Razor's Edge (Underworld Kings)

Booked and fingerprinted for the first time in my life, following right in Monty’s fucking footsteps even though he no longer walked this earth.

I was alone in the cell—thank God for small towns. If anyone else came in, it would be more likely than not that we would know one another, especially considering the biggest criminal rackets in South Vale were run by my family. I hoped they didn’t try to pin my dad’s dirty work on me.

Hours after my stomach began grumbling a guard came and delivered me the saddest looking baloney sandwich I’d ever seen. But a redeeming and steaming cup of hot black coffee sat beside it and I’d almost never felt more grateful. There was also a cold bottle of water covered in condensation.

“I grabbed you the water, because the faucet tastes like shit,” the man told me as he set down the tray.

“I know,” I said, tearing into the white bread atrocity. I’d taken a long gulp when we got here, my throat wrecked with screaming and emotion only to spit it back out—the brackish rusty shit that tasted like it came out of a toilet.

“Is it true you shot Montgomery?” the guard asked. He was a young guy with a piggish nose and freckles dotting his face.

“Said I’m not supposed to talk about it,” I said with my mouthful.

“You’re Calvin Montgomery, right?”

What, now I was famous overnight for murder? Or it was because my father was notorious and now he was gone.

“If you’re wondering who’s going to take over his shitty empire, you should be looking at my brother Fox. I want nothing to do with his legacy.” I swigged down the coffee even though it burnt my throat.

When I laid down on the cot and put my arms behind my head, I stared at the ceiling and contemplated how fast a life could change in an instant. I’d fucked up Ellison’s future with one fatal fight. But my mother was now safe from Monty and I didn’t have a single ounce of remorse left in me.

I slept soundly all through the night.

The next morning, I was transported to arraignment where my bail was set at an obviously vindictive number by a judge who surely recognized my last name and knew without a doubt and likely personally, how much criminal activity went on within the MC. On the same token, the judge was probably aware of how much they got away with and my million-dollar bail was assurance against anybody springing me. Little did he know, the MC was more apt to kill me than they were to rescue me as I’d defied their very creed.

It was just as well, I didn’t fucking care.

I was safer in jail as long as I could steer clear of any members serving time. If Monty had brethren in the big house, I’d likely meet my fate with a blow to the back of the head whenever I least expected it.

The same guard who gave me the third-degree last night, locked me back into my cell. I could tell by looking at him that his lips were burning to spill some information.

“Spit it out,” I told him. He unlocked my cuffs and I rubbed my sore wrist where the metal had chaffed them.

“You’re on every cover of every paper this side of the Mississippi. Even made the national news last night. My wife Tevo’d it so I could watch this morning.”

“Yeah? What did they say about me?” I humored him. I flung my hair out of my eyes and gave him my best invested look while sitting on the cot bank.

My life was over, the papers didn’t matter to me.

He left and came back with a paper which he unfurled and held up through the bars. The Daily had run an old pic of Monty, shirtless, standing next to his Harley. A little nostalgia to drum up sympathy from the masses.

“Mongomery Patriarch Murdered by Angry Son.”

I was the angry son now, not the high achiever, star quarterback, singer-songwriter, all thrown to the dogs so they could define me as nothing more than an angry murderer.

I waved the ward away with my hand and laid back on the cot.

“Your girlfriend is downstairs in the lobby,” he said smugly.

I shot the fuck up.

“Technically, you’re not supposed to have visitors in holding except for council or special exceptions.”

I had a mind to loosen a brick and introduce it to his head. I had nothing left to lose, which made me a dangerous man.

“Make a special exception,” I told him dryly.

Fifteen minutes later, Ellison shuffled in looking like she had just killed somebody.

The warden got her a chair and set it in front of the bars and Elle took a seat properly like a lady, crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap.