Abigail crawled through her tears and feces until her knees bled. When she could crawl no more, she somehow managed to stand on quivering legs. The rubber soles of her shoes melted into the speckled blacktop, but she trudged forward, her only thought for her son. Her mind knew what her heart couldn’t fathom.

Two tattoo-covered hell mongers skidded along each side of the still-rolling hot demolition and rattled off fully automatic gunfire.

Motorists ducked from the bullets but Abigail went on., Her tunnel vision zeroed in on two short arms that waved wildly from the child safety seat. Cars crashed around the mess, causing a snarled pile up. Horns blared, leaned on by drivers who had no idea what was happening. Abigail had a front seat to the most horrible show on earth.

The burning car lurched right with a sharp jut, and then a hard jerk to the left—into the opposite lane of traffic. Finally, everything came to rest. Breathe, Abigail reminded herself, as her mind fractured in horror at what had to have been reserved for only the most damned souls in the world to experience. At least it all came to a stop. Flames and smoke roiled in slo-mo. The world froze in an eerie three seconds of silence.

Then, bam! An eastbound eighteen-wheeler unable to stop, ploughed through the carnage to smash into Ricky’s car—now his and Jack’s coffin.

Abigail blacked out.

The pounding in her head and the bubbling hot highway beneath her brought her back to reality. Disoriented, she wasn’t sure how long she’d escaped. It hadn’t been long enough because less than twenty feet away was the corpse of Ricky’s car. Four bikers surrounded it and picked through the wreckage like buzzards on prey.

“Leave my son alone!” She tried to scream but the screams were only in her head. She rolled to her hands and knees and crawled toward the wreckage. Stalled motorists pleaded for her to stop, but their warnings fell on deaf ears.

“Back off, bitch.” One of the murdering bastards skidded his Harley Davidson between her and Jack. He looked like satan’s very own bodyguard. Their eyes locked.

Her feelings of fear were forever gone. “Jack,” she mouthed. Consciousness became uncertain.

He growled without remorse and pointed the sawed-off shotgun at her face.

“Fuck, Jack. He’s dead.”

Chapter 4

The Las Vegas Chapter of the Savage Souls Motorcycle Club was an active organization. Less than eight hundred miles away from the recently relocated national headquarters in Mystic, Colorado, they benefited from new pledges almost monthly. Red, the local club leader plastered a smile that showed his awe as the national president arrived with his entourage of nine other brother Savages.

Metal chains clanked and rattled as the wide corrugated garage door lurched and popped, sealing the vast opening off from the civilized world. Music was louder than the big boss preferred, but he accepted their hospitality. The motorcycle garage was well organized, and the Savage Souls emblem was displayed throughout the room. He grinned at their overt display of loyalty. He dropped the kickstand and detached his weary body from the frayed leather saddle.

“Welcome to Las Vegas, brothers,” Red greeted them, “Savages Forever, Forever Savages.”

“Red, we appreciate your hospitality. It’s been one fuck of a ride,” Justice Boudreaux said.

Red cut his bloodshot eyes away from Justice. “We heard about the rip job. Sorry about that, boss.”

Justice jerked his head in surprise. “You heard about it? Let’s you and me talk in private.”

Justice, like many of his brother Savages had served in the military. His career had begun with the United States Army Special Forces until the CIA recruited him away from Delta Force. Red had probably failed to finish high school, but he knew something Justice wanted to hear about—whether Red realized it or not.

Justice waited until they were alone in a narrow hall, lined with photographs of former club members, white power images and Nazi flags with Hitler’s swastikas. Justice clenched his jaw at the red and black banners. He might resent his government, but he’d still fight to the death for his country. He fucking hated the swastikas, and had ordered every club to remove them. The muscles in his jaw flexed as his mood went from agitated to pissed.

“Red, how is it that you’ve heard about something that happened so far away within such a short period of time?” He kept the question purposefully complex. Justice wanted more than a yes or no answer.

Interrogation was one of the many skill sets that helped Justice rise to the top of the Savage Souls Outlaw Motorcycle Club. The CIA’s intensified training had inadvertently created one of the badest outlaws in the world. Red withered as he, too, realized Justice’s influence.

“I, well, they said something about it. I didn’t know who they was yapping about. Then I heard y’all was coming to LV, so I put two and two together.”

Justice brought a meaty hand down on Red’s shoulder and allowed the full weight of his right side to rest atop Red’s razor-thin torso. He crunched under the pressure. Knobs of bone protruded beneath Red’s flakey, tattooed skin. The dingy wife-beater undershirt he wore looked months unwashed.

Justice allowed the awkwardness of silence to linger until Red lifted one foot and then the next while unsure of what to do with his hands. He crossed and uncrossed them several times before he finally shoved them into his diesel stained denims. Red’s lips quivered. Justice’s didn’t.

“Okay, Ricky Geneti and me was buds back in the Air Force. He offered to cut the club in on a deal. Then asked a lotta questions about motorcycle gangs and how much cash they really had. I never thought he was talking about ripping off you.”

Justice’s fingers circled his lips to part the wooly mustache. “That’s fucking unreal.”

“What, that I knew about the rip off?” Red’s body began to twitch.

“No, that you were in the military. That’s going to make this even more difficult.”

Justice looked to the end of the dim-lit hallway and nodded. His national sergeant-at-arms, Vengeance, nodded back and then adjusted a volume dial attached to the wall. Neo-Nazi death rock from Skrewdriver blared throughout the 1%’ers outlaw clubhouse. The heavy metal, head-banging music screamed until no other sounds were audible.

Red’s methamphetamine-wrecked frame folded frail into Justice’s powerful hands. There wasn’t much t-shirt to tug, so Justice snatched the local leader-turned-traitor by the throat and belt buckle and drove him into the wall. Meatless fingers latched onto Justice’s rock-hard biceps. Red’s eyes bulged. His fingertips, charred by cigarette lighter burns from melting dope on a spoon, had begun to bleed.

Justice craned his six feet-six pillar of steel to whisper into Red’s ear, “Last chance. Where’s my shit?” Expression unchanged from resistance, Justice jerked Red up and off his feet. He glanced at the first room. The door was closed—not an issue. With the full-force of a rage-fueled wrecking ball, Justice rammed Red’s spine and skull through the solid-core interior door. The door splintered, leaving shards of wood strewn into the hall and embedded into Red’s back. He winched—there’d be more to come.

“Hey motherfucker, what you think you…” one of three bikers in the room yelled, scrambling for his knife. When Justice glared into his fat bearded face, he cowered and stumbled down the hall.

Red’s limp, but alert body was physically hurled across the room. The other two bikers, busy finishing up their gang-bang of what looked like a high school freshman, gazed perplexed.

Stench reeked and Justice dry heaved. The windowless room’s only illumination was porn pumping through computer screens but it was enough to show them the national president had just bounced their local boss off the deck.