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35

Phoenix

D ad has been pacing ever since he and a few of the guys got back earlier tonight. I know something's up by the way they all keep checking their phones and fidgeting. Whatever retaliation they have in the works for their rival crew is going down tonight. I can feel it.

I was grateful when he pulled his group earlier and left Mason to stay behind with me and the others. I wouldn’t have been able to sit still if he had left with them to do . . . whatever it is that they planned. Since Martin’s attack, any time Mason has been away, even for a short time, I get sick to my stomach. I start thinking that something bad is going to happen to him or that Dom and his guys are going to come steal me away in his absence.

I hate that. Hate the constant state of worry I’ve been in ever since that night. It’s almost as bad as the guilt that’s still eating away at me over everything. Raven told me over and over again that none of this was my fault, that I didn’t bring any of this upon us by not seeing through Kat from the beginning.

I want to believe her, but I can’t help it. I still feel responsible.

I was targeted as the weak link. Dom sent Kat to befriend me because he felt I was the one who would somehow show them what cracks existed in the Sons’ MC. I never talked with her about them, though. Never once said anything about the club or any of the guys outside of the fibs I told her about Mason when she’d ask what he did for a living.

It's still a shock to me that she was linked to anyone from the Desert Bastards. And doing drugs . . . I never suspected that from her. Not once. It still doesn’t make sense to me, but I guess that’s what made her so dangerous. That must be why Dom picked her for the job. She was a great actress.

She certainly had me fooled.

Martin is still in the hospital. He has some brain swelling from the attack and has to stay under observation until the doctors feel comfortable releasing him. It's awful. He met Kat because of me. If I hadn’t introduced them—

“We got the bastards,” Bear says as he storms into the living room.

Everyone jumps up and starts murmuring about Bear’s news. His interruption shakes me from my dark thoughts, and I turn to Mason. “What’s he talking about?”

His eyes flit to where Bear and my dad are now talking animatedly across the room. “Viper’s plan. It went down tonight,” he tells me. “We sent a message to Dom’s crew. Showed them what happens when they threaten our own.”

Something big happened tonight. I can see it on everyone’s faces. I still have no clue what that something is, though. The question hangs heavy in my eyes as I look at Mason. He opens his mouth to tell me when one of the others turns on the TV.

A news headline flashes across the screen:

Warehouse Explosion Still Uncontained

The scene unfolding before me is nothing like I’d imagined. The huge warehouse that spans several blocks is blazing. What sounds like gunfire blasts in the background as police and emergency personnel try to keep people back. Live ammunition is going off inside because of the blaze.

As I watch the fire grow, the guys are celebrating. They all look smug as they fist-bump and clap each other on the shoulder. The crew Dad took out earlier, that’s what they were doing. Setting things in motion for this.

Everything is setting in: the realization that I know people who are capable of such violence and that I love one of them. I'm in the middle of a very dangerous gang war. Me and Raven.

Less than a year ago, our lives were so different. I never would have imagined this was where we’d be right now.

I wait. Wait for the heavy weight of doom to settle in my stomach. For the reality of what my life has become to start sending dread through my bones.

It never comes. It should scare the hell out of me that this is where I ended up. I should be terrified that I know so many dangerous people. Have seen what they're capable of.

Death. Danger. Violence.

Those things aren’t foreign to these men. It's a normal part of their existence, an everyday occurrence even. I wait for the panic to set in, for fear to overtake me, but it doesn’t. It never comes.

I'm completely fine, and that scares me more than anything.