Father’s Day this year.

Little kids clutching homemade cards in one hand, and their moms’ hands in the other, waiting with wide, nervous eyes for their dads to appear for their allotted visiting times.

And as depressing as that was, those inmates were the lucky ones.

At least they had someone to make them smile on Father’s Day. Someone who cared they were locked up.

I sat in a hard plastic seat and waited for my father to appear. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t belong here.

He was one of the last ones in. His hair had turned almost completely white in the few months that he’d been inside. He looked frailer somehow. He was so reduced suddenly. The big, hulking man I’d known my entire life was gone. Now, a frail old man shuffled in his footsteps.

He sank down opposite me.

“Where’s my card?” he grunted, looking around at the people trying their best to have an hour of happy family time.

“I’m afraid the only card I have for you is this one,” I said evenly, despite the immense fury roaring in my gut. I slid the plain black business card across the table, hoping that my father might not recognize it.

Maybe my plans could still come true. Maybe the Pres of the Harbor Hounds going to jail could mean the end of it, and I could make my escape. I’d run the auto shop, and do my woodwork, find someone to love, have a family. Maybe I could still choose my life, instead of it choosing me.

But my father’s face crumpled at the sight of the business card, and I knew…

I was never, ever getting out.

“It was never meant to get to the point that it did,” he said, swiping at damp eyes. Prison had done a number on Frank Bailey. He was defeated, and with all his shit being dragged out into the light, he had nowhere to hide.

“How much?” I asked in a dead tone. Maybe I’d be dead from now on. A dead man walking, at least. The MC life either got you killed, or thrown behind bars.

“Too much. Too much to pay back. With the interest.” Frank swore and swiped at his eyes again.

“How long you been borrowing?”

“Decades,” Frank admitted. “I should have known The Lion was the type to come after families. That fucker would stoop to any low to keep the Hounds on his chain. He took Beatie to send a message, and now he’s looking for a new one.”

“Took Beatie?” I repeated. Beatie’s death had weighed on me every single day since it happened. “The Lion was responsible for Beatie?”

My father just nodded. I pulled my rage together enough to get words out.

“The Lion,” I asked. “Who is he?”

Frank sighed. “A dangerous man, well connected, really fucking rich. The kind you see at a country club. The last person you’d think would make their money running guns, but maybe that’s the point.

People like you and me are easy to accuse.

One look at us, and the jury, pigs, and people alike make up their minds. ”

Did it hurt that my dad already assigned me to the same fate as himself? Maybe, if I allowed my heart to feel anything other than cold resolve.

“Well, whoever this country club fucker is… this card was delivered with a photo of Marcus attached.”

Frank shook his head. “Same old tactics, then.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, they used you against me, and now they use your little brother against you.” Frank mulled it over a moment and then seemed to collect himself.

“Anyway, why does it matter that much? You inherited the MC. You were hardly going to shut down my legacy. So, you take less of a cut on some deals, and pay off the interest on the debt. Live with it, like I did. Life won’t change that much.”

A chuckle left me, unbidden. Frank flinched.

The chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh. My father looked bewildered as my laugher continued. Fate had a funny way of fucking you, just when you finally had a sliver of hope. Destiny was really a sadist, at the end of the day.

“Yeah, you’re right.” I finished laughing as reality hit hard. “Life won’t change that much.”

And that was exactly the problem.