Patch stared at his mother's lifeless body with an emotionless expression. There was one thing to see a dead body, but a complete other to see your own mother dead.And she was … dead. Lifeless like an object, not a human being. Patch tried to see her as that, but it didn't work. All he could think about was his time as child, before drugs took over her life. He had so many questions, but he couldn't take his eyes off her. Her eyes were opened, unmoving, staring up at the water stained ceiling as if it would bring her back to life somehow. She never left with some man, she'd been killed, kidnapped, and Patch didn't know. Someone watched the house, obviously. They had to of been waiting for him to leave to dump her body. And what happened to Heather? There was an obvious struggle in the living room. It had to have been more than one person. But who? The Fallen Kings wouldn't have done this to him, would they? They might have taken Heather but they wouldn't have killed his mom after

Patch woke the next morning with an empty spot next to him. He felt relieved he hadn't been arrested in the middle of the night because of his mother's death. He'd been questioned, and he saw it on the officer's faces that they didn't believe him. It'd taken him hours to go to sleep after seeing his mother that way. Patch had seen his mother in many compromising positons over the years, but death was entirely different. The lifeless look on her face would scar him for eternity. He pulled the covers from his feet and sat up. Delaney's absence didn't seem unusual since she was an early riser, so he got up and walked down the stairs. The smell of food wafted toward him, and his stomach growled.Delaney stood in his shirt—which, made sense because he wasn't wearing one—and she stood in front of the stove cooking. He noticed a note on the island from her father about leaving for the day with Beth. He assumed it was because of her reluctance of having them there. Patch didn't care, and

Patch grabbed Delaney's bag and swung it over his shoulder. The Airbnb that Lucas owned was nice, and sat on a small lake right outside of town. He didn't understand why anyone would want to come visit their small town, but this house was definitely a retreat away from city life. Delaney got out of her car and whistled. "Fancy, Lucas. Look at you, moving on up in the world." Lucas chuckled, and dug a set of keys from his front pocket. It felt nice to have Lucas not wanting to kill Patch. Not that were back to their usual friendship, but maybe they could get through a day without beating the crap out of one another. "Who all knows that you own this?" Delaney asked, as she followed her brother up the stairs. "I don’t know, why?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder. "Because I don't want Dillon showing up and killing me in my sleep, Lucas." Lucas opened the door to the house, and punched in a code disarming the alarm, while walking through and turning on the lights. "Do you rea

Gabriel sat on the desk in the front office, smoking a cigarette when Patch walked into work the next morning. Everything Delaney mentioned about Gabriel hit him, and he wanted to believe that Delaney was being paranoid, but he wasn't sure. "What up," he said, putting out his cigarette. Patch tossed his helmet onto the front lobby seats, and glared at him. "Oh, you know, just finding my mother dead at my house. Ya know." By the look on his face, Patch knew he had heard the news. "I'm sorry, bro. I didn't know how to bring it up. Any news about it?" Patch wanted to reach inside Gab's mind and pull out the truth. If The Fallen Kings had kidnapped Heather just to see how Patch would react, wouldn’t they have taken her back after Patch found out? And wouldn't that have put them at Patch's house where his mother turned up dead? "No. Where is Heather?" Gabriel hopped off the desk and pulled up their computer system. "I'm not sure, I haven't seen her since you came and took her. You

He felt his insides turn to stone as the officer shoved him into the back of the police cruiser. The bars caged him in, making everything seem much more real. Not that his mother showing up dead didn't scream real. But this clarified who their number one suspect was ... Patch. So many memories surfaced, causing flashbacks from his youth when he was just another bad seed. However, he wasn't a bad seed anymore. Or … he didn't want to be. He expected them to question him about his mother's death. He knew they would because he'd been staying there; it was the address he put down on everything. His home address that felt like a ghost town now. They drove to the station in silence, he didn't dare speak or act out to give himself another mark. He had enough strikes against him. Being in The Fallen Kings, a bastard, and the son of a dead druggie didn't look good for him. They escorted him back into the station and into a room with a two-way mirror, a table and three chairs. One of the o