Page 1 of Bullet

Prologue

My Name Is Bullet

Guard hands me my jacket with the Satan’s Pride insignia. As a newly patched member of the Pride, my name is Bullet. I’ll use it proudly. It’s not like my given name means anything to me. There’s no wonderful story about how I was named after a great-grandfather who was a hero in the war, or that my mother read a romance novel and the main character was named Aaron and she wanted me to have a name that resonated with her.

I was a toddler left in a mall when I was about eighteen months old. I was found by a security guard, crying as I looked for my mother. I sat in the mall office the entire day, waiting for her to return. The only thing they found in my pocket was a note with my first name on it. It’s a good thing she did that, because who knows what name they would have saddled me with? Aaron was a decent name. It’s my last name I could do without. It’s not because of what it is, but how I got it.

I was immediately put into foster care after leaving the mall that day, and since the social workers were in a rush to place me in a foster home, they filled out the papers with the name Aaron Foster, as in foster care. It’s both hilarious and maddening.

All these years, I could have searched for my birth mother and gotten answers. But when it came down to it, I figured she didn’t want me. I could have changed my name to anything I wanted. When I was a young boy, I’d watch superheroes on television and think of a new name for myself, but in the end, it didn’t matter what my name was because there wasn’t anyone important enough to call it other than my foster mom.

My years in foster care weren’t horrible. I was lucky enough to stay with a woman named Helen until I turned sixteen. She would have kept me longer, but Helen was getting on in years, and she couldn’t really manage financially to keep me. She was a retired schoolteacher who became a foster parent because she loved kids and couldn’t have any of her own. Her husband, Paul, died in a tragic car accident before Helen took me in. I think having kids around kept her going. I wasn’t her first foster child, but I was her last. She needed someone to love, and I was lucky enough to end up in her home.

Helen was loving and kind, but when it came to school and homework, she was no-nonsense. Unfortunately, shortly after my sixteenth birthday, she got sick, and when the state deemed she wasn’t fit enough to look after me, they opted to move me to another home. I decided one night that I wasn’t going and took off.

It was both the best and worst decision of my life. I wasn’t prepared for what the streets had to offer. Up until that moment, I thought I’d had a tough life. I thought being abandoned by my mother and living in foster care was difficult. It wasn’t until I was sleeping in an alley, scared for my life, that I realized how good Owen and I had it. We would have gone back to Helen’s if we could, but that wasn’t an option. She was moving into an elderly care apartment, which would give her the independent life she wanted, but with assistance available if needed. There was no room for us.

Owen and I bonded when we met in foster care. We clicked right away and took care of each other from the bullies at school. With both of us being abandoned, we had a rocky start to life. Owen had a rougher edge and was much more street-savvy than I was, but I learned fast how to take care of myself. When we hit the streets one night, we ended up in an alley. We weren’t there very long before a looming figure came into the alley and threatened us. I didn’t know the guy, but Owen called him DZ. He was bigger than Owen and me put together. DZ was built; his arms bulged with muscle. I didn’t know then, but he was part of a local gang, and he thrived off beating the shit out of the homeless. It was how he got his kicks, and that night, he had his sights set on me.

I’ll never forget his stone-cold tone when he told Owen, “Take off, kid. I’ll let you off the hook tonight.” Then DZ sneered and gave a derisive snort, jerking his chin in my direction. “I’ll teach him a lesson. When I’m done, he won’t be able to walk again.” I don’t think DZ knew the loyalty that Owen and I shared or what we’d been through together.

To say that I was freaked out would have been the understatement of a lifetime. It was a true test of our friendship. Owen could have walked away and left me to the crazed man wielding a switchblade, but he didn’t.

Instead, Owen answered with “Fuck off. We stick together.”

DZ wasn’t going to let a punk kid get the better of him, and when he went at Owen, I totally lost it and jumped on DZ’s back and hit him repeatedly as hard as I could while Owen escaped from under his grasp. Owen kicked at him, and when he saw I was free, we both made a run for it.

That night, we knew that our friendship would last. Owen and me, we’ve stuck it out together. We’ve had each other’s backs, and let me tell you, we’ve been through hell and back. Owen isn’t a big talker. He has trust issues. I still think that something happened before he got to foster care that is rooted deep in his soul. Maybe something he can’t even recall.

I swore I’d never tell another soul, and I’ve kept my word.

Tonight, Guard has given us our new names. Owen is Crush. Guard says that it suits him because he’ll crush anyone who threatens the club or the brotherhood. I’m Bullet because I’m fast and always ready to go at a moment’s notice. Whatever my brothers need, I’m the first to step up.

Owen and I take off our prospect jackets and put on our new jackets as fully inducted members of Satan’s Pride MC. We’ll wear them proudly until the day we’re taken from this earth.

One

Fix-It Guys

Bullet

After two years of prospecting for the club and trying all kinds of jobs within it, Crush and I need to decide where we want to earn our keep. Blade, the other prospect, who became a full member not long ago, knew exactly what he wanted: a mechanic shop of his own where he would specialize in high-end motorcycles and cars. Guard and the club didn’t hesitate to back him up. They invested in his dream, and Blade’s never been happier.

Blade met Emryn around the same time, and he’s made her his old lady. Everything just seemed to fall into place for him, and I couldn’t be happier for my brother. Emryn’s very cool, and so are the other old ladies in the club. The leader of them all is Ava, Guard’s wife. She’s incredibly kind, smart, and beautiful.

Ava and Vi, Orion’s wife, started the Lady Pride. The Lady Pride are the equivalent of the Pride men, but prettier and nonviolent…mostly. Vi is feisty and would never back down in a fight, but it’s Orion’s job to make sure that situation never arises. Orion is our VP and our technical genius, a big man with tons of skills who runs a computer company as well as multiple security systems. He’s teaching Wildcard, another brother, all he knows.

The Pride has a ton of talented guys as members. Saint is our doctor and runs a clinic in town. War is the club enforcer and an accounting guru who keeps the club’s books clean while running security for his wife and her band. Maddie and the Smoking Guns are known everywhere, and War makes sure they’re always safe. Risk is a general contractor who is fantastic at designing the perfect home. Demon is a mechanic, but he also runs a music studio. He was once part of a very popular band, but when his best friend died of an overdose, Demon spiraled into a terrible depression. Guard was there when he needed help, and now he writes and performs his music on his own terms.

We have brothers who work in the shop, and we have a bounty hunting business that keeps the club hopping. Ghost is the main man running the business, but Roscoe, Priest, and Hammer are heavily involved in catching bad guys. Thunder can do it all and floats between jobs where he’s needed. He likes variety, and it works for the club.

When Guard first accepted us as prospects, he made us take courses at the local college. We worked with Risk for a while and got a taste of all the different trades in construction. I loved college. I became enthralled by business administration. It’s just a fancy word for running the day-to-day operations of a business. I loved it so much that I saved up, and now I’m taking economic courses at night to get my degree.

Crush isn’t a books kind of learner. He hates sitting for too long and wants to keep his hands busy. But one thing we decided years ago, and even when coming into the club, was that we were going to work together.

“I can’t sit behind a desk all day,” Crush says with frustration.

“No one is asking you to,” I answer calmly. With Crush, you have to let him get it all out, then give him time to process the information.