Jack (The Kings of Mayhem MC Tennessee 1)

“You bring Bronte with you?” I asked Cooper.

Bronte was his best friend. Until she’d gone away to college the year before, she used to live next door to us. She and Cooper had grown up together and were inseparable from the moment they’d met. They were like two peas in a pod, always running around the backyard together, catching crawdads in the pond, and escaping into their own creative world beneath the house where they’d built a tepee out of worn blankets and bedsheets.

Rosanna and I always thought their friendship would someday turn into something more, but it hadn’t. He loved her like a sister, nothing more.

“No, she met a guy and went home with him for the holidays.”

“Is he a good guy?” I asked because Bronte was family.

“Seems to be. Won’t last, though.”

“Yeah? Why do you say that?”

He gave me a sheepish smile. “You know, Bronte… always looking for the next adventure.”

“She’s young.”

“And slightly crazy.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Only slightly?”

He smiled. “She’ll settle down one day. Find some handsome doctor somewhere and make a hundred slightly crazy kids. But for now, she’s happy.”

Life with a doctor? I doubted it. Bronte was a free spirit. No man was going to tame her wanderlust. Life in the ‘burbs wasn’t ever going to satisfy her wild heart.

I looked at the woven bracelet on Cooper’s wrist. Bronte had made it for him before she’d left for college. Eighteen months older than him, she had left when he was a senior in high school. She’d made them matching bracelets to remind him of their bond, and he never took it off.

“What about you?” I surprised myself with the seriousness of my tone. “Are you happy? Anyone special you want to tell your older brother about?”

An awkwardness fell between us.

Cooper never talked about girlfriends.

He shifted uncomfortably, and I noticed his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed thickly. “No.”

I saw a chance to bring up something that had been on my mind for some time and took it. “Cooper, if there’s something you want to tell me…” My knowing gaze found the dark blue of his. “You know… I just want you to be happy.”

He paused, and I saw the fight in his eyes as he wrestled with something. Like he wanted to tell me something but was struggling with it. It was a look I’d seen on his face many times before.

But the moment passed, and he cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. Cooper looked at the watch on his wrist. “Hell, is that the time. You’re right. I’d better get home before the MC grapevine reaches Rosanna, and she finds out I came here before seeing her.” He stood. “You going to be long?”

“A couple of hours. Give Rosanna some time to fuss over you without me getting in the way.” He grimaced, and I winked at him. Rosanna was going to be thrilled he’d made it home for the holiday. There was always room for one more around our table, no matter how tight things were.

I walked him out of the clubhouse, across the parking lot, and through the high gates that protected the compound from the outside world. It was cold, and the air swirled with frost.

Damn, it was good to have him home.

“I’ll see you at the house later.”

I grabbed him by the nape of his neck and pulled him in for an embrace, wrapping my arms around his body. I didn’t see my brother nearly enough, so I held him a little longer.

That was the moment the van rounded the corner.

That was the moment—while I was hugging my brother goodbye—a piece-of-shit thug rolled down the window of his van, took aim at us, and fired. Gunfire snapped in the air, short little bursts of sound, barking into the cold night. There was no time to react, and it was all over in a matter of seconds. With a squeal of wheels, the van sped off.

Time seemed to stop.

The world became a vacuum.

Cooper went limp in my arms and pulled me to the pavement with him as he fell. His eyes half-open, half-shut, his mouth slack, his lips parted. The death stare. I’d seen it more times than I cared to remember. I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to me, terror tearing up my spine.

No, no, no, no, no.

This wasn’t possible.

My brain seemed to tilt on its axis.

Not my brother.

“Coop!” His body was heavy as he slumped forward, his face falling against my chest. “Coop!” Panicked and desperate, I put his face in my hands and begged him to wake. “Brother… please… please… don’t do this.”

I knew he was gone.

But a part of me refused to accept it.

He was so young. His life was just starting.

Suddenly, it was chaos around us as my brothers ran out from inside the clubhouse. There was yelling, so much yelling, and I was only vaguely aware of what they were saying. The world slowed down, and everything passed me by as if it was happening to someone else.