Page 1 of Pope's Penance

Chapter One

Violence.

Death.

Blood.

Depravity.

My life has consisted of it for as long as I can remember.Most people assume the darkness grabbed me when I walked into this lifestyle, but sometimes I think my parents were right that I was born with unholiness running through my veins.

Strangers make the sign of the cross in my presence, muttering under their breath about me needing to find my way to that fucking deity they worship.

If only they knew that motherfucker turned his back on me long before I turned mine on him.

I wasn’t always full of this darkness boiling inside me.There was a time when a sliver of light peeked from within my soul, but when you deprive a fire of oxygen long enough, it’ll eventually go out.Then you’re left with nothing but smoke and ashes.

It wasn’t until I was wading through the soot of my failed relationship seven years ago that I realized how much Birdie’s fire kept me warm.

Birdie blazed her way into my life with a song and dance when I was sixteen.I had just moved to Coral Cay to live with my grandfather, Gavel, and was making my way around to meet the people who were important to him.I had already made friends with her brother, Cyanide, the week before.Their father, Piston, had been on a run, so he, Birdie, and her twin sister, Valkyrie, were the last I needed to meet.

When I stepped through their front door, music was streaming from a set of big ass speakers.This curvy little thing with big lungs and short ginger hair was dancing through the space, lost in her own world.Honestly couldn’t fucking tell you anything else that was going on that day because the moment my eyes caught on her, it was over for me.She consumed my life.

Birdie brought fire and warmth to my fucked-up world.

We were both so damn young, though, so as much as we flirted and teased one another, I didn’t make her mine until I took over the reins from my grandfather and became President of the Coral Cay chapter of the Saint’s Outlaws MC.

I had so much heavy shit I carried around with me from my childhood that I was terrified as fuck I wouldn’t be good enough for her.

Hell, I ended up proving that when I broke her heart seven years ago.

When the Steel Slayers MC decided to target my club, it wasn’t just my brothers in the crosshairs.They tried hitting us where it’d hurt the most—Birdie and Valkyrie.

Birdie Fitzgerald was born into this life, but unless you spent time with her, you’d never know she was bornforit.

But that didn’t stop me from doing what I thought was best to protect her.

I couldn’t focus on ending the Steel Slayers when my entire goddamn body was locked in fear.Breaking Birdie was the last thing I wanted to do, but it was what Ineededto do to get her out of my life so I could protect her properly.

Fucking killed something inside me when I witnessed that light fade from her eyes, but I told myself it was the only way.

We went to war with the Steel Slayers shortly after Birdie and Valkyrie left Coral Cay.It was a bloody, violent battle that lasted two long and lonely years.The only thing that kept me sane was the thought of bringing my woman back home when the war was over.

But by the time we signed the peace treaty with the mother chapter of the Steel Slayers, the future I’d expected to have with Birdie was left in ashes.

I’d set it ablaze when I crossed the one boundary she had in place—touching another woman.

When I went to her after the battle was over, another man was living my life.She had his ring on her finger, his last name, and their two kids running through their yard.

It wasn’t until she gave me a smile that still spoke of her pain that I truly understood.

I may have won the war, but there was so much more I’d lost to it.

The sacrifice I made ensured a bleak future for me.

When I left her home five years ago, I dropped the last bit of Apollonos that had remained.Birdie was the only reason that part of me still stuck around.There was nothing sweet left in this world for the man I used to be.

The darkness rolled over me, and I embraced it with open fucking arms.Apollonos died that day, and Pope emerged full of rage and hungry for blood.

---