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Wasted energy escaped as I struggled to keep my head upright. My ears pricked to the murmurs of a language I didn’t understand, punctuated foreign words keeping me on edge.

Two of Javier Carrillo’s henchmen stood ten feet in front of me and Crash. The glow of the moon served as our only light source, allowing me to catch glimpses of them when I wasn’t fixated on the ground.

They’d ambushed us outside of Cloud Nine, swiftly drawing their weapons before we even had a chance to defend ourselves. Knox had asked me to check on an issue with the security cameras. Unfortunately for Crash, he’d been walking out of the clubhouse when I agreed to go, so I dragged him with me. And now we were both going to die.

As we kneeled at the edge of the shallow graves these bastards made us dig, a strange sense of amusement washed over me. It wasn’t because I was moments away from my own demise, but because my impending end aligned with the chaos that had consumed my entire existence. The club and Ria were the two exceptions to the madness.

Correction, there were three exceptions…. I couldn’t forget about my unborn kid, who deserved a place on that short list.

The moment Ria told me she was pregnant, I vowed to be the best father I could. I’d never encountered a worthy father figure in any of the foster homes I bounced between growing up, but I’d watched Renner with Colton for years. Their relationship gave me hope I could have something similar with my own kid one day.

I’d never believed in regrets, chalking the emotion up to nothing more than a person’s way of whining about shit they could’ve done differently, but staring down the barrel of a loaded gun incited a single remorse: I should’ve told Ria I loved her the last time I saw her. I supposed it was pointless to delve into the what-ifs of life, seeing as how my life would be over shortly.

I never thought I’d live to see the age of thirty, so to surpass that by four years amazed me. I believed I lived on borrowed time, and apparently, today was the day I’d end up paying that debt.

While images of my club brothers popped into my head—the only family I’d ever really known—thoughts of Ria overshadowed everything else. I’d never met anyone like her.

On one hand, the woman infuriated me to no end with her sass and no-holds-barred attitude. On the other hand, whenever she allowed me to witness her vulnerability, my heart ached with love and protectiveness. And when her big brown eyes would well with tears about the uncertainty of our relationship or about her overwhelming doubt as a mother, all I wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and tell her everything would work out for the best, even if I didn’t believe it wholeheartedly.

The last thing I ever imagined was becoming a father. I barely imagined being in a relationship, let alone procreating. Although “relationship” was a stretch. Ria and I had snuckaround for so long, fearing Knox would find out, which he did, that we never ended up defining what we meant to each other. I loved her, and I believed she felt the same for me, but we never told each other. And with death now licking at my heels, it was too late.

“Javier wanted to take out your entire club at once,” the bald one with the tattoo above his eyebrow said, sneering at us, “but I convinced him to take you out piece by piece. Looks like you two are first.” He turned to the other man and said something in Spanish, ignoring us as if he hadn’t just sealed our fate.

“I don’t wanna die,” Crash groaned beside me, soft whimpers cascading over each word. I wanted to reassure him we’d get out of this alive, but I wasn’t going to give him false hope. We faced a terrifying reality, one that we couldn’t change or escape. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but he had to come to grips with what was about to happen. We both did.

“Me either,” I responded. “But we can’t change it, so make your peace.”

My hope our brothers would find us disappeared when Javier’s men tossed our phones out the window as they transported us here. Everyone’s cells had trackers, but we were at least an hour from where the devices were discarded.

Both of us were in bad shape. After they’d made us dig our own graves, they bound our arms behind our backs and made us kneel in front of the disturbed earth. The bald fucker hit Crash so hard in the side, he cracked the poor guy’s ribs. Then he stabbed him in the thigh, dragging his blade down his leg as he screamed in agony. All I could do was watch, cursing him and calling him a coward. I demanded he untie me, challenging him to fight like a real man. All my words earned me was a hit to my temple with the butt of his gun, splitting my flesh in two. Blood trickled down my face and into my eye, blinding me on my left side. But still I continued to run my mouth, calling them every name I could think of. The shorter,heavyset one took great pleasure when he plunged his knife into my stomach, pushing in as deep as he could manage. If my hands had been free, I’d have wiped the evil grin off his face. But all I could do was take whatever torment he bestowed on me.

My life slowly drained from me and stained the dirt I kneeled on. Every breath pained me, and even though I was minutes, possibly seconds away from being snatched from this world, this wasn’t the worst situation I’d been in. Okay, maybe the worst one, but not by much.

After both my parents died in a car accident when I was five, I bounced between foster homes until I was placed in a group home when I was fourteen. I’d experienced the worst a human could. Starvation. Living in filth. Unspeakable things done to me when I was eight by an older boy in the same house. Cigarettes extinguished over my entire body when I was ten by the sadistic owner of the sixth house I lived in. And on and on. Too many instances to recount. I ran away from the group home the day after I turned fifteen and lived on the streets for several years, stealing just to stay alive.

The startling sound of a phone pierced the otherwise silent air. The bald guy answered, and the conversation lasted ten seconds. As soon as the call ended, I turned to the left, knowing this was the pivotal moment.

“You’re a good man, Crash. It was my honor to know you.”

I was a man of few words. I didn’t express my feelings often, and when I did, anger was the emotion that often erupted. So, when I uttered those twelve words, Crash realized our lives were about to abruptly end.

His chin quivered, but he tried to hold it together as best he could. His attempt at bravery was admirable. Poor guy barely got twenty-eight years on this earth.

“I don’t wanna die. Not like this.”

“Chin up, brother” was all I could manage to respond.

He nodded and kept his eyes on me. I had no idea which one of us was going to die first. Fuck, we could go together. From my periphery, I could see movement and when I reluctantly tore my eyes away from my redheaded brother, I saw the shorter of the cartel guys raise his arm and point his gun at Crash. Time seemed to slow, and I barely registered the action before the gunshot echoed through the air. A warm spray of blood splattered onto me as Crash’s head snapped back before falling to his side. Seconds later, the guy who’d killed him kicked his lifeless body into the shallow grave as if he were nothing more than an animal who’d been put down.

“You’re next,” the bald one said, stepping closer and raising his gun level with my forehead.

One breath.

Two.

My heart raced with whatever blood remained in my body.

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