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  Wrath shook his head, cutting off the man. “My product is crystal because the formula is clear and pure. You start changing shit around and it fucks with the product and my reputation.”

  “Sir—”

  “I want this shit to look transparent,” Wrath said again, not hiding the bite in his voice.

  “You understand what I’m saying, Todd?”

  Todd stared at him with wide eyes.

  “You understand that if you can’t make what I want, your service won’t be needed?” He didn’t need to elaborate on what that meant. If Todd couldn’t live up to his end of the deal with making Wrath’s crystal, then Todd would need to be let go.

  “I understand,” Todd said in a wavering voice.

  Wrath stared in the man’s eyes and nodded. “Good, because we like having you on with us.” Wrath kept eye contact for longer than necessary, and saw Todd start to get uncomfortable.

  Good, he needs to know who’s at the top and who he works for.

  His cell went off, and he finally turned from the cooks and left the lab. After taking off the mask and suit he answered.

  He took his cell out of his pocket. “What?”

  “Wrath, hey, brother.”

  The voice that came through was one he recognized instantly, and one that had a shitload of memories bombarding him.

  “Well fuck, if it isn’t Brendan Roscoe.”

  “It’s Tank now, man. I’m patched in with the Brothers of Menace MC.”

  “A Patch, huh?”

  Tank grunted from the other end of the line.

  “Man, it’s been a long fucking time.” Wrath headed away from the lab. He passed the rest of the rooms and went into his private office, one void of people and product. Once seated behind the desk he breathed out. His entire operation was sketchy, but well run, and because he was at the top of it all he was sitting real fucking nice.

  “It has been too damn long.”

  Wrath grunted the words out. Talking to Brendan had memories of his past resurfacing. Images of Lila flashed through his head, but it wasn’t like talking to her brother brought this up. No, they made them more pronounced, but he’d thought about Lila Roscoe every fucking day for more years than he even cared to admit.

  “Man, I hate to call you out of the blue and ask for something—”

  “I’m here for you, for whatever reason. You’ve been like family to me, and the years that passed don’t change that.” Wrath was tense now, knowing Tank wanted something, and hoping like hell it didn’t have to do with Lila. But this nagging in his gut told him shit was bad if a man he’d thought of as a brother all those years ago—even now if he was being honest—wanted his help. Tank was in an MC now, so surely they could help a brother out?

  Maybe not the way you can.

  “You know me better than anyone, even my club. But I wouldn’t have called and asked this if it wasn’t pretty fucking serious, man.” There was a long pause after Tank spoke, but Wrath didn’t say anything, just waited for the man to get on with it. As it was images of Lila kept flashing through his head, and it was the sound of his nails digging into the wood of his desk that had him snapping out of it.

  She better be okay. Nothing better have happened to Lila.

  “It’s about Lila. She’s in deep, and I know if anyone could help me protect her it’s you.”

  And everything in Wrath tensed, stopped, and he knew that whoever had fucked with Lila would be fucking with the very devil himself when they came up against him.

  Chapter Four

  Tank sat in the club’s meeting room, all the guys sitting around the table and waiting for Lucien, their club’s Prez to come in before business was started. He was going to broach the subject about Spike, show them the information he’d dug up on the asshole, and knew they’d have his back no matter what. That was what being in the club was for everyone. They were a family, a group of men that lived by a certain code, killed to protect the MC and its members, and didn’t look back or have any remorse over their actions. They couldn’t have empathy for what happened, not if they wanted to stay on top.

  Lucien finally came in, and the room grew silent at the hard look on Lucien’s face. He walked over to the head of the table, sat down, and Tank knew before all the business talk got started he needed to have this come out in the open.

  “I have some urgent business I need to discuss with the club,” Tank said and emptied out the manila envelope that held all the shit he’d dug up on Spike and his crew. He knew everyone was looking at him, but he was focused on Lucien.

  “What kind of business?” Lucien asked and reached for the papers that were scattered across the table. He started rifling through the papers, and Tank didn’t wait to get this rolling. He couldn’t. This was too damn important.

  “My sister came to me last night. She ran from a wannabe club run by a prick named Spike. They are stationed in Thorne, and she thinks he’ll come after her and … her baby.” A few of the members started shifting on their seats, and Tank looked around, seeing the other bikers glancing at each other, their expressions hard.

  “I’m going after him,” Tank said before Lucien could respond to the paperwork.

  Lucien lifted a brow.

  “My sister thinks the prick that runs the group will come after her for running. She has a newborn, and also thinks the leader might go after anyone she’s close with if he can’t immediately get to her. I have no reason not to believe her.” The silence stretched on for a second. “This is personal.”

  Lucien looked down at the paperwork again, and after a second he pushed it all aside and looked at Tank. “You want the club to support your decision on this, or you want us to go guns blazing and take them out with you?” There was another second of silence.

  What did Tank want? He knew even if the club hadn’t given him their approval or their manpower, Tank would have still gone after Spike. But he wasn’t a fool in thinking doing this alone wouldn’t have upped the chances of him getting killed.

  “Either way you know we have your back.”

  Tank looked at Lucien after the Prez spoke.

  Tank felt this weight being lifted from his shoulders knowing Lucien wouldn’t stop him from going rogue. Knowing without a doubt his MC was there, ready to lie down for him and his sister, meant the fucking world. The club was his family, and it was almost enough to make a grown man choke up.

  “I will have to go to Thorne to get a family friend away from the sick fuck, because if he does go after anyone close to my sister, it would be Bunny. I don’t know him or his group, aside from what I dug up, but that little bit of information was sick and twisted, and made me want to slit this fucker’s throat.”

  “When do you want to go in there and take them down?” Malice asked.

  Tank nodded once. He looked at each man, making sure they knew how serious he was about this. “Lila told me there’s at least one unwilling woman there, one she wants out for fear she’ll be hurt.”

  “We’ll need to get more information on them, Tank, before we can go there and get even one woman out.” Lucien leaned forward. “I want all the information I can get on the leader and the group before we start shooting shit up.” Lucien looked at all the patches: Kink, Malice, Cain, Tuck, Pierce, Rook, Ruin, and finally stopping on him. “But when the time is right we’ll handle it, all of us. We’ll bring the motherfuckers down. You’re family, and anyone that fucks with what you care about deals with us, too.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from all the men. This was his family, and he’d do anything for them, as well, even if that meant giving up his life to make sure they survived. It was the way of the MC, and nothing would ever change that.

  ****

  The sun rose and set without caring how fucked things really were. It was the way of the world, and if someone was caught in that never-ending cesspool of degradation and disgust, there was no one who cared one way or the other.

  Bunny sat on the steps of the Magnus building i
n the heart of Thorne, the cigarette she had between her fingers unlit, a reminder of her past she kept close to her heart. The cigarette was tattered, frayed at the ends, but she still focused on it, her thoughts drifting as she remembered what this cigarette signified.

  Her father.

  Burning.

  Pain.

  Fear.

  Numbness.

  Rolling the now slightly off-white and pathetic looking cigarette between her fingers, everything else faded away as those horrible memories of her childhood faded and the ones of what she missed most consumed her thoughts. Closing her eyes and breathing out, she saw his face in her mind, felt his touch on her body. It had been years since she’d run from the only good thing that had come into her life. It had been far too many years if she were being honest. But her past had taken a stranglehold on her, and at the time running from it all, from her father, from … him, had been the only option she thought was right.

  It hadn’t been right. It had been so wrong to leave, so fucking wrong.

  Brendan.

  His name flashed through her mind, and she opened her eyes, the brightness of the sun momentarily blinding her. She’d seen his sister within the last year. She was worried about Lila and the man she was hanging around. Even trying to talk to Lila had come up with unanswered calls. Hell, she didn’t even know where Lila was staying, and in the last conversation they’d had Lila had said everything was fine.

  Bunny looked down at her watch and cursed. She’d lost her phone last week, and couldn’t afford to get one right now, not until she got paid. But no one cared to call her anyway, not even Lila anymore, it seemed. The other woman was too in love.

  Love. Fucking love.

  That word was fucked up in all senses, and the only time she’d felt it, the only time it had meant something less disgusting, less painful, had come from the one man she’d run from.

  Brendan.

  She thought of him, of every part of him, how he’d made her feel … that she loved him, that she’d been the one to screw everything up.

  Yes, you loved him and ran. You ran away from what you could have with him, the only good thing that had come into your life.

  This pang started her belly, and she clenched her teeth. For a second she thought about crushing the cigarette in her hand, but she exhaled the stress, as best she could, and tucked the cigarette in the pocket of her jacket. Even though Brendan and Lila both knew about her past, about what she’d gone through, they’d been her only family, stuck by her no matter what, and had loved her regardless.

  And I loved them.

  For these past years Bunny had thought about Brendan, about hearing him whisper those words, telling her he loved her, that he’d never let her go. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking when she snuck out of there, left him sleeping alone, naked, without a goodbye. And she’d run, left the little bit of home she’d ever had, and run as far as she could. It wasn’t until recently that she’d come back to Thorne, and that was only because the piece of shit father that had caused her so much pain had died. She would have burned her childhood home if she could, but the fact was she did have some good memories there, happy thoughts of when her mother was still alive.

  But those few memories she had with her mother, the ones that made living in that house bearable, were far and few, the time passing making it so they faded as if a dream, as if they’d never been real at all.

  She slung her backpack over her shoulder and looked around the main part of Thorne. It wasn’t a metropolis, but it was big, with large buildings, busy intersections, and enough people someone could feel claustrophobic just standing there.

  Why’d you come back to this shithole?

  Because it was the only home she’d ever known. Because she was broke, alone, and because when her asshole of a father died she’d felt this freedom, felt the need to come back here. Maybe it was kind of fucked up, but she was here, and she needed to figure out what in the hell she was going to do.

  But coming back hadn’t been that release she thought she’d feel, that freedom she’d been longing for. It had lessened, of course, but she knew it would always be with her, always be like a second skin, never letting her forget about anything. Being back in Thorne had the images, the memories of her mother, of Lila and Brendan slamming into her, wrapping her in that warmth she’d always missed.

  This would always be her life, and what a fucked up, lonely one it was.

  Chapter Five

  Tank tightened his hold on the steering wheel and clenched his teeth. The closer he got to Thorne the more anxious he became, the harder his body and muscles became, and the more his memories he’d buried came rushing forward. A look in the rearview mirror showed an SUV following closely behind. A few of the guys from the club were following him to Thorne, and would be stationed there for a few days to gather more information they needed to make sure to bring down Spike and his crew. The truth was Tank wanted to go after the fucker now, to just walk into his shitty little club and slit his throat.

  But he’d be patient, especially if it meant things wouldn’t get fucked up because he was blinded by his rage.

  “Shit,” he said to himself and ran a hand over his hair. He was driving alone, and thank fuck for that, because he wasn’t in the mood to make the several hours long drive having to bullshit with someone, even if it was a Patch or prospect from the club.

  He’d set Lila and Faye up at the club, making sure she knew she had to stay within the MC until this was done. It was the only way that he’d make sure they were safe, and he couldn’t focus if they were at his place, unprotected and vulnerable. He didn’t know the inner workings of Spike and his fucked up reasoning behind what he did. Far as he could tell from the little information he’d gathered, and what Lila had told him, the asshole was certifiably a psycho, a sociopath, and needed to be taken out.

  But going to Thorne wasn’t about going after Spike, not yet at least. Tank was going there to get Bunny, even if she didn’t know it. He’d tried calling her with the number Lila gave him, but her number wasn’t working, so he was going on a limb and just heading to Thorne to her old place, even if the chances of her being there were slim to none. The few times Lila had spoken with Bunny hadn’t been at a house, but in public, so not even his sister knew where she lived.

  She couldn’t be living in that shithole again.

  Hell, what did he know? If that’s all she had, and now that her father was gone, that motherfucker who’d given Bunny the problems she dealt with her whole life, she might feel safe there. She had spent time with her mother in that house before she’d passed.

  It’s a place to start.

  He drove for another hour before he saw the buildings of Thorne come into view. Bunny’s childhood hellhole of a home was on the outskirts of town, away from the city, and close to where Tank and Lila had grown up. Their childhood hadn’t been like Bunny’s. They hadn’t been hurt, hadn’t been touched by some sick motherfucker. Their parents might have ignored and neglected them, and they’d had to rely on themselves, but that was where it had ended.

  He looked down at his forearm, could still see the scar that ran the length of it, that not even his tattoos could cover, and memories of that night he’d gone to “talk” to Bunny’s father, to tell him to leave her alone, came rushing back.

  “Boy, you’re about as big as my dick,” Bunny’s father said, his voice slurred from the liquor he’d been drinking all day, the pit stains under his once white shirt looking brown and disgusting.

  “You touch Bunny again and I’ll kill you.”

  Bunny’s father laughed. “Boy, get the hell out of my house.”

  “Come on, Brendan. I don’t think this was a good idea,” Bunny said, tugging at him, trying to get him to leave.

  Brendan might be young, and not as big as her father, but he was done with Bunny being scared, of her being hurt. He was going to kick this guy’s ass and make him see he couldn’t hurt her anymore.

  �
��Come here, sweetheart,” Bunny’s father said, grinning and flashing his stained teeth. “Sit on your old man’s lap and tell me how your day went.”

  Brendan felt his rage rise, felt every part of him tense, become aware that he had to do this, had to be stronger. Bunny’s father might be bigger, but he was a weak motherfucker for hurting his daughter. He shrugged off Bunny’s hold, and when her father was leaning forward, grabbing a beer from inside the cooler he had by the couch, Brendan acted. He grabbed an empty bottle, and brought it down on Bunny’s father’s head, seeing the pieces of glass shatter and scatter to the ground.

  Bunny gasped behind him, and he looked to make sure she was okay. She was so small, so innocent and vulnerable. With her hand on her mouth and her eyes wide, she looked scared, and he hated that he’d been the one to put that expression on her face. Brendan kept his body in front of Bunny’s, and faced her father again. He was standing now, blood making a trail down his temple.

  “You stupid, little shit.” The man grabbed a shard of glass, and before Brendan could react Bunny’s father brought the shard toward him, slicing Brendan’s forearm. Blood immediately welled, and Bunny cried out.

  “What have you done?” she screamed at her father.

  “Fuck off, both of you. Get out of my house.”

  Brendan stared at that blood for a long moment, and the feeling of heat and murderous rage filled him. He lifted his gaze to the asshole, and gathering all of his strength he brought his fist forward and slammed it into the side of Bunny’s father’s face. The man spun back and fell onto the couch.

  “Brendan, your arm.” Bunny was crying now, her voice small, shocked. Brendan felt the rage move through him, controlling him, consuming him.

  Brendan was on Bunny’s father a second later, slamming his fist into the side of his head over and over again, blood coming from Brendan’s forearm and Bunny’s father’s nose and mouth. Only when he felt Bunny pulling him off of her father did Brendan finally move away. He breathed hard, and stared in the swollen eyes of the motherfucker hurting the girl he cared about, who was like family to him.