Tiny (Kiss of Death MC #9)

Prologue

Tiny

Three years ago

I hunched over my beer in the corner of Throttle, trying to make my nearly seven-foot frame smaller in the wooden chair that creaked beneath my weight.

The celebration swirled around me, brothers from the Kiss of Death MC shouting, drinking, and partying.

All supposedly for me, but it felt like sandpaper against my frayed nerves.

Fifteen years inside made noise hit differently.

Made everything hit differently. The smoke hung thick enough to taste, mingling with spilled whiskey and the sweat of too many bodies packed into too small a space.

Some of that I was used to, but it was still different.

A bar in Nashville, Tennessee was a far cry from the barracks back in Terre Haute Prison.

I ran my fingers down my long, thick beard, braided tight like a Viking’s, and I kept my eyes down.

Freedom was supposed to feel good. This just felt like drowning in a different kind of cell.

Someone raised a glass, shouted my road name. “To Tiny! Back where he belongs!”

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Nothing tiny about me except the name they gave me when I first prospected, back when I was just a ridiculously tall kid with too much bulk and not enough sense.

I nodded at the toast, took a swallow that burned all the way down, and wished again for the quiet of my cell.

At least there, nobody expected me to smile.

A door clanged somewhere in the bar, and I flinched.

The sound shot me straight back to Terre Haute as if I were still there.

Time had seemed to stretch out like a road with no end until one day they let me out.

Something about good behavior and being a model prisoner.

As if fifteen years of keeping my head down could erase what I’d done.

I didn’t regret killing the bastard. Not one fucking bit. The memory of my sister’s face when I found her so bruised and bleeding, that animal on top of her. The way his skull felt beneath my hands. The sound it made when it broke. Some men needed killin’.

“You look like you’d rather be facing a firing squad than a homecoming.”

I looked up. Knight sat across from me, sliding into the chair.

His voice was smooth as honey, nothing like you’d expect looking at him.

Tattoos covered nearly every inch of visible skin -- his face, his neck, his hands.

Even the whites of his eyes looked colored in, giving him an otherworldly appearance in the dim bar light.

But his smile was genuine, and of all my brothers, he was the one who might understand.

“Too much,” I said simply, gesturing vaguely at the noise around us.

Knight nodded. “Takes time to decompress. Took me months after my three-year bit, and that was nothing compared to what you did.” He kept his voice low, meant just for me.

“Nobody expects you to be right as rain, brother. Xavier said to drink a few for him. Knuckles has him helping with something at Terre Haute. He should be out in six months tops.”

“I didn’t see him before I left. No one said he was comin’ in. I could have stayed.”

“Which is why we didn’t tell you. Knuckles wanted you out of prison, so here you are. He wasn’t expecting to send Xave in before you got out, but the timeline got moved up.”

I took another drink. “How’s it work out there now? World’s different.”

“Smartphones everywhere. Internet’s in everything. People take pictures of their food before they eat it.” Knight’s mouth quirked up. “But people don’t change much. Still want the same things. Still hurt each other the same ways.”

I thought about that. “Club changed?”

“Yeah. Things are stable and strong since Knuckles took over. We’ve been working closely with the Miles family.

Guy’s a real hardass, but he’s fair. And we don’t hurt innocents.

” He grinned. “We’ve been working with a judge and a lawyer in the city to bring Knuckles’ people here.

He said he wasn’t risking the place going back to the way it was when Slash was alive.

” As intelligence officer, Knight’s cyber skills kept us ahead of both law enforcement and rivals.

No doubt he used those skills in helping to funnel the right people in our direction.

“Heard you were the one who found the loophole in my case. Got me out early.” The words felt inadequate for the gratitude I felt.

Knight shrugged. “You did the work. All those GED programs you ran inside, the mentoring. I just made sure the right people saw the right paperwork.”

A commotion near the bar pulled my attention. A drunk in a business suit, out of place in this bar, had his hand wrapped around a female server’s wrist. She was trying to pull away, her face a mask of practiced patience cracking around the edges.

“C’mon, sweetheart, just one drink with me,” the man slurred, yanking her closer. “You’ve been teasing me all night with that ass.”

The server, Mike’s niece, I remembered vaguely, twisted her arm. “Sir, I need you to let go. Now.”

Something hot and familiar uncurled in my chest. I watched her gaze dart around, looking for help, but Mike was in the back and the brothers were too caught up in their own revelry to notice.

Knight followed my gaze. “Shit.”

I stood. Didn’t mean to make a scene of it, but when I unfolded to my full height, the conversations nearby stuttered to silence. I didn’t rush. Didn’t need to. My long legs ate the distance in a few strides, my shadow falling over both of them like night.

The drunk looked up, and up, and up, his mouth going slack as he registered my size.

I could see the calculations happening behind his eyes.

The Mohawk down the center of my otherwise shaved head, the full beard, the club colors, the muscles that strained against my shirt were all impressive, but mostly, I knew, he was seeing how easy it would be for me to break him in half.

I didn’t speak right away. Just stood there, letting him stew in it.

When I did speak, I kept my voice soft, almost gentle.

“You’re going to let go of the lady. Now.

” It wasn’t a request. The drunk’s fingers sprang open like he’d been burned.

“We good here?” I asked the server, who was rubbing her wrist.

She nodded, relief plain on her face. “Thanks, Tiny.”

I turned my attention back to the drunk, who seemed to be recovering some of his liquid courage. “Listen, man, I was just --”

“Leaving.” I didn’t raise my voice. Didn’t need to. “And on your way out, you’re going to remember that women aren’t toys. They’re not things you get to grab when you want to play.”

“Who the fuck do you think --”

I leaned down, just a fraction, just enough to bring my face closer to his.

“Fifteen years I’ve been away. Crushed the skull of a man who raped my sister.

With my bare hands.” I paused, letting my words sink in.

“First night home, I’d hate to go back inside for something as insignificant as you.

” I smiled then, a gentle expression that never reached my eyes.

“Especially since they might not find enough pieces to prove it was murder.”

The bar had gone quiet around us, the celebration paused like a held breath. The drunk stood on wobbly legs, fumbled for his wallet, and threw some bills on the bar. “Fucking freaks,” he muttered, but he kept his eyes down as he staggered toward the door.

I watched him go, the tension in my shoulders easing only when the door swung shut behind him. The server patted my arm lightly as she passed by, greeting a patron she hadn’t seen in a while.

“This round’s on me, Tiny. Welcome back.

” Mike, the bartender, must have come in on the tail end of things.

Now he handed me a double shot of Jack and I nodded my thanks as I took a measured sip, embarrassed by the attention.

As I made my way back to my corner, conversations gradually resumed, though I felt eyes following me.

Knight was grinning when I sat back down. “Some things don’t change,” he said, raising his glass in a small salute. “Still hate bullies.”

I shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. “Just didn’t like how he was grabbing her. Especially when she told him to stop.”

But as the celebration resumed around me, I felt something ease in my chest. Maybe there was still a place for me out here after all. Maybe some parts of me hadn’t died in that concrete box. I took another sip of my whiskey and let the noise wash over me. Seemed a little less abrasive than before.

* * *

Penny

Present day

I stuffed another sweatshirt into the duffel bag, my hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped it.

The overhead light flickered like it always did, casting shifting shadows across the bedroom walls.

Three duffel bags. That’s all our lives added up to after twelve years of marriage.

Three bags and two daughters and the thundering of my heart so loud I was certain he would hear it, even though his car wasn’t in the driveway.

Even though I’d watched him leave with my own eyes.

My ears still rang with what I’d overheard him saying on the phone yesterday. “She’s twelve, but she looks and acts older. Pretty too. You’ll like her.”

There was a pause. His next words chilled my blood and filled me with more terror than I’d ever known.

“Just to be clear, I give you Zelda, my debt’s paid in full.

Correct?” He said it like it was a demand rather than a question.

Which didn’t really surprise me. Andy liked to think he was always the one in control. Even when he clearly wasn’t.

“Good. I’ll bring her to you in the morning when I drop her off at school.”

My daughter. My Zelda. He was going to give away my daughter. To pay a debt?

Andy left soon after and I knew this was probably the only chance we had of escape.