Page 1 of The Devil's Reward
PROLOGUE
Shadow
Past
I listen as the guns salute and the trumpets play their final send-off to a woman who fought damn hard and made our team whole. A woman that fought until the very end. A woman who gave her life for her team. For her country. For me.
I don’t shed a tear; I don’t scream out the anger and grief that’s consuming me. Instead, I stand, saluting with the other brothers and sisters who are here to honor her. I stand with her family and friends. I ignored the doctor’s orders that I needed to rest and heal and I helped carry her into the church and into this cemetery.
Fuck that. I did the same for every one of my team members, and I wasn’t about to miss Sam’s. She would be pissed if I did. She’d be laughing at the pomp and ceremony because she hated it, but she would understand. Understand that it’s not really for her, it’s for everyone else, everyone who needs closure. So, I’m here. And I’ll stay here until everyone leaves.
I glance over at her parents, who treated our entire team like family when we visited each time we were stateside. Most of us didn’t have that, and we soaked it up like a sponge. Now, their eyes are red rimmed, clinging to each other. Sam’s brother stands beside them, face lined with grief and eyes filled to the brim with unshed tears. He and Sam weren’t crazy close, but they were family.
I was sure they would hate me when I came home. That they would blame me for not saving her. I blamed myself, so why shouldn’t they? Instead, they had come to my hospital bed where I was still being treated for exhaustion, dehydration, and a whole slew of other things, and hugged me. They thanked me for trying to save her, for trying to save them all. Told me they loved me and that they were happy I was alive.
It was a gut punch to know the good in these people knew no bounds.
I want to say it assuaged my guilt, but it didn’t. It hurts even more. Still, now, there is nowhere I would rather be, even as it cuts me to pieces.
Not even as they lower her into the ground, and we say our last goodbye.
ONE
SHADOW
They call me Shadow for a reason, and people best remember why.
Darkness normally makes people wary, if not completely fearful. Me, I embrace it. I enjoy it. Darkness is where I do my best work. They don’t call me Shadow for nothing. Hell, even my team called me a ghost during missions in the heart of enemy territory. The work I did then is nothing like what I do now, but we’re heading into another kind of war. This one I welcome.
When I was discharged from the Special Forces, I was lost. Not only had I lost my entire team, I lost my career, and I lost the confidence I had in myself. I had no one on the other side of those gates to welcome me home. Sure, Sam’s parents kept in touch with me, but their daughter was dead and eventually they drifted away. Every so often, they reach out, but it does nothing more than remind us all that Sam is gone.
That I am the only one who survived that hellhole.
Then I met Bullet in a run-down bar where I had a shitty job as a bouncer. The bar owner liked my size and the way I could scare people off with a look. Wasn’t the best-paying job, but it was one I could do without thinking, and I got to bash some heads together, which helped manage my aggression and anger. My former boss took notice of my skills, as did some of the bar’s more unsavoury patrons and their associates.
It just so happened that on the night they approached me for some work that would surely have ended with me in prison or dead, Bullet and a few of the brothers arrived. There weren’t as many members then, but it had struck me instantly how they moved together. They were a unit. A team. The very thing that I no longer had.
I resented them at that moment, and I’m not proud of it. I was six months post the shit that changed my life, and I had so much anger and PTSD that I was nothing more than a shell of anger and resentment. I’m not sure what Bullet saw in me, but after enjoying themselves for a few hours, he approached me.
I can’t even remember what he said now, but I know he got my wheels turning, and the next day, I quit my job, packed up my meager belongings, and headed to the clubhouse in my truck with the address Bullet gave me in hand. It was impulsive, but probably the best damn decision I ever made.
I’m smart enough to know that a different choice would have eventually landed me in a cell or a grave.
Instead, I prospected for the club for a year. I realized pretty quickly it wasn’t going to be a cushy gig, but that didn’t hold me back. The club had the camaraderie I craved, and it was the family unit I never realized I needed. After patching in, I worked my way up to Enforcer, and then Viper and I started our security business.
The years have been so damn busy that sometimes I forget about where I came from. On nights like tonight, though, it comes back in full force. Not because I want a walk down memory lane, but because of what threatens the life I have now.
No, not what.Who.
My lip curls as I think about our mole problem. A problem that won’t be a problem much longer.
In an MC, membership is a brotherhood, and brothers should always have each other’s six. Instead, we have to worry about one of our own stabbing us in the back. What’s worse is that one of our women has been hurt.
It’s one thing to target club brothers, but to go after our women is a death sentence. To make matters worse, the mole is involved with the mafia, who want to take over our territory and peddle their poison through our streets.
I’m going to enjoy discovering who our mole is, and then I’m going to make sure he feels every ounce of pain I give him before I kill him. No mercy. I learned from the best. Uncle Sam likes to train his soldiers for every possibility, and I was one of the few to learn a bit more than the basics.
Our unit had been highly skilled, and we went on a lot of missions. Which is why we were constantly on the move and spent so much time together. We worked well together, even training other teams when needed. That training is what’s going to help me solve the mystery of our mole.
