Page 1 of Chains

PROLOGUE

Chains

Caleb Thatcher and I had been best friends since middle school. He moved with his parents to Briar Creek, Texas, from Montana. Everyone at our school made fun of the new kid, because he was small for his age, and we became firm friends when I stood up for him against the bullies.

Ever since I beat up Trevor Perkins, the worst of them at the school, Caleb and I had been inseparable. Both of us from the same side of the tracks. Our similar circumstances had bonded us at a young age.

We’d been close all the way through high school, even prospecting together for the Devil’s Carnage MC. But then a girl came between us, a girl I thought was mine, until I royally fucked up, and she wasn't mine anymore. I let her go because I felt my life in the club was too dangerous to keep her around.

So, when Gunner promised to make me a full member for a job I had completed for the club, I became a patched member, but wasn’t willing to throw away my lifelong wish to join the Marines, asking Caleb to look after my girl for me, not knowing just how well he was going to do that.

Yes, I may have omitted the fact that I had been a prospect of a motorcycle club when we met, and she may have found out the truth after I had broken things off with her, when we’d been together for almost two months. But I also never expected my best friend to move in on my girl while I was away, and break bro code.

Four years later, injured in a roadside bomb, my left leg taking the brunt of the shrapnel, unable to continue on in the Marines, they medically discharged me.

I returned home, only to find my best friend and my girl had shacked up together, and had moved to Dallas—Caleb had left the club and joined the police force. Something that still has my mind reeling in anger. I had believed that once I returned on home soil, our friendship would continue as it had prior to me leaving. I must’ve been delusional if I ever thought that would happen after everything the fucker had done to me.

Our resentment of each other only grew—mine for their betrayal of me, his because Gunner had given me the opportunity to move up in the club as a member, and not him. And it only grew from there because he couldn’t get over the fact that I would always be between them. His words, not mine. And I knew then that it was only out of some sort of payback because he wasn’t able to move up in the club, that he had moved in on Zoe.

He seemed to become more and more bitter and twisted as the years rolled on, and whenever we were in town on club business, he would never miss an opportunity to harass us. It was almost as if he wanted to start a war between us and the police. Something I nor my brothers will oblige him.

Even though it had pissed me off, I had stepped aside, thinking Zoe was happy in her relationship with Caleb. But finding out that couldn’t have been further from the truth, I was determined to watch over her anyway I knew how, leveraging her friendship with Lexie, my club brother Storm's half-sister and Gunner's only son.

I knew in my gut that something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Never in a million years would I have believed what it actually turned out to be. Now, after everything he’s done to Zoe, to me, I want nothing more than to watch the life drain from his eyes. And that will be my revenge.

CHAPTER ONE

Zoe–18 years old

I was humming along to the tune on the radio as we headed home after another of our monthly dinners together; when Dad’s phone buzzed, and he answered through the Bluetooth in the car. Turning my head to stare at the darkness outside, tuning out his conversation with whoever it was on the other end until they mentioned clean up.

My head jerked in my dad’s direction, noticing the tightness in his jaw.

“Send me the address and I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he tells the caller before promptly hanging up.

I sensed the conflict in his gaze as it met mine. His brain was working a mile a minute, trying to figure out what to do about me.

We were at least ten minutes away from the home I shared with my mom. Dad had moved out when they split up when I was ten, leaving mom the house.

They’d split up because of his job. He worked with the police and coroner cleaning up crime scenes, but he would also take jobs on the DL for Kon Sokolov, who was based in Dallas, a few hours away, and the Devil’s Carnage MC who’s home-base was here in Briar Creek, both the more profitable proposition.

He didn’t know that I knew he worked for them, but my mother wasn’t happy about it, and that’s the reason they didn’t work out, she gave him an ultimatum to stop taking jobs for the underworld; he refused because it paid good money, so she up and left, taking me with her. Though I suspect a part of it was that my mom was a raging bitch. I lived with the woman 24/7. I should know.

The fact he did that kind of job at all didn’t bother me. In fact, I found it fascinating and something I wanted to do after graduating from school. All my friends thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care. I was going to follow in my father’s footsteps.

His phone dinged, showing the message was from whoever he spoke to earlier, causing his brow to furrow in a deep frown when he saw the address.

“It’s only five minutes from here,” he spoke to himself. Even though it was early evening, it got dark earlier since it was late Fall.

Briar Creek was small, yet it had clearly defined affluent suburbs and less prosperous areas. My father must've resolved the battle within himself because instead of taking me home, we drove to the address the caller gave him, arrived in less than a few minutes, parked the car, and then he got out.

The house had peeling paint on the dirty gray siding. Weeds grew in place of the flowers that used to be in the beds against the wall of the house, and there was no front lawn to speak of. Telling me this was the more unsavory part of town.

The six Harley Davidson motorbikes parked out front weren’t out of place, but no one would ever question why they were even here. Bending down, he looked me in the eye, a no nonsense look about him.

“Stay in the car and lock the doors,” he orders. “Do not get out under any circumstances.” I open my mouth, but promptly shut it, as the look in his eyes brooks no argument.

How did our father-daughter dinner turn out so badly? Watching him walk away. I shiver, even though I was warm in my faux fur-lined jacket.

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