Weston, sixteen-years-old, continuedI turn back to the dilapidated house with its peeling beige paint and junk littering the front yard. My parents, who intoxicated the most precious thing in this entire world to me, are waiting inside.I walk in to find Jase standing in front of them while Ransom has his guns trained at the back of both their heads.

Ransom“The bastard son I raise ended up being nothing like me, but in you I see it. You have no empathy for those around you. No pesky feelings of sympathy. You can’t love. Everyone is just a pawn in your life, a useful tool to benefit you. Otherwise, you would have no use for anything. Your psychological diagnosis is all that I’ve hoped for, a true psychopath, like me,” Gerhardt Fuchs says like some demented, proud father.  We might share genes since his sperm helped bring me into being, but I much prefer the drunken gambler who raised me as his own. He is my father, not this psychopath before me. “My bastard cried about everything as a child. I had to break him and even then, it didn’t work. He might be a sociopath, but he still had a bleeding heart that needed to be severed. I cut him off. I removed him from my board altogether u

Weston The sea water is cold but exactly what I needed this morning. One side of South Madre Island is the gulf, and the other is the ocean. The ocean side has the best waves, which is where I currently am sitting on my board and bobbing along, waiting for the larger waves as the sun rises. It’s so beautiful out here. I miss this, just not the rest of the memories that I have of my time spent growing up here. I have been raising my brothers for almost ten years now with the help of Chaos. It’s been that long since I’ve had a getaway without them. We usually bring Preston

Ransom My phone rings and it’s Ryder’s number that pops up. I answer with my name the same way he does. We might not be blood-related, but the man I share my genes with is the same man who raised him. “We might need to put Lachlan on paper as Carley’s husband when you all get married,” Ryder says as if we are all already engaged, and we didn’t just reconnect three months ago. “Why’s that?” I ask him curiously. “His mother is at it again. This time, she somehow has his signature. I found a filed form saying if Lachlan isn’t married before the age of thirty, he gives up his inheritance to his mother. If he spent any of it, he then has to pay that money to her.” “Good thing he has spent none of it then. He only spends his earnings on our jobs,” I say, unhappy that the gold-digger is at it again. When will Lock be free of that abusive, selfish woman? I wonder. “He has a few years, but honestly, the sooner the bett

Jase “Well, well, if it ain’t my lost little Cajun toy. Where have you been, boy?” Etienne’s body goes rigid at the sound of Axe Zen’s voice. I’m sparring in the ring with Tee, who is here helping Weston get this new gym set up for Weston to run it officially when he graduates. Weston already owns it. I watch as Etienne moves with deadly calm toward the rope barrier. He leans over it, grinning down at Zen. I have a feeling the man in this ring with me now is not the same person Zen once thought he knew. “If it ain’t ma old lover,” Etienne purrs at him. “It’s been, what, not quite ten years since we last saw one another? You look… even older,” he taunts Zen with a rictus. “I didn’t expect you to be in Palomino Bay when we started expanding our territory,” Zen replies. Etienne scoffs. “More like you forcibly moved. Hear da Las Mangemorts teamed up with da Death Riders an’ kicked you outta Grêle.” “I guess you still have crew connections, my toy,” Zen purrs at the former gang