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CHAPTERONE
Zig
Istand on the deck, looking out over the pasture to where the mountains touch the sky, and breathe in the early morning air. It’s cool out, but by noon the temperature is set to soar. I sip on my coffee and grimace at the taste. Looks like Oz has made the coffee again. He’s never happy unless his coffee is strong enough that he can hear colors after drinking it.
Sensing someone behind me, I turn just as Greg steps out onto the deck with his own coffee, looking like he’s barely had an hour of sleep.
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks, Zig. You sure know how to kick a man when he’s down.”
He takes a sip of his coffee and chokes. “Jesus fuck. That tastes like rocket fuel. If my shit comes out black later, I’ll know why.”
I chuckle, forcing myself to down the rest of my coffee in one gulp so that I can’t taste it. I’ll need something to get me through the day. Something in the air tells me it’s going to be a long one.
“How’s your sister?”
“Still an old lady in an MC, jackass.”
“I was just asking, geez. Besides, I meant with the shit that just went down with her club.”
“She’s fine. Pissed but fine. You know Luna. It takes a lot to shake her.”
“I know.”
He’s quiet for a minute, but I can practically hear the wheels turning in his head.
“Just say whatever’s making you look constipated.”
He rolls his eyes before sipping his coffee and gagging. He pours it over the railing and looks down at the black puddle as if expecting to see the grass dissolve.
“All I was wondering was if she still wants to, you know, be a part of all this. It’s a demanding job, and with her having a kid now and a whole MC to wrangle, I’m just not sure how she’ll be able to commit as fully here as she did before.”
I don’t answer right away because he isn’t saying anything I haven’t already thought about myself.
When my grandfather was alive, he assembled a team of soldiers he had once served with, who came home from war feeling jaded and misplaced. He used them to do jobs that the government refused to do or couldn’t do thanks to red tape. Turns out, there was more of a demand for soldiers for hire than he expected, and as the profits grew, so did the need for more teams.
That’s when Apex Tactical was born.
By the time he passed, he had seven teams working for him, five here at Apex and two who worked remotely, not to mention a pretty penny in the bank.
The ranch and all the surrounding land here was where he raised me, my twin brother Oz, and our little sister Luna, but it also doubled as our headquarters. It was completely off the grid, had more technology than NASA, and was harder to break into than the Pentagon.
After our parents died and Gramps took us in, life was different for us. It was unconventional, to say the least. I’ll be the first to admit my grandfather was a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but as boys, we reveled in it. We played in the mud and learned to hunt as well as assemble and disassemble an AK-47 in under a minute and a half, along with the best ways to dispose of a body. So, just your typical American upbringing.
Not wanting to go straight into the family business without a little crash course in the real world, my brother and I enlisted. We learned a lot being soldiers for Uncle Sam. Like what it feels like to get assfucked without lube.
We both did ten years and two back-to-back tours in Afghanistan before we truly understood that we didn’t like following orders, especially when we disagreed with them. We came back to the ranch and let Luna—who is arguably more unstable than both Oz and me combined—run the show while we did what we do best: shoot shit and kill people.
Now, though, it seems like we’re on the edge of change once again. Though I knew it would inevitably come one day, I’m not sure I’m ready.
“It’s something we need to talk about, but you’re right. She has other priorities right now, and that’s the way it should be. We need to start taking that pressure off her and thinking about changing things up here. Luna will always be a part of what we’ve created, but she’s always been destined for bigger things than this ranch.”
He’s quiet, staring out at the view, when we hear whistling behind us.
Oz walks up to the opposite side of Greg and drinks his coffee with an appreciative moan.
“Man, that’s good. What are you assholes talking about?”
