A loud sound dragged me out of sleep—it wasn’t restful, the dreams always ensured that—but it had been deep. I lay quietly in bed, trying to control my breathing, ears and eyes straining to take in my surroundings in the darkened room.

Rowdy laughter came from the hall and my eyes darted to the door, where the slim line of light glowed from beneath it. I recognized one of my club brother’s voices as he tried to quiet another down.

The thud that knocked into my door had my heart galloping in my chest. I sucked in a breath and tried to find the doorknob in the dark, watching to see if it’d turn.

“You clumsy fucker. You’re going to wake everyone up! If you can’t hold your liquor, don’t drink so much,” Trip slurred, and I knew without needing to check that he was berating Drew. The two were practically joined at the hip.

The last fog of the dream faded away slowly as my heart calmed. I sat, still as a statue in my bed. I knew I was safe—for now. I hadn’t always been, and I tended to wake up at any slight sound, listening for any sign that I needed to run or fight. It was a hard habit to break. Hard to accept that safety wasn’t temporary.

Glancing over at the clock, I groaned and scrubbed my hand over my face. It was three a.m. and there’d be no going back to sleep. I could lay here, staring at the ceiling until it was time to get up, or I could do something productive with my time.

Mind made up, I flicked the light on next to my bed. The glow lit up my small room. I didn’t have much use for a lot of space so the room I was given at the clubhouse was perfect for me. This had been my place for the last ten years when somehow Cade managed to convince Dagger—our former MC president—to accept a bedraggled street kid into the MC.

In fact, Dagger had given me my road name. He called me Street Rat so often, it stuck. Cade offered to give me a different name, but I wore this one with pride. Over the years it’d been shortened to Rat, but I’d never forget where I came from or how hard I worked to elevate myself.

Dagger hadn’t let me officially join the club until I turned eighteen. Not that he was concerned with me being a legal adult, more like he was waiting for me to put on some weight and not look like a starved teenager. What he had done was put my tech skills to use from the day Cade and Riggs brought me home. They’d given me a place to live, safety, and a family. I’d never been close with Dagger or his officers, but there were many of the members I liked. Cade, Riggs, Steel, and Gunnar were the only four I trusted for a long time, though. Eventually, Axel came along, and he’d been added to our crew, and now Bass and I were like brothers.

I went over to my dresser and pulled on a t-shirt. I was already wearing sweats. I never slept naked. My formative years taught me that it was a bad idea. When you never knew who’d be sneaking up on you in the middle of the night you couldn’t leave that kind of shit to chance, or you’d be running around the city with your balls hanging out. Ask me how I know…

Shaking the memories away, I tugged on my running shoes and laced them. I crept down the hallway, careful not to wake anyone, even though Trip and Drew likely already had.

The gym in our basement was quiet and dark. I made it down without encountering anyone else and I was grateful for it. I hated letting the others see me after nights like these. The guys in my inner circle knew about my time on the streets, but that didn’t mean I wanted to rehash it every time this happened, which was a few times a week.

Starting up the treadmill, I began running. Two things leveled me out, running and hacking. The physical exertion of pushing my body to the limits beckoned me more than fucking around online this morning.

Everything smoothed out inside my brain as my feet pounded against the track below me. The whir of the machine, the sound of my own breath in my head, chased the remaining memories back to the dark corner I tried to keep them locked in. I let my mind go gloriously blank.

I couldn’t tell how long I’d been running—although I’d shucked my shirt already because it was drenched in sweat—when the door to the basement that housed our club gym was wrenched open.

My gait stuttered so hard at the movement that I almost ate shit. Cade paused just inside the door and shot me a hard look before he glanced down at the watch on his wrist.

“It’s four a.m. Rat. Why are you awake already?” His eyes narrowed on my face.

I found my rhythm again and kept running as I spoke. “Couldn’t sleep.” I left it at that. It wasn’t a surprise to see Cade down here this early, he seemed to sleep as often as me, and that wasn’t saying much.

I’d been down here for an hour already and yet as soon as I’d focused, my mind was whipped right back into that tiny room where the twelve of us lived. We’d be out working the streets during the day, but at night we were forced to stay there, huddled together for safety and warmth.

Cade quietly crossed the room and set up the station he used to lift, but he kept shooting me speculative glances. The man somehow always knew what was going on in my head. It wasn’t comfortable. Cade was like an older brother to me, though, and I trusted him with my life. He’d taken me on when no one else believed in me.

I’d been out, trying to meet my quota that fateful day. Joe Sullivan—or Sully as he made us call him—had a certain dollar amount he expected us to come back with. If we didn’t, the punishment was brutal. At twelve, my amount was much higher than some of the younger kids and I often gave them whatever I managed to pickpocket in the morning so they wouldn’t have to be out so long.

Earlier that morning, I’d tried to convince Sully that I could make him so much more money if he’d give me access to a computer.

“Fuck that technology bullshit! That’s how they watch you,” he’d screamed in my face. Even at that young age I knew something wasn’t right in his brain. “Get out there and go to work and if I catch you at the library again, Seven, I’ll make you pay.”

He’d numbered us. I was the seventh kid he’d found—or taken, in the other kids’ cases. He liked to crow that he’d found me, thrown out like the trash I was. Sully never failed to remind me that my family abandoned me to the streets when I was four. They’d left me huddled behind a dumpster in the pouring rain.

Thinking back on it, I guess I was lucky that Sully found me when he did. There’s no telling what might have happened to me otherwise. At one point in time—before the MC—I used to wish that I’d been left to that nameless fate. What could have been worse than living for eight years with a paranoid schizophrenic who stole children and forced them to do his bidding?

My phone beeping drew me out of my dark thoughts. Cade had given up on pulling me into any kind of conversation and was grunting away as he rep’d a weight bar that probably weighed as much as I did. I’d been working out with my brothers, but I had a ways to go before I was as ripped as some of these guys. Pride swamped me. I’d always been a pretty lanky kid, but I’d managed to build an impressive amount of muscle in a short time.

I pushed the stop button on the treadmill and opened the text message. A smirk tilted my lips as I read.

Armando:911, bro. Something crashed our bank of computers. None of us can figure it out. Can you make it over ASAP?

Making money was something that I’d been doing from a very young age. As soon as I was able, I started up a business fixing electronics. The club always encouraged entrepreneurship; it was an easy way to launder money. It was a pathological imperative that I be able to take care of myself. Those first years I did everything remotely. No one was going to pay to have a young kid fix their computer for them, so I couldn’t show up in person.

Once I hit sixteen, I’d adjusted my paperwork to read eighteen and started taking on more jobs. I’d been working for this particular client for years and both Cade and I thought it was hilarious. They’d be horrified if they knew who they hired. Of course, they had no clue. Oh, they’d done their due diligence with background checks, but when you could make your history reflect anything you wanted it to, there wasn’t much they could find. Since I didn’t know jack shit about my history at the time, it was all made up.

“Gotta go do a job. Everyone will be on their own for breakfast,” I told Cade. The majority of my jobs were still remote, so I spent a lot of time at the clubhouse. I’d naturally gravitated toward cooking for everyone. Shockingly, I had a knack for it and it was a way to force myself to spend more time around my brothers. I was a very solitary person, but when you were a part of an MC you were expected to be a part of the group.

“I’ll spread the word,” he grunted at me.

I paused before I scooped my shirt up. “I’ll be over at 715 East 8th.”

Cade racked his bar and sat up. A huge grin spread over his face. He knew all about this client. In fact, he was the one who insisted I take them on. It was beneficial to the club, and they paid well. I always gave the majority of my profit to the club. Cade had tried to decline at first, but it was one of the things I stubbornly refused to listen to him on. Once Cade took over, I’d given him all the back pay that I’d never handed over to Dagger. He didn’t have my loyalty the way Cade did, so I’d never shared when he was in charge.

He chuckled and shook his head. “Let me know if you end up needing anything.”

“Alright,” I mumbled before I headed upstairs to shower and change.

I sat on my bike and eyed the Austin Police Department building. It didn’t matter how much they paid, I hated coming here. There should be zero reasons for me to ever go into a police precinct without handcuffs. Cade was the boss, though, and the boss had put his foot down with this one. He had a point. Having the APD as a client allowed me access to their systems and I’d made sure to leave myself a backdoor I could access anytime I needed it.

I shrugged my cut off and locked it in my hard-shell saddlebag after I tugged my backpack out. I put on a shirt that said Use the Force, Harry, a little bit of nerd humor, and threw on a set of glasses. I looked one hundred and eighty degrees off from an MC member. Kind of the point when going into a police station. I shouldered my backpack, it had my laptop and all the gear I’d need to fix pretty much any problem.

Putting my bag on my back, I strolled in the front door of the police station. The cop sitting at the front welcoming desk glanced up and immediate relief washed over his features as I came walking up.

“Carl! Good to see you. Our computers completely shit out on us. We had to send our officers over to precinct three to do their reports. A complete pain in the dick.”

I chuckled and leaned against the counter. “I’m sure I can get you guys set back up here pretty quickly.”

“Who’s this?”

We both glanced up as a detective walked over. I didn’t recognize him. I never forgot a face, so I knew I’d never met the man before.

“Oh, Zane, this is Carl. He takes care of our tech issues.”

“I thought our tech crew takes care of our tech issues?”

I watched the detective eyeball me. It was obvious he was one of those cops who did everything off gut instinct and his was currently telling him I was no good. I couldn’t blame him. Typically, these guys and I fell on opposite sides of the law. Not today, though. Today I just wanted to find out which asshole had downloaded something that he wasn’t supposed to and given their precinct a virus.

Zane’s gaze dropped down to my shirt, then raked over my jeans until it stopped at my Chucks. There was a sneer firmly planted on his face when he met my eyes again.

“Oh, well, Carl is the one we call when our tech guys can’t fix things,” Larry said lamely.

I grinned over at him to try to defuse the situation. Larry was a pretty nice, mellow guy, unlike Zane. I’d chosen the name Carl to try to be as unassuming as possible. No one named Carl was a daredevil. You would be as likely to find a Carl in an MC as you would a Larry. The name helped me fit in a little better.

“This is how you show up for a job?” Zane continued on as though Larry hadn’t even spoken.

“That’s how all the techies dress,” Larry piped up. Zane continued ignoring him.

I glanced down at my clothes. All the really strict ex-military types looked at me this way. It was all part of the act.

“What’s your last name, Carl?” Zane asked. I could see irritation stamped all over his face that I hadn’t said anything to him yet.

The easiest way to get under the skin of a guy like this was to match his loudness with silence. They hated that. Before I had a chance to respond to him, a harried-looking Armando rushed into the room.

“Ugh, there you are,” he told me. He frowned at Zane, but motioned for me to follow him.

I shot Zane a smirk and walked with Armando toward the back.

“What do we know about that kid?” Zane didn’t even try to keep his voice down, so it floated over to us before we left the room.

“Sorry about him,” Armando told me as he waved his key card in front of another door that would take us back to the area I would need to access to fix their system.

“No problem. New?”

Armando made a face. “He just transferred in. Keeping a low profile doesn’t seem to be his strong suit.”

I snorted at that. Men like him could never keep their mouths shut or their heads down. They didn’t go with the flow. Instead, they preferred to battle their way upstream. Sometimes, it worked for them and everyone loved them for it. Other times, you ended up with…well, Zane.

Ten minutes later, I had my laptop out and was wading through the eleventh precinct’s internal system looking for the digital culprit. It probably wasn’t too big of a deal. Some guy likely decided to look up some porn while he was bored at work and accidently uploaded a virus along with the video.

My phone dinged so I looked over. I wasn’t quick enough to bite back the groan. Armando popped his head around a corner.

“Is it bad?” he asked anxiously.

“Sorry, man. It’s not that, I just heard about another job I don’t want to do.” I shot him an apologetic smile. Armando was a nervous ball of energy at the best of times. He was a neurotic mess right now with the entire system down in the precinct he was in charge of. He mumbled something and disappeared around the corner again.

Eyeballing the spot to make sure he didn’t pop out again, I picked up my phone and studied Cade’s text.

Cade: You’re meeting Sal and his daughters to get to know them. He’s also set up a dinner for the end of the week. No excuses. We’ll send a few others with you, but no more putting this off. Your time is almost up.

Last week our club entered into an agreement with Salvatore Giuliani, the biggest Italian Mafia Don in Austin. He wanted to align himself with us, and through us with our allies—the Zetas and the Bratva.

He invited us all over to his fucking mansion and dropped a couple of bombs I was still trying to absorb. I was the younger brother of Enzo Volkov, the Bratva’s Pakhan. My name was Viktor—with a K. What the fuck kind of name was that? Stupid Russians and their ridiculous spelling. In order to form this alliance, I had two weeks to pick one of Sal’s four daughters to marry. Well, I amended, now I only had a week left to choose.

I felt the blood drain from my face. The thought of marrying a stranger made panic claw its way up my throat. At the time, I’d agreed because I knew it was what had to be done to help our club. We’d just killed Miguel Guzman and his five brothers weren’t going to be very happy about that when they found out.

Something told me they weren’t going to care that Miguel started the beef with us by stealing Gunnar’s girlfriend or that he’d ensured his own demise by trying to kill Diego Juárez—and by default since we were with him—myself and Ming. Axel, Diego’s older brother, and our MC’s Road Captain, hadn’t been about to let any of that slide.

All of us were prepared to take on any of the remaining Guzmans who showed their face in Austin. The problem was the Guzman Cartel had vast amounts of soldiers. That was why we’d joined up with the Italians. It gave us greater numbers and a hope of standing against the Guzmans.

I hurried through and finally managed to isolate the virus plaguing the cops’ system. I was right. It was porn. It didn’t take me long to finish up and have everything back up and running again. Armando thanked me endlessly as he walked me back out front.

I straddled my bike and pulled my phone out of my pocket. It wouldn’t be right to leave my president on read. I typed back a response before I pulled out of the lot.

Tonight, I’d be going on a date with my future wife. Fuck me.