Page 7

I lean back against my Harley, arms crossed, boots planted like I own the goddamn earth.

Kentucky sun’s bleedin’ low across the rollin’ hills, casting long-ass shadows over Paradise County.

Locals call this slice of nowhere "Heck," like Hell’s got a cute little cousin that still drinks sweet tea and sharpens its knives in the barn. But make no mistake, this land? It’s mine.

Fought like hell to claim it. Bled for it.

And now it beats to the rhythm of the Kings of Anarchy MC.

But today, I ain’t feeling like a king.

Today, I’m standing in the ghost of a memory I’d rather set on fire.

Paradise Falls.

The Montgomery farm sprawls out ahead of me like it’s posing for a glossy postcard, white fences, bluegrass shining like money. Never mind, I know it has a waterfall tucked back in the woods like some fairy tale bullshit. Place is called paradise for a reason.

It’s pretty, sure. But pretty don’t mean safe. Pretty don’t mean clean. Pretty’s just a mask worn right before ugly shows its teeth.

I dumped the bike and stormed off to the barn.

Sophie Montgomery.

Her name hits hard. That girl? She was everything I wasn’t supposed to want, money, pedigree, a life wrapped in ribbon and rules. Meanwhile, I came up dragging chains, half-feral, fists always bruised and knuckles always itchin’.

She was forbidden, and that only made her more dangerous. She was everything a scrappy kid from nowhere shouldn’t want but dreamed of anyway. Girl’s rich, living high in her glass tower while I wrestled in dirt and manure below.

Hell, I had no business staring up at her back then, but I did anyway. Because Sophie was trouble, always had been. Trouble that laughed with bourbon on her breath and dared me with eyes the color of wild Kentucky violets.

And damn if I didn’t love every moment of that trouble. She used to look at me like I was her favorite secret. Like she wanted to taste what the world told her not to touch.

And damn, I wanted her to.

Back then, I was just a pissed-off kid workin’ horses for her old man, tryin’ to stay one step ahead of the belt or the bottle, whichever my father reached for first. He knew horses, sure, but not how to stay outta his own goddamn way.

Me? I learned to survive by keepin’ my head down and my fists up.

But Sophie? She was the one wild thing I couldn’t ignore.

Memories claw their way to the surface as I kick at the dirt path leading toward the barn. Me, fifteen and ornery, working beside my old man on her daddy’s farm. Sophie, fourteen and full of sass, stealing glances my way.

Sophie was the one bright spot in those long-ass summer days filled with back-breaking work.

She’d float down from that mansion in boots worth more than my old man’s truck, curls bouncing, freckles like fireflies across her face.

Always smirking. Always dangerous. And I let her pull me in like a moth to a flame, knowing damn well I’d get burned.

We’d go riding, and hell. She rode like no one’s business.

Like the damn horse was part of her, like she’d been born in the saddle and raised by wind.

While most girls I knew were scared to break a nail, Sophie gripped the reins barehanded, boots digging in, hair flying like wildfire behind her.

No fear in that girl, just grit and grace wrapped in sunshine.

She’d race me through those pastures like it was life or death, whooping like a damn outlaw, and nine times outta ten, she’d win. Not ‘cause her horse was faster, but ‘cause she didn’t hold back. Not for anything. Not even me.

We played our little game, flirting with disaster, never knowing just how bad the fall would be. Then came the night it all went to shit.

Turns out, it was worse than bad. It was goddamn legendary.

That goddamn thoroughbred.

I remember screaming. Blood on my hands. That twisted body in the stall, the horse lying warped and broken. My father’s shouts echoed like thunder through the darkness.

Something in the dark, teeth too long and eyes too wrong.

A shiver runs up my spine, cold as a Kentucky river in winter just remembering.

Folks still whisper that I lost my damn mind, cracked my skull and saw a monster.

Hell, maybe I had.

They found me weeks later, wandering aimlessly. Couldn't remember shit, still can't. But I remember everyone pointing fingers, calling me crazy. While I was gone, my dad got accused, fired, then disappeared, and my life turned upside down faster than a flipped whiskey barrel.

And me? I got meaner.

Paradise was anything but, and Sophie Montgomery became a flash in the pan I tried like hell to forget.

Until now.

"Legend."

Oaks’ voice breaks through, steady and low. Man’s been my right hand for years, solid as the name he wears. He stands beside me now, eyes scanning the horizon like it might bite. “Montgomery’s are waitin’.”

“They said today. Didn’t say when. Go on without me.”

“They want you. You, specifically.”

I light a smoke, Zippo snappin’ loud in the quiet. “They got a funny way of askin’.”

“Rich folks always do.” Oaks’ smile is more grim than amused.

“What’s the issue, again?”

“Threats. Dead animals. Real nasty shit.” He pauses. “Sophie’s rattled.”

I grunt. “Didn’t think that girl knew how to rattle.”

“Guess the game’s changed. She asked for you.”

That gives me pause. She asked?

“Sophie Montgomery don’t ask for help. Especially not from me.” I drag deep on my cigarette, letting the smoke scorch down my throat like cheap bourbon. “What the hell could scare a girl like that?”

“Somethin’ real,” Oaks says. “Somethin’ dangerous.”

I flick the ash, watching it scatter. “They could hire a damn army. Why us?”

Oaks smirks. “You ain’t listenin’. She don’t want an army. She wants you.”

The words twist like barbed wire in my chest.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “Figures.”

“You in?”

I grind the cigarette out beneath my boot, already knowing the answer. “If Sophie Montgomery’s scared, then it’s already too late for half-measures.”

He nods.

The Kings of Anarchy MC don’t shy away from trouble. We own it, thrive on it.

Nobody fucks with the Kings.

But stepping back onto this farm means digging up graves I buried deep years ago. One look at Oaks' patient expression tells me he knows exactly how this ends. It’s always been Sophie. Like a scar that never healed right, she’s always been right under my skin, a beautiful ache I can't ignore.

I mount my bike, the roar of the engine drowning out the whispers of doubt in my head.

Oaks settles in beside me, ready to follow where I lead.

And the rest of the Kings’ll follow like the loyal brothers they are.

Loyalty runs thicker than blood in the Kings, and I'm counting on that now more than ever.

Paradise Falls looms ahead, bathed in the dying gold of sunset, as welcoming as a knife to the throat. And somewhere in that sprawling mansion waits Sophie Montgomery, queen of trouble and the only woman capable of making me feel like a wild kid again.

Hell, ready or not, Legend’s back in Paradise, and this time, I ain't leaving without making her mine.

This ain’t just a job.

It’s a reckoning.

And I can feel it deep in my bones, Paradise Falls is about to become a battleground, and Sophie?

She’s the goddamn prize.