Chapter 1
Chapter One
DREW
We traveled down the highway with the future suffocating us. Even unable to breathe, I’d never felt more alive with her wrapped around me and the wind whipping over our skin.
Ayda’s arms tightened around my waist, her legs squeezing me as she sat on the back of my bike—the one my father had dropped off to us on Sinclair’s land before he told us to get the hell out of there.
“What the fuck has happened to Jedd, Slater, and Deeks?” I barked, watching Eric saunter casually toward me outside Sinclair’s burning home.
Ayda was standing strong, her hands down by her sides and her legs parted, like some kind of formidable she-warrior who didn’t care about the dirt and disease crawling over her skin as a building blazed behind us.
Eric took one look at Owen’s home, and that was it. After that, his attention was solely on me.
“They’re taking care of business,” he answered with no emotion whatsoever.
“By turning themselves into the feds?”
“We had to conjure up some magic, Drew. It’s all about distractions.”
I searched his eyes, wondering how he remained so calm at every turn. The sound of wailing sirens far off in the distance caught my attention, making me look up at the crows squawking and fleeing overhead.
“You need to get out of here before those sirens head this way. The sky’s ablaze,” he said calmly, and when I looked back at him, he was smirking.
It should have made me angry. Instead, it calmed my soul.
A smirk from an arrogant asshole like him only meant one thing: he knew what the fuck he was doing.
“What did you do?” I asked him quietly, my fingers flexing down by my thighs.
Eric glanced at his watch. “Tick tock, Tucker. Time’s a wastin’. You need to take your old lady and that precious cargo she may be carrying and get her the hell out of Babylon.”
“Out of Babylon? Are you fucking crazy?”
“You’re meant to be out on a ride together, unaware of the shit happening on our own porch step.
If you rush home now, you’ll look guilty, panicked…
like you’ve got something to hide. You’re the president of The Hounds of Babylon MC.
Do I need to remind you of that? If you march into Sutton’s building and tear that ATF woman to pieces, demanding to see your men, you’ll look like you’ve been in on it all along.
You need to stay calm, Drew. Like you’ve switched off your cell to go and enjoy some quiet time with your future wife, and that’s why nobody can get hold of you.
Not like the whole club is in chaos because they’re about to get proven guilty. ”
“You want me to walk away?”
“We fucking need you to.”
I glanced at Ayda whose eyes were bright with adrenaline and, more importantly, faith. She had faith we would handle this—faith that we could find our way out of this tangled web we had weaved.
Grabbing her hand, I pulled her to my side.
“How long for?” I asked, turning to Eric.
“A few hours at most.”
“But they know we chased after Owen when we left Walsh’s rally because we wanted to kill him.”
“They know you wanted to kill him?” Eric arched a brow. “How?”
I scowled again. “Walsh. He’ll have told them.”
“You think Walsh would confess to ATF that he knew Sinclair was a rat? You think he’d admit to having intel he hadn’t shared with them already?”
Shit. My father was right. Winnie may have seen disruption in our club when we jumped on the bikes and followed Sinclair, but they wouldn’t know why we were chasing him. All they could do was assume.
A case couldn’t be built on assumptions.
“Are they at least safe?” I asked as the sound of the sirens grew more distant instead of growing closer. “Are my men safe?”
Eric’s eyes narrowed. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.
“Then get the fuck out of here.”
“But—”
“Now, son.”
And that time, I didn’t correct him or tell him he wasn’t allowed to call me his son. I followed his instruction without further hesitation. It was time to get my girl out of there.
Smoke seemed to fill the sky around us, and I wasn’t sure if that was just in my head or not. No matter which road I tore down with Ayda wrapped around me, sirens sounded close by. No matter which direction I looked up at the sky, it was gray, taunted with ashes.
“Something’s not right,” I muttered to myself.
My skin prickled, but even though I wanted to turn around and head back to The Hut, I found myself listening to the memory of my father’s words.
Do you trust me?
Motherfucker.
I carried on through to the outskirts of Babylon, heading for the one place that was still a sanctuary to me.
Pete’s tree.
But demons lurked on those roads that day, and with death still lingering on my fingertips, I began to panic that all my sins were catching up with me.
Fire at the back.
Fire from the sides.
And now what looked like fire up ahead, rising from the tree that held all the memories of my long-lost brother and our time together as young boys.
“No,” I breathed in a panic, twisting the throttle to pick up speed.
Ayda tensed around me, her arms tightening as she sensed the shift in my mood.
Thick plumes of black smoke rose up the branches of the tree, spreading until the once green leaves on it turned chargrilled.
Those damn sirens seemed to be following us now, and as I skidded to a halt at the side of the field, all I could do was drop my feet to the ground, stand up over my bike, and stare as my youth and memories turned to ash before my very eyes.
Hell had arrived on Earth—my own personal Hell.
Babylon was burning.
Just as I said it would.