Knight (Redemption Road #1)

Prologue

KNIGHT

It was December, and bitterly cold, but pop-pop-pop cracked through the night like the Fourth of July. In the distance, sirens wailed.

“Fuck!” Puck sprang to his feet, panic twisting his features into a snarl. “We’ve gotta get out of here!”

“We’re pinned down,” I said, careful to stay tucked behind a solid beam that would stop any stray bullets finding their way through the busted-out window. Most of the gunfire was for show. They wanted us to run so they could catch us and deal out their punishment face-to-face.

Most likely they’d beat us both to a pulp, then shoot us and leave us to bleed out.

“You should have just thrown the fight tonight,” Puck growled. “I told you this would happen.”

I shifted positions, my ribs screaming a reminder that I’d taken a beating even before Puck had called me for backup.

“Hector would have lost his shit,” I said. “You know the Serpents all bet on my fights. Why couldn’t you just bet on me if you owed these guys money?”

“Because that’s not what they wanted!”

I was the Sons of Serpents prize fighter in our illegal fighting ring.

I’d won my match back at the warehouse against a giant named Titus who’d made me work for it, then helped Puck fight off four guys determined to take a pound of flesh from him.

We’d barely made it into this barn, and now we were trapped.

I still had blood crusted into the creases of my knuckles. Various parts of my body throbbed in time with my heartbeat. My adrenaline kept me on my feet, but I’d give my right kidney for a hot shower and bed.

Pop-pop! Another round of gunfire went off, followed by the sirens growing even closer.

“I can’t go to prison again,” Puck said. “With my record, they’ll throw the book at me. I gotta get out of here.”

The members of our rival bike club, the Road Reapers, would cut down Puck in a heartbeat. They didn’t want to get arrested either, though. They’d scatter soon.

“Just wait. They’re going to leave.”

“It’ll be too late,” Puck said. “The cops will be all over us. I have to make a run for it.”

“That’s a bad fucking idea.”

“No shit,” he said. “But I’m not going back to prison for the rest of my life. That’s just as bad as taking a bullet.”

He took a big breath, eyes narrowing on the barn door, body tensed to run. I scanned the barn, looking for any other plan. Something that wouldn’t riddle my boyfriend with bullets.

“The loft,” I said quickly. “There’s a window. Climb onto the roof. Hunker down out of sight.”

“Will that really work?”

“I’ll draw their attention,” I promised.

Puck grabbed my face and gave me a quick, hard kiss. “You’re my hero!”

“Go,” I urged, chest swelling with pride.

When we met, Puck was the badass biker, and I was just the high school dropout without better prospects.

A runaway who had no one but a few other lost kids who frequented a youth center.

The Serpents had come recruiting. I wasn’t too interested until Puck blew me in the bathroom and told me that if I joined, we could hook up on the DL.

That was three years ago. I’d gotten my patch like all the other guys, risen through the ranks—mainly thanks to my fists and ability to take a hell of a beating in our illegal fighting ring. I was the club president’s personal cash cow, which was why I couldn’t have thrown the fight tonight.

No matter how much I loved Puck.

Hector would have seen through any act, which would have been my head.

Even if he hadn’t figured out it was sabotage, he’d have made me pay for all the money he lost. Pay with crappy chores fit for a pledge, abuse from the other bikers, high-risk operations.

I’d be on his shit list, and it’d take months to earn my way back to the top.

I couldn’t risk that. Not now that I was finally Puck’s equal.

But I’d still get him out of this mess somehow. I moved to the window, popping off a couple of shots while Puck scurried up the ladder to the loft and disappeared into the shadows.

Return fire came. Good. They were focused on me. I fired a few more before a bullet nearly took off my head.

A feral scream rent the night.

I ducked down, laughing. “Take that, you fuckers!”

If I was going down, I’d take them with me. Just three more to go.

A motor growled. There were shouts of surprise. More motors started up.

They were leaving.

I turned toward the loft. “They’re taking off, Puck! Let’s go!”

The sirens grew even louder, but there was no sound from Puck. He must have made it onto the roof. He’d be watching for the all clear. I waited for his call.

Thirty seconds went by. Then another ten.

His call didn’t come.

Shit. Maybe the cops were too close? I started toward the ladder, intending to join him. Maybe we could find a way down the other side of the barn.

The sirens were practically on top of me now. My foot hit the first rung. Car doors slammed and voices shouted.

I started to climb.

The doors rattled behind me. “This is the police. We’ve got you surrounded.”

Fuck! I hesitated at the top of the ladder. The loft window was so close. But if I went to the roof, I’d draw their attention to Puck. I could hole up here, but they’d call in SWAT to bust down the door. The place would be swarming with even more cops.

My heart sank, and I descended the ladder. There was only one thing to do. Let them take me so they wouldn’t look too hard for anyone else. Puck could escape once we were gone.

“There’s nowhere for you to go,” an officer called through a speaker. “Toss your gun to the ground, put your hands above your head, and come out, nice and easy.”

I looked around, trying to find another escape, but there wasn’t one that didn’t risk drawing them to Puck.

“Okay!” I called. “Don’t shoot! I’m coming out.”

I tossed the gun onto the dusty floor, grabbed the crossbeam that was securing the barn door, and slid it open.

“Hands up! Now, now, now!”

I lifted my hands. “Don’t shoot! I’m unarmed!”

Two officers wrestled me down into the snow, one planting a knee in my back while dragging my arms behind my waist and locking cold metal cuffs on my wrists.

“We’ve got a badly wounded man in the snow out here,” a gruff voice said in my ear. “You’re under arrest.”

“It was self-defense,” I shot back. “There were four of them and one of me.”

“Save it for the judge.” He pulled me up by my wrists, my body throbbing like one giant bruise at the strain. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in…”

I closed my eyes, reality sinking in as he read me my rights.

I was going to jail—and not for some minor misdemeanor. I shot one of the other bikers. I’d do prison time.

I raised my eyes and scanned the roofline. There was no sign of Puck. I broke into a laugh, startling the cop still droning through my list of rights.

“Crazy fucker,” he muttered.

“He’s a Serpent,” his partner said. “They’re all batshit. Violent, too. I hear they’ve got an illegal fighting ring.” He shook me a little. “You know anything about that?”

“Thought I was supposed to remain silent?”

“Smartass,” he grumbled.

“He’ll tell Sarge what she wants to know. The DA will make him an offer he can’t refuse. They always roll on their buddies when it gets too hot. Don’t you, Serpent?”

I remained silent.

Let them book me. Let them ask their questions. I wasn’t saying shit.

Puck had gotten away. He’d be okay. That was all that mattered.

Whatever happened next, that made it all worth it.

Seven years, ten months, and three days later …

A throbbing bass line, pulsing lights, and sweaty bodies made the nightclub into a living, breathing, heaving creature. Lust filled the air, intoxicating. I was already half hard in my jeans and I hadn’t even touched a guy yet.

Then again, I hadn’t wanted to touch most of the guys in prison. A few furtive hookups when I got desperate—but nothing regular since Syd, a very sweet inmate who’d been released two years before me.

I caught the eye of a gorgeous willowy guy. Blond, wavy hair, damp with sweat and falling over his blue eyes. That was the kind of sweet you didn’t find in state prison.

I licked my lips and trailed my gaze down his body, over the mesh tank top exposing toned arms and flashes of his pale chest and dusky nipples, the booty shorts barely covering his ass, and long legs I wanted wrapped around my head.

My mouth watered with the urge to lick him while he melted on my tongue like ice cream.

His gaze wandered over my body too, taking in the dark scruff on my face, the white tee that practically glowed under these lights and exposed the ink running down my arms, the black jeans that were tight in the thighs, the belt chain that draped right down near my crotch.

He slid the tip of his pink tongue over his full bottom lip.

Oh yeah, he liked what he saw.

I hadn’t even made it to the bar yet, but I hadn’t come out tonight to drink. I’d much rather eye fuck the cutie across the room.

I was starting a new work program tomorrow, some transitional crap my parole officer talked me into trying in Riverton, Nebraska, a tiny hole-in-the-wall town. Who knew if I’d find any queer men there? Definitely none willing to live openly, and I was done with that secretive shit.

I’d hidden for Puck. Fought for him.

Gone to prison for him.

And what had he done for me?

A month into my sentence, he’d shown up to tell me he was hooking up with that biker hag, Lana, who threw herself at every available dick. He was done playing around with men.

Playing. Like I’d risked my life for him, gone to prison for him, for nothing but a game. I’d joined the Serpents to be with him when I was barely eighteen.

He knew I was devoted.

I’d begged him to reconsider, tried to remind him of what we meant to each other. He didn’t have to be celibate for me. He only had to be loyal in his heart. But he couldn’t do that.

He wouldn’t.