Prologue

Uinta Mountains, Utah

It had been a long night and day – and this second night was looking like it would be even longer than all of that.

Liam ‘Viking’ Callahan looked up at the endless sky full of stars and sighed; he was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. This was unusual for him on both counts, seeing as he’d been a combat doctor in Iraq and had been well used to bearing witness to unimaginable ugliness and human suffering, and doing all of that on zero sleep.

These past twenty-four hours, though. They’d shaken him to his goddamn core.

But no matter how he felt about anything at the moment, he had the dead body of an abusive fuck to get rid of – it was Viking’s responsibility to make sure that Jolene Angeles’ monstrous ex-husband was never found. It had been a while since Viking’s skills in this area had been called on by the Road Devils and when the club President Wolf Connor had tapped him to return to the old ways, Viking had been apprehensive. For about thirty seconds. Then it had occurred to him that some things were just never forgotten.

Your first pet’s name. Riding a bike. Having sex.

And, in his case, being the body man for a one-percenter MC.

So he'd stood there in Jo’s bedroom the night before, over the body of her ex with his face literally blown off, and then calmly gone about planning what to do.

It had been easy – almost scarily so. Sure, the Road Devils had opted out of the criminal, one-percenter life over two years before when Wolf had taken over as Prez, but it was pretty clear to Viking that none of his brothers had lost their edge, including him. It wasn’t difficult to step right on back over to the dark side when it was completely necessary… and protecting Jo was necessary. She was the club accountant, a nice lady who’d been through hell, and she was the girlfriend of Silver Bennett, one of Viking’s MC brothers. She was family and family always came first: before anyone outside the club, before legalities, before God.

Viking’s family was his law and his religion.

So that’s why he had stuffed a dead body into the back of the MC van, gone to the club garage and loaded up a bunch of tools and equipment, driven eight hours from Colorado to Utah, and now stood in a heavily-wooded area in the Uinta Mountains. He’d spent the day preparing the frozen ground for digging and it looked like he’d be spending the night burning and burying the remains of a dead body.

It’s just like old times over here.

He sighed again and ran his large hands through his hair, then turned his attention back to the thawed dirt. Yep, it was good to go, so he squirted lighter fluid into the massive industrial-sized steel drum that he’d brought along, and then unceremoniously dumped the body in before adding more fluid and then setting it all on fire.

Viking took a step back and watched the flames for a while; they were both warming and soothing, and he felt his energy levels start to rise again. He had a lot to do before he could drive back to Denver, but he knew from past experience that he’d be able to get it all done in about five hours: body burned, bones plucked out of the ashes, hole dug, last bit of evidence buried and covered up, ashes scattered to the wild February wind.

He’d be home the next day by late morning. In time for an early lunch and then the sleep of the dead.

But first – take care of this dead.

Viking picked up the shovel and began to dig; his shadow danced in the glow from the fire as he moved, dark and graceful and strong.

In a strange way, it was almost beautiful.