Prologue
Trick – Age Twenty-One
I storm out of the state prison, my fists clenched and jaw tight with anger. The urge to spin around, march back inside, and knock out my friend burns inside me.
“Son…” Chains, my president and my best friend’s father, calls as I stomp over to my bike.
I shake my head before turning to a man I look up to and I snap, “He’s fucking given up,” and I point to the large building, “He’s going to get out with good behavior yet a-fucking-gain, and I can fucking guarantee you, he will end back up inside within a month just like last time. He’s given up, his guilt has fucking over taken, guilt that he shouldn’t even feel!”
I breathe heavily as I link my fingers behind my head and turn around as fear hits me hard in the chest that I’m going to lose him.
My best friend has lost his way, fucking big time. Drugs, drinking, fighting, women, driving under the influence, he’s doing everything he can to forget the fact that his ex-fuck buddy, killed his little sister two years ago.
Cage had always made it clear. With the shit we have going on with the Chargers he’d never settle down, never have kids. I’m with him on that front. The thought scares the living shit outta me and not just because women are being raped and we can’t always keep them by our side twenty-four-seven. I have personal reasons not to settle down, I’m busy with school, trying my hardest to get into med school while upping my cybersecurity for the club being the tech geek I really am. But Toya, despite fucking men old enough to be her grandfather along with Cage, claimed to be pregnant and that he could be the father, which, after a DNA test, was confirmed at eighteen.
Before he got the results, he made sure Toya knew he’d be hanging up his cut, that he wouldn’t be taking over from his father, who didn’t even want the seat to begin with. Toya went crazy when she realized he meant what he said, he was putting his kid first.
She had an abortion despite being over twelve weeks pregnant. She thought he’d feel so fucking bad thinking she’d miscarried that he’d make her his, that he’d make her his old lady but when she gloated on the phone to her friend, little Angie, Cage’s sweet twelve-year-old sister, who struggled to do as she was told, overheard her and threatened to tell her brother.
Toya drowned her in the pool while Cage was upstairs, unaware of what was happening in the garden until it was too late.
He killed Toya but couldn’t save his sister in time. Now he’s drowning in guilt. Fuck, he didn’t even go to her funeral, he was locked up and all this caused his other sister, Whit, to lash out and attack some of the club bunnies.
Apparently, some were gloating about wanting to fuck Cage when he got out, and Whit snapped.
“We won’t let him spiral, Trick, I fucking promise you,” Chains says, and I scoff as I turn back towards him.
“He already has, and I couldn’t do fuck all to help him because we found out too late that he got locked up again,” I sneer, my anger taking over.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been good with computers. So good, I managed to trick the police force when I was only fifteen, making them think their servers had gone down, just to get out of a speeding ticket before I even got my license. That’s why my road name is Trick. Then there was the time I tricked Clark, Crash’s little sister, by putting a fake snake into her car right after she passed her test.
Big fucking mistake, she crashed thinking it was real and refused to drive for months until I had to force her. I sat in the passenger seat while she drove for two hours.
“We won’t lose him, Trick, you won’t lose him,” Chains says fiercely, and I shake my head.
“If he doesn’t take his rightful place at the head of the table, then I won’t become VP,” I growl, meaning every word, and Chains swallows hard, his dark brown eyes assessing me before he nods knowing I mean as every word, just like his son.
After Cage realized Angie was dead, he threw his cut on the floor, and ever since, he hasn’t considered himself a brother but refuses to be called his legal name because that’s what Angie used to call him.
Sniffing hard, I climb on my bike before starting her up. Chains climbs on his before he takes the lead and I follow him, my anger simmering, wanting to boil over.
I need a drink. No, fuck that—make it a drink and a good fuck.
***
I swirl my scotch as I lean against the bar in the common room while some brothers try to come up with the best way to help Cage when he’s released. We keep sending future officer brothers to see him each time and it is not working. Others are fucking the club bunnies out in the open, hoping to forget all the troubles currently going on, but I ignore them all.
The old ladies and girlfriends aren’t here, they never are at this time, knowing what happens, and the club princesses have been a no-show tonight, so the brothers will do as they please I guess.
I sigh and take a sip of my scotch just as a body slithers up next to mine, tits pressing against my arm, and I scowl as I lock eyes with Lavender’s. She bites her plump bottom lip, trying to be seductive while she twirls her light pink hair in her finger, but unfortunately for her, it isn’t going to work. I'm too pissed off and she’d be the last person I’d fuck even while I’m in this mood.
“Can I help you?” I demand, and she grins as she moves her right hand on the bar, but I don’t take my eyes off her, not trusting her.
Lavender is a club bunny who’s always wantedmycut.
We went to high school together, she was relentless, and despite never fucking her, she has it in her head that she has a claim on me, but she fucking doesn’t.
“I thought we could go for a fuck…” She whispers as she steps closer to me, and I shove her away making her stumble.
