Page 1 of Keg's Revelation

Prologue

Keg

The door bounced offthe wall after I kicked it open. When I stepped through the doorway, it swung back in my direction, giving me a split second to catch it. Then I slammed it so hard the pictures on the adjoining wall rattled.

One of the best days had turned so fast. Riding the high of being patched from prospect to member—only to lose the high a few hours later when it came crashing and burning around me.

“Damn it, what the hell, Reed? Your ass is lucky I didn’t step out of the office and shoot you. Thought some jackass was busting in,” my dad said as he stopped halfway down the hallway of our house and lowered the nine-millimeter he currently held in his hand. “Weren’t you headed to Raven’s house?”

“I went,” I said and walked past him toward the kitchen. It was the first free time I’d had off in a month. All I wanted was to sit with my girl on her front porch or maybe take her for a ride on my bike to celebrate my patch-in. Ever since I started prospecting for the club, our time together consisted of a couple hours here and there when the club hadn’t needed me. Now as a full member, I was looking forward to spending more time with her.

“Then why are you here trying to destroy the front door?” My dad stood in the doorway and watched as I opened the fridge and stared inside at its contents.

“Broke it off with her.” A few seconds ticked by after my response. Slamming the door on the refrigerator, I yelled, “Shit!”

“Well, what happened? Because the last I heard before leaving the clubhouse was you telling the others, you wouldn’t be celebrating with them. That you were going to celebrate with your girl.” My dad’s brow lifted, and he stared at me.

Leaning against the counter, rubbing my hand across the back of my neck, it felt as if I was coming out of my skin.

“That had been the plan, at least until I got there. Seems Raven’s mom was in a car accident and was banged up pretty bad. Raven and her grandparents are leaving to be with her.”

“Okay, she has a family emergency and is going out of town to help her mom. It’s not as if you can’t see her when she returns. That isn’t a reason to—”

“The Newhouses will be back. Raven will be staying indefinitely,” I said through clenched teeth, cutting my dad off and straightening from my position.

“What? I didn’t think Raven got along with the stepdad, and that’s why she chose to stay with her grandparents when her mom and he moved to the east coast.”

“I brought that up when she said she didn’t know if she’d be coming back. He travels a lot with his job, so she won’t have to deal with him often. Raven’s staying because her mom is going to need help long after she’s allowed to go home from the hospital. The doctors don’t know how long it will take her to get back to a hundred percent. That’s if she even gets there. After they performed emergency surgery to stop internal bleeding and set her arm and leg that were broken, she had a stroke. Now she’s having problems with her vision and speech, plus weakness on her right side.”

“Damn, it must have been a helluva accident.”

“Five cars and an eighteen-wheeler on the interstate. Her mom was one of the lucky ones. A van with parents and their three kids was involved, no one made it.”

“That’s rough.”

I ran my hand over my face, then looked at my dad. “I’m not an asshole. I get why she’s staying. It just—”

“Shocked you because it happened so fast.”

“I guess. I could have handled it better than I did, though. But when she was talking and mentioned she didn’t know when or if she’d be coming back... I told her there didn’t seem much sense of us staying in touch then. I’d be busy with the club, and her focus needed to be on her mom and school anyway. Not much time left for the two of us.” I grabbed a bag of chips off the counter and opened them.

“Crap, that’s right, Raven’s still in school.”

“Yeah, only a few months left in this year. Guess if she stays, she’ll finish high school there. She graduates next year.” I chewed the chips I’d stuffed in my mouth, and when I looked at my dad, he was frowning. “What?”

“Easy to forget sometimes you aren’t that old yourself, Reed. Hell, you’re barely nineteen. And what’s Raven, sixteen? Seventeen?” he asked.

“Seventeen, next month,” I said and closed the bag of chips and placed them back on the counter. Raven had been my girl since I was in the eleventh grade, and she was a freshman.

“Maybe you could have handled the situation better, but I think you made the right decision for the both of you.” I opened my mouth to speak, and my dad held his hand up and stopped me. “Before you get your back up, let me finish. Long distance relationships fail more times than they work. When they do work, it’s usually because one of the parties willingly makes the sacrifice for the other. Like changing their job and relocating. You’re still young. Raven especially. Neither of you need the pressure. Especially Raven. Living in a new place, attending a new school, and caring for her mom. That’s a lot for her to take on. You are right, too—you will be busy with the club.”

“I get what you’re saying. Hell, I thought it. Right or wrong, breaking up with her was the right thing to do. I’m not going to lie, though. Thinking about her being so far away from me hurts, but her not coming back... It just seemed like the easiest way. So, I did the adult thing. But, Dad—”

“What, Reed?

“I’ve never considered my future where Raven wasn’t a part of it.”

“Aww, is Reed having girlfriend problems?” Sami, my teenage sister, said as she entered the kitchen, effectively ending the conversation with my dad.

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