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Chapter One

Summerville Lex

A lexis Nichols hurries her two children inside, constantly looking back behind her just in case anyone follows them. Sutton Cannon and Hannah Cullen hurry behind her, thankfully following her lead and not bursting into the house of a rival club without any backup.

Just thirty minutes ago, they found out Dani Hartman, the Summerville President's dead wife, was actually alive. Alive and locked in a basement of a house being guarded by men from another club.

Dax, the President of the Summerville charter that the Deranged Drifters patched over recently, never got over the death of his wife. About three years ago, he returned from a run to find his house burned to a crisp. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d been told his wife was inside when the fire happened. The body was burned beyond recognition, and there was no way to positively identify the body. It was just assumed to be Dani, and the story never made much sense to Lex.

For Dani to die in her bed in the bedroom on the second floor means she never heard the smoke detectors. She hadn't moved from the bed, which also didn’t seem right. Anyone who hears the alarms would try to get out. If they don’t make it out, they die of smoke inhalation and not lying on their back in their bed near the start of the fire. But not Dani. Dani apparently never woke up to the blaring alarms.

On top of that, the neighbors heard nothing. They all had the same story, and Lex could never shake the feeling that everything felt too neat and staged. The only way she can think that the body truly belonged to Dani would be if she were dead at the time of the fire. The fire seemed like a cover-up to the crime. The neighbors all having the same story of not hearing anything adds to the feeling of a cover-up of some sort. Not that her thoughts on the matter meant much of anything to anyone.

“It was a Kingsmen,” Hannah says. “I'll never get that kutte out of my head. It's what hit my windshield as I ran one of them over.”

Recently released from prison, Hannah knows very well what a Kingsmen kutte looks like, considering she killed one of their members in the name of the club. If she says that's who it is, Lex has no reason to argue. None whatsoever.

“Sutton, can you get the kids settled in their rooms?” Lex asks and hurries into the kitchen with Hannah hot on her heels. Pulling out her cellphone, she calls the one person she knows can help her fast.

“Hey, Lex,” Grayson Tate answers. “Just decided on the honeymoon-”

“Grayson, I'm sorry. I need help. I need your help. When it's all said and done, I want the honeymoon details, but I... this is kind of an emergency.”

She hears shuffling on the other end, and he says, “I'm at my computer. What do you need?”

“Five-eighty-seven Timbercreek Circle. I need to know who owns that house.”

Tapping on the keyboard is all that they hear as she turns the phone to speaker, and Sutton walks into the kitchen to join them.

The poor woman has been through hell after finding out her father, Marvin Cannon, isn't her father after all. Her mother let Sutton find out by coming across an unmailed letter to her biological father when she was in the hospital, potentially about to die. Sutton's been a bit of a wreck ever since.

“Okay, I'm on my fourth shell company trying to find a name,” the former police officer turned private investigator says. “I'm looking...”

Hannah glares at Lex, but Lex just waves a hand. If Grayson trails off, it's because he's reading something. She needs this information yesterday, but she knows interrupting him won't make it happen any quicker.

“There's one name that I keep coming across. Does Ryan Graves mean anything to you?”

“That's the President of the Kingsmen,” Hannah says, her brown eyes wide.

Sutton pales, and Lex knows she has to get more information. And there's one person she can get it from. “Thank you, Grayson. I promise to call you back to get the details.”

“Lex, what's going on?”

“I'll explain later, I promise,” she says and hangs up. “Hannah, do you have Kara's number?”

The dirty blonde's mouth drops open. “What the fuck do you need that for?”

“Because I think Kara tried to infiltrate the Kingsmen to get to Dani. How she knew, I don't know.”

Kara Gallagher left Chance Adkins close to six months ago and started dating a member from their rival. When she threw her PROPERTY OF kutte in Chance's face, she made a point of saying she's doing what a good old lady would do, and she looked directly at Lex. At the time, Lex had no idea what it meant, but she thinks this was exactly what her plan was all along.

Sutton pulls out her phone and opens the contact information to show Lex when Hannah refuses to move. Lex types it into her phone and stands. “You two stay here. I need to run to the clubhouse. Griffin's Beach is here, and I think we're going to need them. I'll call when I have more information.”

“Be careful,” Sutton says, and Lex just nods.

Running to her Mustang, she peels out of the driveway and races to the clubhouse. The Griffin's Beach members are thankfully at the clubhouse, and she finds Brock's bike easily. It always amused her when everyone got confused and couldn't differentiate between the bikes because they look similar, but she can tell which bike belongs to each member she knows.

She opens the saddlebags and rummages around until she finds what she's looking for. “Bingo!” Pulling out the burner phone, she dials the number she got from Sutton.

“Who is this?” Kara answers, her voice clipped.

“Lex,” she says. “I'm going to give you an address, okay?”

“Why?”

“Five-eighty-seven Timbercreek Circle.”

Sniffling, Kara sounds bored. “Nope.”

“Are you alone?”

“For now.”

“Can you get to that house?”

This seems to pique her interest. “Why?”

“Because I'm pretty sure I know why you left the Drifters for the Kingsmen. And if I'm right, that reason is in the basement of that house.”

She gasps and whispers, “You saw Dani?”

“Yes, and I need you to see if you can find out how many people are inside. And if Dani's locked up or not.”

“When I saw her at the last house, she was shackled up. By the time I got in with the club, they'd moved her.”

“Okay, metal shackles?”

A small sob escapes Kara. “Yes.”

“Kara, I need you to go there now. Like right now. I need to know how many people are there. There's a small window to have the resources we need before they inevitably move her. I don't think they caught on that I was with the Drifters, but there's always a chance they'll get suspicious. If that's the case, I don't know how we'll find her again.”

“I'm going now,” Kara says. “Call back on this number?”

“Yes.”

Hanging up, Lex walks back into the clubhouse, her entire body shaking with anxious energy. As much as she wants to interrupt Church, she knows she can't. Not until Kara calls her back.

Marnie Banks sits in the clubhouse, and she keeps a wide berth when she sees Lex. The curly blonde made it clear to Marnie the last time they spoke that she has an issue with her. Part of her wishes the younger woman would say something. Pick a fight. Give Lex a reason to hit her and get some of this nervous energy out before she jumps out of her skin.

None of this still makes any sense to Lex. If Dani's still alive, there’s no logical reason someone wouldn’t have reached out to Dax. Ransom, revenge, something. It proves the fire was staged, and the neighbors were part of it. The body in the house wasn't Dani's, and whoever it was was more than likely dead at the time of the fire, which makes sense why it was still in the bed. But why?

If a rival takes their enemy's woman, it's known. They gloat and show how much better they are than the club they took the woman from. When Lex was kidnapped by the Savage Slashers, they left a witness because it's not fun if no one knows they were taken. There’s no dig at a club if they’re not aware someone is with their enemy. But the Kingsmen took the Hellraisers-now-Drifter's President's wife almost three years ago and said nothing?

“It almost feels like the Havoc Outlaws,” she mutters to herself.

Psycho, who happens to not only be one of her best friends but also the President of the Black Valley charter, was born and raised in the Havoc Outlaws clubhouse. That family was full of sociopathic freaks. They'd killed someone and let another club take the credit for over a decade. They didn't care whether the Drifters knew they were the ones to commit the murder. If Psycho hadn't killed his family and his club in front of her, she would think this is who they're dealing with.

The Kingsmen didn't want anyone to know Dani was still alive. But what do they get out of having a hostage no one knows about? And why fake her death? More than that, who the hell did they burn in the house?