PROLOGUE

PAST - SPIKE

Red.

Most people love the color red - it’s sexy, alluring, and beautiful. A woman in red can take your breath away, and make your entire world stop. A red car makes your blood start pumping and adrenalin course through your veins. A red rose, indicates love and commitment. Red lips can steal your heart. Red, in the big scheme of things, indicates pure beauty. Until you see it in its darkest form.

Blood.

Suddenly, red no longer represents beauty, fun, and living; instead it represents death, pain, agony and heartbreak. When faced with it in that form, it’s heart wrenching, horrible, brutal and life changing.

I see the color red every time I close my eyes, I see it every time I look at a car, I see it every time I think of her...my wife. Red consumes me. It takes me to a place I struggle to escape from. Red fills me with the one emotion I can’t ever remove from my heart.

Guilt.

CHAPTER 1

PRESENT - SPIKE

I wake up panting, my entire body shakes and sweat rolls down my cheeks. I can taste a mild salty flavor in my mouth, and I realize I’ve been screaming - again. Some people would see a man screaming as a sign of weakness. It’s just human nature. Men who scream, cry, or feel too much emotion, are pussies, end of fucking story. I only scream when I sleep, and each morning I wake up feeling the same - alone, cold, empty, and riddled with guilt. I’ve learned to live with the fact that I’ll never feel any different, that my life will always be lived in a pit of fuckin’ darkness.

That’s what I deserve.

Sliding out of bed, I take hold of my sheets, and pull, taking them with me. I walk out of the room; my chest is still rising and falling heavily. I stop by the washing machine and drop the sheets in, before continuing into the living room. The place is dark, not a light to be seen.

It’s early, probably 3 am. It always happens in the morning, like I’m being fuckin’ punished. Like sleeping is taking me away from the guilt for a few hours, and that’s just not allowed. It’s almost as if I’m being forced to live with it, every waking minute of my fucking dark, damaged life.

I fumble for the lights, and when I finally get my finger on one, I flick it. When the room is lit up, I walk towards the kitchen. The house is only small, but I’m not planning on being around for long. I need to organize a few things, and then I’ll be on my way. This is the Knights grounds, it ain’t mine. Me and my club have to move on eventually. The only reason we’re hangin’ around now is because Jackson has a fuckin’ soft spot for me. Christ knows why. He should have wiped his hands of me long ago.

Thinking about the club has my head spinning. Once, a long time ago, Jackson asked me to be part of the Hell’s Knights. I thought about it too, and was planning on saying yes, but life took me in another direction. Drugs took over, I got myself tangled in some bad shit, and then I lost my wife.

After that, I bolted. I fucked random women, I drank a lot, I smoked a lot, and then I decided to create my own MC club. That’s where the Sinner’s came in to play. Since then, I’ve been preparing to end the bad shit once and for all, starting with the drug lord who killed my wife.

He won’t like what’s comin’ for him.

It ain’t gonna be pretty when it goes down. It’s going to be a blood bath, and chances are I won’t come out alive. Don’t fuckin’ care either. Just gotta end it. That’s all I know. It’s all I breathe for. It’s life for me right now.

I grip a coffee cup, running my fingers around the faded rim. I’m just about to put it under the old, fucked up machine when my cell rings. Staring down at the ID, I see it’s my VP, Granger. With a curse, I pick up the phone and put it to my ear. What the fuck is he doing, calling me this early for?

“What?” I bark.

“Yo’ Spike, got a bit of an issue down here at the bar.”

Fuckin’ hell, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.

“What’s goin’ down? Better be fuckin’ important, Granger.”

“That girl that came to the warehouse last month. You know, the pretty one?”

Ciara. Just thinkin’ about her makes my skin tingle. I’m still not sure if it’s a good or bad thing. She’s gettin’ to me, creepin’ into my thoughts and refusing to move. I don’t know why the girl is so determined to get to me. Why she can’t just let it go. She needs to let it go, god knows the girl is better off without me. She always was. She just couldn’t see it. She always saw beauty when all I saw was ugly. She’s that kind of person. She sees the light in everyone.

“Ciara,” I growl into the phone. “And she ain’t my problem, so why the fuck are you callin’ me?”

“Well, her and the other girl, Cade’s Old Lady, are a bit under the weather and are bein’ harassed by a few men. It’s gettin’ a bit ugly, but the stubborn ass bitch won’t leave.”

“Addison is Cade’s fuckin’ problem, she ain’t mine.”

Addison is Cade’s Old Lady and a royal pain in my ass - a pain that I’m kind of getting used to, though I won’t tell her that. Damn woman is addictive as fuck, and she knows how to get under a man’s skin with all her ‘let’s be friends’ bullshit. Like I said, pain in my ass.

“Called Cade, he’s comin’ for her. Ciara is refusin’ to leave with him sayin’ it’s her bar and she’s not gettin’ run outta it. I say Cade’s gonna have enough trouble gettin’ the other one out, let alone two. So, I called you.”