Prologue
PROLOGUE
They say your life flashes before your eyes at the moment just before death. They fucking lied.
Fender
Slick.
Wet.
Hot.
Perfect.
That’s the only way to describe the pussy I’m buried in. Charlie moans and the sound seems to echo around us in flawless rhythm with the headboard banging against the wall.
“That’s it, baby,” I growl as I reach between our bodies and rub circles over her clit with my thumb.
Charlie’s eyes resemble an emerald in its purest form, and I’m lost, drowning in a sea of green. They widen and her pupils dilate the second her orgasm begins. Tingles race down my spine, and my body tenses as I join her.
We explode together, and the sounds we’ve created die down. My heart is pounding, and her breathing is labored. I roll off of her, carrying her with me and tucking her into my side.
“Holy shit, Fender.”
“What?” I ask, a grin tugging at my lips. She always says the same thing after we fuck. Always.
“It gets better every?—”
“Fender, get the fuck out here!”
The pounding on my door and the urgency in Piston’s voice has me springing from the bed and grabbing my gun from the nightstand. That’s when it registers. Gunshots, yelling, glass shattering.
“Fender! Now!” Piston’s fist is an inch away from my face when I throw open the door. “Black Savages stormed the club. Get dressed and c’mon!”
I glance over my shoulder and see Charlie shoving her legs into her jeans. Her ass is encased in the black lace I pulled off her body with my teeth not a half hour ago. I hate to see her cover her flesh, but I can’t think about that right now.
“Get in the fuckin’ closet and don’t come out. Not for anything.” I grip her bicep and drag her to the door in the corner of the room, throw it open and shove her in.
“Maybe I can talk to them. Maybe I?—”
“No. They’re past talking and so am I.” I crush her lips in a bruising kiss before shutting the door in her face.
I dress as quickly as I can and mentally prepare for what I’m about to face. Certainly nothing good. I make my way down the hall, my gun cocked and ready to blow away any Savage that gets in my path.
I just pray it’s not Dyno. It would be great to take out the president of the Black Savages, but I can’t do that to Charlie. I can’t kill her dad.
I round the corner into the main room of the clubhouse and am shocked at the carnage. The floor is littered with broken liquor bottles and booze. There’s also blood and bodies, and it’s hard to tell what club the deceased belong to.
“Fender!”
I whirl toward the voice and see my father, his shirt soaked in blood, kneeling on the floor. My mother is cocooned in his arms, her body limp. Everything else melts away. The shouting, the gunfire, the mayhem. Cold calm washes over me as I walk toward my parents, ignoring the bullets whizzing past my head. Maybe I’d get lucky, and one would take me out so I wouldn’t have to face what I know is coming.
Time speeds up the closer I get. I drop to my knees. “Where are you hit?”
My father’s stare is blank, empty. When he doesn’t respond, I run my hands over his chest to determine if the blood is his or all from the hole I can now see in my mother’s head. I don’t allow myself to feel the loss. I can’t afford to fall apart right now. My fingers hit a soft spot, a hole, on the left side of my father’s chest. I rip the sleeves from his shirt and stuff the fabric in the hole to slow the bleeding. He hisses in pain, but that’s his only reaction.
“Stay here,” I shout at him, praying he hears what I’m saying. “I’ll be back.”
I lunge to my feet and storm into the middle of the room. I take a deep breath and find my first target. I point the gun and squeeze the trigger, not stopping until I’ve systematically taken out every Black Savage still standing, emptying the clip in the process.
“What the fuck was that?” Piston asks, walking through the bodies, kicking a few as he goes.
“Who’d we lose?” I survey the scene, trying to answer my own question.
“Stunner, Carbon, Phantom,” Piston rubs his head, leaving a streak of blood. He’s looking around, same as me. His head stops moving, and his gaze lands on something behind me. “Aw, fuck.”
I slowly turn around, needing to see what he sees, and instantly regret it. My father is slumped over, both my parents dead. It’s fitting, I suppose. They lived for the club and died for it. It’s what they would’ve wanted, to go out together in a blaze of glory.
Bang!
I pivot around at the gunshot, shocked to hear it because I thought the chaos was over. Charlie’s standing there, her eyes wide, her arms straight, the gun in her hand. I follow her gaze to the man she just killed. Sharp, the Black Savages’ Sergeant at Arms, is lying on the floor with a bullet hole between his eyes.
“He was gonna kill you,” she mumbles.
“You need to leave,” Piston demands. “You don’t belong here.”
My eyes dart back and forth between the woman I love and my best friend. He’s absolutely right. She shouldn’t be here. Especially now. But I don’t have it in me to make her leave.
“Did you do this?” Joker shouts from behind Piston, directing the question at Charlie. “Precious Black Savages’ princess coordinates Soulless Kings’ massacre. Isn’t spreading your legs enough to secure your place?”
Charlie’s arms drop to her sides, and the gun clanks to the floor. She’s staring at me, silently begging me to defend her, protect her from the lies my brother’s spewing. Problem is, I can’t. What if he’s right?
“Get the fuck out!” Joker shouts, pointing toward the exit.
Charlie’s eyes well with tears as she turns and runs out the front door. In my twenty-three years on this Earth, I’ve stared down the barrel of a gun more times than I can count, and it doesn’t hold a candle to what I’m experiencing right now.
I was born to be a Soulless King, raised to be a ruthless, loyal motherfucker. None of that prepared me for this moment. Nothing could make losing so much any easier to swallow.
They say your life flashes before your eyes at the moment just before death. They fucking lied.
Your life flashes before your eyes at the moment you lose everything you live for.