Page 19 of Eight Years Later

I kicked out my stand and steadied my ride before ripping off my helmet and storming toward him.

“Tally, be smart,” Kit warned as I reached the stairs and took two at a time.

“Who the hell are y—” I drove my helmet straight into his stomach, sending him flying back through the open doorway. I followed with my brothers right on my heels.

There were a handful of people inside, mostly young, impressionable boys who looked no older than maybe eighteen. Most of them were too stunned to move. The one who had the balls to reach for the gun on the broken coffee table in front of him was too slow—Tie already had a 9mil pressed to the kid’s temple.

I handed my helmet to Kit and bent down. I grabbed a fist full of Milo’s shirt and lifted him off the floor before driving my fist into his face and dropping him back down. “You wanna threaten someone I care about? This is going to be your one and only warning,” I snapped, stepping back as he fought to pull himself to his feet, huffing and puffing like a bull preparing to charge.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Milo protested before swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his face. “But you’re making a big fucking mistak—‍”

I swung again, and my fist connected with the cocky bastard’s jaw.

He jolted back, hitting the wall behind him with a hard thump and crumpling to the floor. He was right at home there, just another piece of trash to add to the atmosphere of the run-down crack den he called home. The décor included broken furniture, plates of food growing their own ecosystems, and the subtle smell of urine lingered in the air, indicating that the yellowish color of the carpet was not a design choice.

Just breathing the air in that shit hole made my skin crawl, but I had a message to send, and I was going to make sure that message was incredibly fucking clear. Shards of glass from the broken windows crunched under my shitkickers as I took another step toward Milo and placed my boot across his fucking neck.

His eyes grew wide, and he clawed at the carpet, struggling and squirming like a cockroach as I placed more and more pressure on his airway. “The house you invaded a couple of nights ago while chasing Karl,” I explained as calmly as possible. My patience for this skeezy back-alley addict was wearing thinner by the second. “You threatened to go after the woman and child who managed to get the hell out of there.”

I leaned down, fighting the urge to simply snap his neck with my boot.

“He’s not gonna be able to hear you if he passes out,” Tie noted from behind me. I looked back at him, and he chuckled lightly, shaking his head and holding his hands up. “Just saying.”

Tie was handy to have as a voice of reason when shit like this was going down—no matter how much I hated him for being right at that moment.

Just as Milo’s eyes began to bulge from his skull, I let out a heavy sigh and pulled back a couple of steps. Milo rolled onto his stomach, gagging and coughing, spitting blood everywhere.

Just another bodily fluid to add to the décor.

The only reason I didn’t simply put a bullet in this asshole’s head and be done with it was that the cops were still looking for his dumb ass. And it would result in the kind of attention I didn’t want or need if they showed up here and found him dead.

“See, Milo, I’m just here to let you know if youevergo back to that house, drive down that street, or even sneeze close to that neighborhood, I will find your ass.” Kit chuckled behind me. He wasn’t only my president—he’d also been my best friend since high school. It wasn’t that he’d never seen me ready to kill some crackhead who hadn’t directly done something to the club.

But he’d never seen me this way over a woman.

She wasn’t just any woman, though.

She was Kat.

Kat was a piece of my past that I had regretted for fucking years. I didn’t give her what she wanted or needed, so she walked away, and honestly, I didn’t blame her.

I fucked up, and this was me making it right.

But also, when I got back to Alabama, she was going to know that I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

I crouched down next to Milo, slamming my hand against his back. “Are we clear? Because if you’re really struggling to understand, maybe I should just end—”

“No!” he choked, his entire body convulsing. “It’s clear… all clear.”

“Fucking excellent,” I exclaimed, getting to my feet.

As we backed out, none of the other young gang members moved to help their leader. They watched him cry and puke all over the floor like the pathetic piece of shit he was, making it perfectly clear that there would probably be a change of leadership soon.

“Milo didn’t strike me as the brightest crayon in the box,” Kit stated as we sauntered down the uneven concrete path to where our motorcycles sat, gleaming in the sunlight.

I grabbed my handlebars and steadied the large chrome monster before throwing my leg over and sitting back.

“You really think it will be safe for Kat and Dylan to come back here?” Kit questioned.

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