Page 9 of Indecent Lies

Rider would never allow a woman to be harmed.

They would have dealt with her and sent her on her way.

Tension mounted as the miles ate up under his bike.

He didn’t know if he was going back to his own death.

Texas didn’t care anymore, least of all about his own well-being.

But he was going back home to Colorado.

And some small part of him was glad.

THREE

“Prince Charming is not so…princely.” – Penelope

It was some fucked up self-punishment that made Texas ride by the Renegade Souls compound when he finally arrived back in Colorado.

Familiar sights and smells greeting him with a punch of pain to his sternum.

It would mean an extra hour ride back out of town to get to Axel’s place, but there he was, like a goddamn chump and the bike purring idly under his ass while he gazed through to the building he’d called home for years.

TheSoulsprotected compound was out of the way of civilization and designed that way when the club was first erected. In the background was the fantastic mountains with snow-capped peaks reaching into the clouds as far as the eye could see.

The three sets of buildings were made of concrete, bricks and corrugated steel for a reason, almost impenetrable to being firebombed. Just the last few years, ever since Rider, the prez, took on his queen, he had all the windows changed to Hammerglass triple glazing. That shit was impossible to break and Texas being the money man then, knew how much it cost the club. It wasn’t cheap, but Rider wanted the club and his house like Fort Knox for Zara.

He was an idiot for stopping, not like they’d be happy to see him.

Rider had done him a solid by not killing him, instead, he’d dished out something worse by taking Texas’ cut from him. Stripping him of his MC identity.

For anyone in the biker lifestyle, that shit hurt worse than a thousand stabs.

Months later he still didn’t know whether he would have preferred being killed.

He’d known the moment he confessed to Rider, about how he was feeding information on other clubs to his ATF twin brother, in hopes of keeping Malachai off theSoulsbacks, that he was done for.

He’d put the nail in his own coffin.

Rider and theSoulstreated loyalty as sacred.

If there was no loyalty among the members, then Rider didn’t want that man around.

By doing the only thing he thought right at the time, he’d fucked himself into losing what meant most to him and being banished back to a life he hated living.

No one would understand why he did what he did.

To theSouls,the rules were black and white.

It was club first.

Always the club came first, no matter what.

Hindsight was a bitch because he did regret every decision he’d made.

Mal was his twin, his blood and he had a bond to the man no ordinary siblings would understand, though they were estranged for reasons he didn’t want swimming in his head.

One fucking problem at a time.