Prologue
Last Summer
Royal
“Royal, it’s your dad. Calling me this time.”
Probably because I’d been ignoring him. I waved Knight off, folding my arms as I leaned back against my Audi. My dad had been bugging me like crazy all day, which was normal for him when he got on a trip. I tipped my chin over at Knight. “Tell him I’m busy.”
Hushed tones beside me on the phone, my friend whispering into the device. After a few moments, Knight shoved the phone in his pocket and came over.
“You tell him?” I asked, studying my boots. I was busy, extremely. I looked up to find a scowling Knight Reed, the blades of his dark hair sweeping forward when he forced his hand through them.
“He says we all better be at Windsor House in the next hour or he’s sending the artillery,” he said, and not looking happy about it. He crossed his buff arms. “My grandpa’s with him. Some Court stuff we gotta do.”
There was always some Court stuff, some Court events, and I didn’t give a shit about any of it. I hadn’t for a long time.
Try telling my father that.
It was his legacy, the only thing he had that connected us and put me on a path toward something he found acceptable about me. It pissed me off, which was why I tried to shun my legacy as much as I possibly could. Especially recently with the closer we got to high school graduation. I wouldn’t hesitate to put both him and this town in my rearview mirror, the place and him a reminder of what my father saw me as…
The one who ruined our family.
The guilt of that weighing on me even now, I pushed off my car, LJ and Jax shifting on their feet beside me. They’d been watching on when Knight got his call. All our phones had rung, but the difference was Knight hadn’t ignored his. He had a good relationship with the Court, his grandpa and everything, so if my dad, one of the senior members, called him, he answered. He answered to the Court because he wanted to, not because he had to.
With that, LJ came over, pushing a hand to my shoulder. The guy sighed. “Probably for the best, man,” he said, sweeping long blond locks over his shoulder when he turned. “She has to do this on her own.”
She was in the distance, our friend. Paige had been standing out in the middle of the field for a while, her vantage point the Route 80 train tracks. She’d called us out here, completely in hysterics, and when she explained what she wanted to do, I went into hysterics. I admit I lost it, left the conversation.
There was another way…
She didn’t seem to feel that way. She believed this, and the Court was the only way. I wouldn’t lie. I always wanted Paige to join us. I had always wanted her to be a part of Court and that bond that united the other guys and me. That’d been when we were kids, though. It’d been before all the constant obligations and phoniness of the brotherhood. There was a lot of power in our ranks, a lot of dark deeds and corruption we constantly had to ignore. A drugged-out prostitute found in a random bedroom at Windsor House? One covered it up, couldn’t be a thing. Word of one of our dads or uncles fucking around with someone at the office behind their spouse’s back? Definitely didn’t make a note of it. We couldn’t, repercussions too severe. That’s how things always were, and with that, more power than any man or woman should have. Being in the Court basically gave you permission to ruin someone’s life. A guy got to play God while being a mere mortal, and something I’d been willing to do on my own for someone I cared about. I’d do whatever I had to do for that girl who was currently mad at me by those train tracks. The only problem? That girl never wanted to be saved. People didn’t save Paige Lindquist.
She saved her fucking self.
I couldn’t even watch the guys as they left me, heading over to Paige and what we ultimately had to allow her to do. The guys wanted to get all this out of the way, and though there was a process into the brotherhood, the end result was all the same. If Paige accepted the challenge of a haze now, it’d be under at least our control. We’d do it for her and with her. It’d be done, and then she could go through all the easy stuff later. She’d be one of us.
I braced my arms, forcing myself to approach. It was well into night, the headlights of my car guiding me and the others. It shined on Paige, her back to us all. Knight put a hand on her shoulder, and when he pulled her around, she pushed her arms around his big body.
“I’ll be fine,” I heard her say to him, myself lingering on in the distance. I couldn’t quite go over there, not ready. What she was wanting to do was crazy and banned for a reason. So much could go wrong.
The sickness of my reservations I forced down as I watched Knight step away, which allowed LJ in for his own hug. Paige actually lifted the motherfucker off his feet, a good head or two of height the guy had on her. She liked to show her strength, that she wasn’t weak, but she didn’t need to do things like that to prove her place with us. We knew who she was, stronger than all of us.
After putting LJ down, she grabbed Jax’s basically buzzed head. He always had his hair shaved down so he didn’t have to do anything with it, the lazy shit. She pulled him to her by the head, and after telling her to be safe, Jax let go of her. The guys came to me after that, pushing fists into my arms and giving Paige and me a moment. My friend stood before me in her jeans and a dark hoodie. It was the start of summer but it still could get terribly cold at night.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, one final plea. “We can find another way.”
We could find another haze, not one that had been banned by the brotherhood. Ramses Mallick’s little bitch ass had let it get out that he’d been challenged with this haze, failed by denying this haze, and though I resented him at the time, he was right. Doing this could get someone hurt, even killed. It didn’t matter these particular tracks rarely got used. That’s why they’d been chosen for this haze, but still, shit could happen.
Instead of talking, Paige came over to me, and when she put out her arms, I grabbed her by the back of the neck, pulling her into me. She didn’t get to be the guy on this one. She was going to let me.
“That’s why I’m doing it, ass,” she whispered, holding me close and smelling like candy. I always loved that, how she could smell so sweet but still be such a badass. She braced my back. “You know those assholes will never accept it if I do anything else.”
Her doing the one haze that was banned amongst us would make a statement, get her acceptance. Not one woman had attempted to be a part of the brotherhood, and if she did this, her presence wouldn’t be challenged. She was breaking the horse that couldn’t be broken before and making us all look subservient to her because of it. Though she was right about what she said, that still didn’t mean I had to like that truth.
“You’ll call me,” I said, pulling her away. “You’ll call if you need anything. My dad’s summoned us tonight, but I’ll try to come back as soon as—”
“You won’t.” She put her hands on my chest, putting distance between us. Dark strands of her short haircut crossed her face, the wind breezing them over coal-black lashes. She pushed the hair away. “Because you can’t. It has to just be me.”
“It’ll be whatever I want. I can be here.” I could do whatever I wanted, my place high in our ranks. My dad owned half this fucking town. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted and would.