PROLOGUE
CERBERUS
Growing up, all I wanted to do was join an MC. I figured for a while there the only way to get what I wanted faster was through the club President’s niece.
Ember.
I fucked up along the way where she’s involved. In more ways than one.
First, she was wild. Wilder than you could imagine. Mostly, she was rebelling against all three of her uncles’ rules. Second, I fell hard for her. Harder than I thought possible. I would’ve even given up what I wanted to be with her, but then I fucked it all up. It was a complete accident, still, it was a fuck up all the same.
Ember overheard my brother, Azrael, at the time,he didn’t have that name, I didn’t have mine either. We were just high school kids bullshitting. That part didn’t matter. It was the fact that she heard him asking me if I was gonna be able to get into the club faster with dating Ember.
To say she lost her shit on me doesn’t even describe it.
That was the end of us. After high school, she left. She went to school in New York at some elite college. I spiraled a bit. It didn’t feel right to approach the club about wanting to be a member. Not after I fucked up with Ember. If she came back, I didn’t want her to see me there and be hurt further.
A couple months after she went to school, though, Reaper approached me to find out what the deal was with me. He knew I wanted to join all along. He also saw I legitimately cared for Ember. I manned up and explained what went down between Ember and me. In the end, he had me prospecting, right alongside my brother. At the time, we were given the names Ghoul and Goblin.
That was years ago. Since then, we have earned our patches, earned our place in the club and our road names. The fact I’m named Cerberus doesn’t escape me. The guard to the gate of the underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. I didn’t mind it abit. I was honored to have been given the name by my brothers. It showed they trusted me.
What ended up shocking me was hearing Reaper telling Angel and Tombstone about Ember. Reaper had been pissed over something she’d done. It took a bit, but I found out she dropped out of the school she was at and was living in Montana, dating a guy she met while at school.
I don’t know what went down. No one does. It’s been kept closed lip.
Now she’s back and working as a dispatcher. When we’d been together, she’d talked about going to school for business. For her to come back home to be a dispatcher surprised the hell out of me.
Something else I noticed that didn’t sit well with me is that she didn’t seem like herself. Yeah, I’d seen her get into it with her uncles. She still had that fire about her but was missing her spirit. It was gone. She hides herself away and didn’t let anyone get close to her.
Not long after moving home, she found herself a place she moved into.
With all the shit that’s been going down with the club, I thought she’d have been staying with one of her uncles. It would’ve been better for her to stick to one of them.
Now, she’s gone. Missing. And no one knows where the fuck she is.
Or who the group is that took her.
The only thing we know about the ‘Nameless Milita’ is that it’s led by a man that goes by Dead Eyes, or that’s what Diablo’s woman called him, but his name’s Samir Byrd. That’s about all we know.
Regardless of what we know, I’ll find Ember, and when I do, I don’t think I’ll be able to let her go again. Secrets rest in her eyes that hadn’t been there before she left, and I won’t deny I want to know what they are.
CHAPTER 1
EMBER
Coming home, I didn’t know how I would feel or how it would go. I’d been gone several years now. I hadn’t come back here. Not once in the time I’d left to go to school in New York. Then, I moved to Montana after what happened.
I try not to think of it. What happened to me to get the scars I now carry on my arms and the one dead center of my chest.
I tried to overcome what happened to me, but I’m still plagued with nightmares. Sometimes, I’d go days, weeks, even months without having them, then they start all over again.
Dex had been there for me after it happened, but in the end, I think the two of us made the rightdecision to break it off. I couldn’t give him what he needed. I felt like I was pretending more often than not. I also missed being around my family. It simply wasn’t the same in Montana. I needed to be near my uncles, my uncles and their families. I wanted to be able to get to know the women who caught their attention enough to settle down.
Even if they drive me crazy, I still love them all. The only one of them who knows what happened to me is Reaper, and he swore he’d keep it to himself until I was ready to share. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to share. Telling him hadn’t been easy. I wanted to throw up, run away, and so many other things all at once. I hadn’t even been able to meet his eyes afterward.
It was Reaper who made me look him in the eye. I’d seen the pain there, but I didn’t see pity. He’d told me to take my time. Heal. He wanted me to come home but let me go all the same. It surprised me how he hadn’t blown up, but I want to think he was giving me what I needed.
After leaving Montana, I hadn’t come straight home. I’d gone and stayed with my cousin, Bethany, and her family in Virginia.Bethany didn’t know what happened or why I split from Dex, but she offered to let me stay in Virginia with them. I stayed for a little while, spending time with her andcatching up. We’d gone to the beach, and I got to hang with her and Chaz’s kids. Melody is awesome. I know when she gets older, she’s going to be hell on wheels.
