Prologue

About eight months ago…

Karma

I had a bad feeling about this job from the start. A prickling just under my skin, making the tattoos covering it burn. Especially the whore and the good girl on my arms. One is an angel, wearing a pretty summer dress and holding flowers, the other a demon, dressed in leather and holding guns. Both are covered in blood. Both are me. The angelic good girl burned hottest. As though she knew she’d die all over again on this night.

I should’ve listened.

The job started the way they all do. A quiet, dark night, an empty, silent street, the hum of adrenaline and nerves in the air around me deafeningly loud. We’d been hired by a small MC to lend extra eyes, ears, and guns to a drug deal they’d orchestrated in their attempt to fatten up into slightly bigger fish in the cesspool that is the pond they swim in.

Grim and Reaper said yes, because they hardly ever say no to a job anymore. I didn’t object because I hardly do anymore. There’s nothing noble in what we do like I once thought we might. All we do is chase the money. All we do is survive. All we do is exist.

I want to say I didn’t sign up for that—that I signed up for more. But the truth is, those things were the only ones that were ever promised me.

The sound of Harleys going fast rips through the silence of the night and the nervous buzzing in my ears. Soon our clients will be here. Then we’ll flank them and escort them to where they need to be to drop off their cargo—cocaine, or heroine, or maybe just plain old meth. I don’t know. I didn’t ask because I don’t care.

“Get ready to ride,” Reaper’s raspy, deep voice comes through the headphones in my helmet. After all these years, his voice can still send a fleet of butterflies with electric wings straight into my belly. It’s a cold night tonight so it’s barely a pang. But it’s there. “Let’s get this over with so we can go home.”

Those words are just for me and Grim—his lovers of fifteen years. The electric butterflies don’t burn at those words. They flutter in very welcome and happy warmth.

“I’d like that,” I whisper.

“Me too,” Grim replies.

Reaper just chuckles in that same raspy, deep voice of his.

The bikes are getting closer. I can see the riders, five of them, black mounds on black rides, headlights off, not even the chrome parts of their bikes indistinguishable from the darkness on this moonless night.

They ride right past our position, going so fast the wind caused by their passage slams against the visor of my helmet.

“Follow them,” Reaper instructs in his Prez voice, and we do. All ten of us—the Forsaken Outlaws—start our bikes and ride into the street. And for what? To protect a bunch of lowlifes looking to score a low payday? Next time, I’ll speak up. Next time, we’ll pick our jobs better. Next time…

My half-frozen brain doesn’t get to finish the thought before a second deafening sound rips through the night. Louder than the sound of bikes, louder than the buzzing in my ears, louder than life.

Machine guns. I haven’t heard them often but I’d know the sound anywhere. Bullets are raining down on us, the sparks they cause as they hit pavement the only light on this frozen night.

“The fuck?” Grim says stealing the words right out of my mouth.

“Disperse,” Reaper says. “Head for the bridge. Shortest route.”

Bullets are whizzing past me on all sides. I duck low over the handlebars and gun the accelerator.

In the rearview, I see Reaper, magnificent and huge just like always. My protector. Always there for me. Always right behind me. Even now as I veer left into an alley at top speed, my rear wheel almost spinning out. But it doesn’t, because it was he who taught me how to ride. Taught me how to live. And he did it well.

I see him shudder behind me, probably cursing my daredevil ways like he always does.

His voice rips through the headphones again. No encouraging words this time, no orders to keep us safe. Just a grunt—deep and feral. And an exhale as soft as the touch of a butterfly’s wings.

I hope so hard the grunt isn’t from what I fear it is that there’s no other thought in my mind. We’ve outrun the bullets, they’re not raining down on us anymore and he’s still right behind me, riding fast.

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