Page 1 of Rev

PROLOGUE

REV

Present Day

“I want ye on the job, Rev. This one ain’t goin’ta be pretty,” Monster tells me.

He’s the President of the MC, and whatever he says is law, but he’s not a tyrant. If we need anything, he’ll bend over backwards to help us. We’re not just soldiers in his MC, we’re brothers. When he gave me a chance to patch in at twenty-five, I didn’t think I’d still be here ten years later. I didn’t expect to be part of a family that loves me as much as I do it.

“I’ll take my brother and Racer with me,” I inform Monster, and he nods his approval.

I make my way out of the clubhouse to find Hades and Racer waiting for me, and I quickly fill them in on the job we’ve been tasked with. Racer hasn’t been with the club long, but he’s already an integral part of the family.

My twin brother has been by my side all my life. Even when I went into the seminary for a while, he came to church every fecking day to confess and to talk to me about the shite he’d been up to. I tried to stop him from doing stupid, reckless things, but there was nothing I could do to prevent the stubborn arsehole from getting into trouble.

Hades has spent more than his fair share of nights in a police cell, but since we joined the Royal Bastards, we’ve both been doing much better.

Two hours later, I’m packed and ready to leave. I meet Racer and Hades by our bikes.

“Are you two ready?” I ask.

“Yes,” Hades answers while Racer nods. “It’s going to be interesting going back.”

“Aye, it definitely is,” I say as I head for my bike.

When we moved to Belfast, I vowed never to return to England, not even for work. I didn’t want to set foot on the land that spat me out and left me a broken man. I didn’t think I deserved happiness after walking out on Shaun and leaving Harley at the stone bench where we had our most profound conversations.

Now we’re heading back to Newcastle to sort out some shite that’s going down there, and I know I have to keep a level head. Some of our gun shipments have been going missing before they reach the club, and we’re losing a lot of money. Monster has asked us to meet with our suppliers to figure out where the problem is originating from. Once we’ve done that, we can fix whatever is broken.

“We’re not going to visit our old stomping grounds,” I warn Hades, who’s watching me.

“Don’t you miss it?” Racer asks.

“Like feck,” I respond, but my words are drowned out by the roar of our engines coming to life.

We pull out of the driveway and onto the street, heading for the airport. I can’t deny, my anxiety is at an all-time high at the thought of flying back to England. The risk that we would run into our father has always been one reason why we’ve never gone back.

You can’t choose your parents, but you can walk away from their toxicity if it hinders you. We chose to walk away from our father rather than have his death on our hands. Despite what he did to us, we didn’t want to kill him, but if we do meet him again, we know there’s every possibility that we will.

We grew up on a council estate in a town called Bolton—not far from the city of Manchester. The memories of our childhood and the reasons for Hades and me running away from home have consumed my thoughts over the years. The blood that stained our hands and the lives that were lost from overdosing on the drugs we sold still play on my mind on a never-ending loop.

I haven’t forgotten what happened in that shite hole we grew up in—the things we witnessed, and the way our father treated us. The man was a bastard, and he made sure we both believed we were as well. I don’t think he ever had any love for his family. He even blamed our mother for leaving him when she died, and he held us responsible for her death.

After we ran away, we ended up in Newcastle where we discovered what it was like to live the high life. We were both offered jobs in a nightclub on the south side of the river. It’s there that we met locals and tourists who were looking for a good time, and it’s there that we first came into contact with the man who would eventually take us under his wing.

Shaun Hunt was a man we could finally look up to, so we ended up working for him. He invited us into his home in South Shields, not far from Newcastle, where he gave us everything we needed. Everybody who knew Shaun loved him, but nobody saw beneath the shiny exterior. The business he ran wasn’t all above board.

I will always be grateful to the man who offered us a second chance when my brother and I were twenty-one years old. There are many excuses I could give as to why I never returned to South Shields to see Shaun, but the main reason I stayed away was the pretty girl who I was never meant to care for. Before I walked out, I asked one thing of her, and I hope to God she listened to me.

Harley was far too fecking young for me. At sixteen, she was still a child. One that had grown up way too fast in her father’s world. Even though she wasn’t meant for me, I still cared about her. She would follow me around, watching me whenever I was in her father’s house. To begin with, I told her to leave me alone and not to look up to me, but she didn’t listen, and in the end, we became friends. I always knew she wanted more than friendship, but that was never going to happen.

I told her she needed to get out of that shite life and go to college. I wanted her to make something of herself. I hope to God she did. When I first decided to join the seminary, I thought about finding her to see if she’d managed to escape. But I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to let her go again.

The thought of bumping into her now, fills me with equal measures of dread and excitement. I don’t know how I feel about looking into those green almost luminous, alluring eyes again. The last time I saw her, she used them to shoot daggers at me.

I park our hire car outside the old warehouse. Its once intimidating façade now looks worn and forgotten. The place where my brother and I spent our working days, all those years ago, still remains as a monument to the choices we made, the lives we took, and the people we left behind.

Hades stands on one side of me and Racer on the other, their tall frames silhouetted against the dim light of the setting sun. My brother glances at me, a mixture of concern and determination in his eyes.

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