Page 108 of Diary of a Biker Queen

I wanted to rub my hand over my chest. It ached every time I thought about Luca. Every day I hoped his death had been quick. Hoped he hadn’t felt any pain.

Maybe he was actually the lucky one. Because it was those of us left behind who felt it most.

Nyah.

Me.

I saw the flames everywhere I looked, whether my eyes were open or closed. They engulfed his body. It was all I ever saw, and it left me feeling weak.

The officer with his taser had nothing to fear from me. The grief I battled daily consumed me, leaving nothing left to fight with.

Wherever they were taking me didn’t matter. I was never getting out. I’d never be a free man again.

“Blindfold him,” a vaguely familiar voice called from the front seat. “We’ll be there soon.”

I racked my brain, trying to think why it sounded so familiar, but I came up with nothing. And the partition between us prevented me from seeing the driver.

The officer produced a black cloth from one of his pockets and stared at me. “You going to go along with this, or am I gonna tase you first to make you compliant?”

I glared at the piece of shit. “Just put it on. I don’t care.”

I realized it wasn’t even a lie. Good, upstanding policemen didn’t steal you away from your cell in the middle of the night. They certainly didn’t blindfold you so you couldn’t see where they were taking you. I had no doubt in my mind now these officers were not working within the law.

Which probably meant I’d be dead inside the hour.

There was no point arguing or fighting now.

The Grim Reaper had been chasing me for a lifetime. I deserved to feel the slice of his scythe. I’d taken lives, some I could barely remember. I didn’t deserve to just walk the streets a free man, not even certain I wouldn’t take more.

The farther we drove, the more I convinced myself I was a piece of shit who’d brought all of this down on himself. And worse, it had spilled over to Nyah as well.

That was the bit that was hardest to live with.

From the very first moment I’d met her, all I’d ever wanted was for her to be happy. After everything her family had put her through, there was nobody who deserved it more.

I’d just been another weight tying her down.

I hoped now, she could finally be free.

The van bumped around, tires crunching over gravel before coming to a stop, the engine cutting out. Rough hands grabbed me, a key finding the little lock on my handcuffs and undoing them, but something that felt an awful lot like a gun being pushed into my spine reminded me they didn’t need handcuffs to control me. The blindfold blocked out ninety percent of my vision, the dark of night just about making it complete. All I caught was tiny glimpses of my feet in the moonlight as I stumbled along, no idea where I was being taken.

Sweat broke out across the back of my neck, the darkness suddenly suffocating. “Where are we?” I demanded.

The gun at my back only pressed in harder. “Just keep walking,” the officer spat out in short, sharp tones.

My stomach churned, my sense of dread rising with every step.

Everything inside my body screamed at me to stop, turn around, and run. To rip the blindfold off, even knowing doing any of that would result in a bullet to the back.

“Stop there,” that same voice from the front of the van said.

I racked my brain again, desperately trying to think who it belonged to. One of the Slayers? Another prisoner from the last time I was locked up? Someone I’d met while I’d worked for Luca’s father?

No matter what I did, I just could not place it. “Who are you?”

The voice didn’t respond.

The only sound that came back was the safety disengaging from the gun.