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Chapter One - Rook

    The city lights blurred as I gunned the throttle, the roar of my bike drowning out the chaos in my mind.

I’m going to kill them, all of them, for dumping these damn jobs on me tonight. The entire day at the shop had gone to hell, and now I wasn’t sure if I had broken my hand when I punched the guy.

     I had hit him over, and over, working off every ounce of rage I had in me. It had worked for a few minutes until I got on my bike and reality came crashing down.

    There weren’t enough hours to get everything done. More jobs seemed to fall onto me, and I could barely think straight. I had everything I wanted: Two successful businesses, a decent place to live for me and Evie, no shortage of money. Yet, it wasn’t enough for me.

    I craved power. I wanted to rule every single one of these guys we still had to work for and ruin their lives. Their sick, twisted lives they led, which seemed to have no repercussions for the things they did. CEOs, government officials, and everything in between. The men you would pass on the street and wave were the ones who turned out to do disgusting and illegal things at night.

    I wanted all of them to start at the bottom, to burn their lives down, and see what they could make from the rubble.

    I pulled into our shop, the garage door already open so I could drive right in. I revved the bike once, heads snapping up to watch me, as the entire place filled with the loud echo of the engine.

    “Damn, you sound pissed,” Aiden said, messing with his ear.

    “What the fuck are you all doing?” I yelled, ripping off my helmet. “You mean to tell me I’m out running all over the place while you all sit around on your asses having a good time? Do you know how much work we have to do?”

    My leg and the side of my stomach ached as I got off. The burn injury always seemed to hurt the longer I rode and fought. I tried to stretch out my leg already knowing it wouldn’t help. The pain would get worse before it got better. Hopefully, I would last the rest of the night until I could finally lie down. Then it would hurt like hell and keep me up half the night.

    An endless cycle of work, more work, pain, and pretending to sleep, only to do it all over again. But I would do it again and again. We had money, and we were building power all over the city. Evie seemed happy enough, and she was safe, which I worried about the most.

    I glanced over as Aiden rolled his eyes at me. Evie did, too.

    “Problem?” I asked. My sister had a tendency to always have a smart-ass answer, and I didn’t think now would be any different.

    “You’re always complaining you have to do all these jobs, but then you’re the first one to volunteer. Make up your mind. Either let control go or deal with it,” Evie said, smiling at me.

    “Hero’s and Mason’s bikes are down,” Aiden added, not letting me snap back at Evie. “They are fixing them. Zack is out with the other new guy, doing a few things for us, but they aren’t ready to do what you are doing,” Aiden explained. “Zack isn’t exactly a master interrogator and Kane threw up last time he had to stab a guy.”

    “And you?” I snapped.

    “I’m babysitting. Want to trade?” he said, nodding toward Evie, who curled up in a chair, frowning at her phone now.

    “Yes, please trade,” she said. “I’m sick of him.”

    “Then stop fucking texting me when I am right next to you.” He shook his head, turning further in his seat not to look at her.

    She gave him a sweet smile. “But then I’d have to look over at your disgusting face when I talk.”

    “What do you have left?” he asked me. “Whatever it is, I’ll take it.”

    “I have to go find Elliot and hit him a few times until he’s ready to pay.”

    “Done. I’ll do it. Sit with your psycho sister instead.”

    “Aww, poor Aiden is mad. He had to come save me from a bad date, and didn’t get laid for it.”

    “Bad date?” I asked. Evie turned twenty-one a few months ago, and while I didn’t care if she dated, I wished she would be more careful about who she went out with. Plenty of people knew us and would use any excuse to get closer to us.

    “The guy’s an asshole and left her at the restaurant,” he said, looking over at her. “But it’s possibly because you pulled a gun out of your bag instead of your lipstick, psycho. And no, I didn’t think I would be getting laid. Don’t even make jokes or Rook will kill me.”

    She pouted out her bottom lip. “Rook, Aiden said he wouldn’t save me from my date unless I slept with him.”

    I ignored them and headed to my toolbox for my other gun. Their bickering pounded into my skull, and I clenched my jaw to keep the headache at bay. They always seemed to be at each others throat lately.

    “No, seriously,” Aiden said. “I’ll do it.”

    “Not a chance. You can stay here and make sure she doesn’t go hunt the guy down. I have to go hunt down a different one, and if we both go, we would be out all night looking for her and hiding a body.”

    She grinned. “If you don’t want me to do it, I can send you his address. You can swing by.”

    “Did he do anything to you besides run out of the restaurant because you scared the man to death?”

    “No,” she growled with a curl of her lip. “You two are the worst.”

    The motorcycle shop we ran in front of the building had closed hours ago, and now we would spend the night dealing with the other side of our business. The less than legal side, which made us the majority of our money.

    I shoved my helmet on and started up my bike. The beautiful murdered out R1 which, currently, was the love of my life. A perfect midnight black that blended me into the night whenever I needed, which would be helpful tonight. I shot off a text to the guy I paid to keep tabs on Elliot, and he quickly let me know Elliot would be attending an art exhibit for a date.

    My lip curled. Elliot’s family was as rich as they came, but he thought he could skip out on the fifteen thousand dollar gambling debt he had with us. Yet he’s spending his Saturday night at some uptight, highbrow art exhibit trying to get laid.

    What an asshole.

    I headed towards downtown, but I turned off when I recognized the road, taking a quick detour.

    Cameron Fletcher’s mansion rose in the night, the lights on it a beacon of wealth and regality. He thought of himself as a king, and he had enough money he could buy the title somewhere. Being so narcissistic, he probably already had.

    The vivid image of my childhood home in flames hit me, the smell of burning wires and wood making my stomach churn. I hated to think burning flesh had been mixed in, too. Then the harsh chemical scent as we made it out of the garage, Evie’s cries and screams as she tried to cough the smoke from her lungs.

    And maybe the worst image of all of them. The one burned in my brain and always seemed to appear at the worst times, my parents trapped in the flames as I stood outside.

    Now here he was. The man who did it had locked himself up safely inside his own home.

    Karma never came for the man who took everything from me. The horrible things he had done never came to bite him in the ass. They say people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, so Cameron Fletcher took that advice and built a stone house. He kept everything sealed and impenetrable so karma couldn’t get to him, and it had worked.

    Until now.

    Until I grew up and decided I wouldn’t wait for fate to intervene. I would be his karma.

    And nothing made me happier than planning to burn his life to the ground, exactly like he had done to mine.