The guy’s known me long enough to have my number. Reservations about this girl aside, I’m fucking nervous as hell taking on this responsibility. What if I can’t do it? What if I blow King’s only chance to clear his cub of debt? “I won’t lie, I’m not looking forward to this,” I admit. “It’s fuckin’ lonely, man. It’s me against the world, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m enough.”

“Hey,” Malice starts, in a no-bullshit tone. “You might be on your own physically, but you ain’t metaphorically. You know we’ve all got your back. One thing goes wrong, you feel off about anything, and you know we’ll be there to back you up.”

“Yeah, I know. Still doesn’t change the fact this whole fuckin’ thing’s on my shoulders. I fuck this up, I don’t just fuck it up for me. There’s a whole MC relying on me to get this right.”

“So ignore the facts, and focus on what you’re doing day-to-day. Forget about the club, forget about us, and just do it. Don’t stress yourself out.”

I give him a wan smile. “Easier said than done.”

“I can imagine.” Malice sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “We all worry about you, bro. Ty’s kickin’ himself already, worrying he’s doing the wrong thing.” He sighs. “Carlos fire-bombed King’s clubhouse the other day.”

“No shit?”

“Truth. Apparently his version of literally puttin’ a fire up King’s ass to get this sorted quicker.”

“Shit.” I place both hands over my face and draw a deep breath. “No added pressure, huh?”

Malice crosses the room, taking the bag of dry food in his arms. “We’ll get through it—we always do.”

“Fuckin’ right we do.”

“Haven’t been in as much trouble as we have and come out alive because we don’t know what we’re doin’, eh?” Malice smiles, a playfulness in his eyes.

I chuckle, picking up the dog roll and patting my leg to get the boys to follow. “Nah, you’re dead right there, brother.”

I need to look back on how far we’ve come to remind myself of what we’ve achieved more often. The day Malice found me fighting bare-knuckle for a meal, I was a young guy with nothing to his name but a fucked up home life and the knowledge that I wanted to make it on my own. Fast forward to now, and although we might be fighting more or less the same battles, I have a home, the dogs, and a family I’d do anything for—even if they aren’t blood. We haven’t fought to get here just to piss it all away because I’m feeling sorry for myself.

There are people counting on me, and if I’m going to prove them right in putting me up to the task, I need to be the first to do the most important thing of all.

Believe in myself.

Because there ain’t nobody else going to be able to do it for me.

LIFE GOES ON

Ryan

Running a last layer of red over my lips, I smack them together and give myself the onceover in the bathroom mirror. Show and shines organized by Eddie mean a lot of important people, and a lot of pretty girls. If I want to keep my place at Gunter’s side out of question, I need to look every part the Reich princess he wants me to be.

I draw the line at acting like one.

The day his old man picked me up and brought me back to the family’s small two-bedroom apartment was one hell of an eye-opener. I wouldn’t say I’d had a sheltered life, but I’d also never had to get mixed up with skinheads. Truth be told, there just weren’t many around where I grew up. So walking in to a house that had a four-foot swastika flag displayed proudly on the living room wall sure widened my eyes some. Hank was so damn chuffed with himself, saving a hungry girl from certain doom on the streets. I couldn’t work out at first if he did it out of personal gain, or if he genuinely wanted to help.

By the time he would sit me down at the table on Sundays with his boys to polish and shine his precious collection of Nazi memorabilia guns and knives, I figured it was the latter, and that I was as much a part of the family as his own flesh and blood.

These past twelve years have been some of the most unconventional, but also precious of my life. As dysfunctional and brainwashed as they are, Gunter and Tommy are the closest thing to a family I have left. And as unconventional as they are, they accept me for exactly who I am. Hank never tried to push his neo-Nazi beliefs on me, and in turn, neither do Gunter and Tommy. I don’t question why they choose to be so narrow minded, and they don’t tell me that I’m wrong not to agree. It was the perfect arrangement for us.

Until Eddie showed up.

“Looking good as always, Ryan,” Tommy says from the doorway.

He gives me a timid smile, and ducks his head to walk around me, snatching up his toothbrush from the cup on the basin.

“Thank you.” I smile in return, meeting his gaze in the mirror. “Dirty Pint when we get home tonight? You still owe me a game.” I narrow my gaze, and he hesitates, toothbrush in mouth. “What did you end up doing the other week? You never told me.” I pick up a last bobby pin and secure a loose section of hair.

“Ugh,” he moans around the brush. “I had to feed Easy’s dogs. He forgot again.”

“I’m so glad that idiot doesn’t have any kids. He’d be hopeless at looking after them.”

Tommy swishes and spits, rinsing his mouth out. “I don’t think the state would let him breed, even if he wanted to.”

“Probably a good thing, hey?” I give him a nudge in the arm.

He smiles, giving me a chuckle in return. “Been practicing your fake-as-fuck smile?”

“As always.” I show him the end product, grinning into the mirror.

“Perfect.” He chuckles. “Assholes won’t know what hit them.”

Our faces fall in unison as we stare into the mirror at one another.

I offer him a genuine, and understanding smile. “Let’s get this show on the road, huh?”

Tommy gives me a nod and heads out of the bathroom, leaving me to stare at my reflection once more. I’m the leading lady in this pantomime, giving an otherwise rough bunch a little bit of a feminine edge to sucker all the assholes Eddie deals with in. I’m the ice cream for his cherry pie, the extra dollop of cream with his cake.

Hank would never have exploited me like this, but then again, Hank never planned on going to jail and having some English bastard sweep in and take control of his kids.

Before Eddie, Hank and his boys were petty thieves. They kept to their own kind, and the rest of the outlaws in the area kept to themselves.

Eddie had other ideas. Two months after he arrived on the scene at the Red Lion, making friends with Hank, he had everybody convinced the only way to survive in this game was to expand. Everything the asshole has to say is expansion this, and expansion that. He likes to ‘think big,’ saying that what Hank had going on was merely the result of a man too afraid to risk anything for a better reward. I say Hank was a man who knew the value of family and liked to keep it that way.

I’ve spent two and a half years under Eddie’s thumb. That’s a long fucking time when it comes to the damage he’s done around here. Because of Eddie, shit went to hell. The day he took out Big Mike, the Devil’s Breed lost their main supplier, and Eddie refused to continue dealing with them after their president flat-out told him to go fuck himself when Eddie asked for help to take Big Mike down. Tensions ran high, and for a while there we all thought there’d be a war. Except there never was. Hank stole the spotlight and the local news headlines by killing the owner of the local 7/11 in what was a dubbed a ‘race war–fuelled hate crime’, and ending up with a lengthy jail term. Gee thanks, Hank.

“Sugar, you’re gonna make us late,” Gunter bellows from the front door.

I shake my head at the girl in the mirror, saddened for her at what she’s had to become just to get by: a fake and a fraud. The best fucking actress in at least the state of Nebraska. I pucker up my cherry red lips and blow that bitch a kiss, because as much as I hate her, she’s the damn reason I’m alive.