Kings of Mayhem (Kings of Mayhem MC 1)

“You kill me, Travis, and you know my family will go after yours.” My eyes held his steady. And I talked fast, because at any second this psychopath could blast me across the corridor and into the chem lab with a gaping 12-gauge shotgun wound to my chest. This was a fucking stupid idea. I should never have left the classroom. But there was no turning back now. I had to keep my voice steady and my confident façade in place. “If you shoot me, they will go after everyone, Travis. Your mom. Your dad. Your sweet, sweet sister. Hell, Travis, they’ll even go after your cousins. Second and third cousins, too. And they won’t stop until every last one of the Hawthorne’s are wiped from the face of the Earth.”

Going by the look on his face, he hadn’t expected me to say that. He hadn’t considered it. His eyes narrowed and he went to say something, but I stopped him. He was probably going to shoot me now anyway, so I might as well get as much in as possible before I went down in a hail of shotgun lead. I was too far in to back out now.

“And I promise you this, Travis—what my family will do won’t be as pretty as the shotgun blast you take me out with. What they’ll do to them… it will require getting up close and personal. Especially with your mom. Especially with your sweet, sweet sister Eve.”

What I was implying wasn’t true.

My family wouldn’t hurt the women. They wouldn’t touch them. Or rape them. My family might be mean sonsofbitches when they needed to be, but they didn’t vent vengeance on women. And they certainly didn’t rape. My granddaddy would roll over in his grave, cursing the day he ever started the MC if they started doing that shit. Sure, they didn’t exactly treat all women well—especially the young, eager ones who hung around the club waiting for MC cock—but they did look after their old ladies. Most of the time.

But my daddy could be unpredictable. And boy, he could be mean. Vicious. You didn’t fuck with Garrett Calley and get to walk away. But he didn’t hurt women. And he wouldn’t let anyone in the club get away with that shit either.

But Travis didn’t know that. He dropped his aim a little. He knew the Kings of Mayhem were bad motherfuckers. Which was good, because I wanted him to think the worst. And judging by the flicker of unease in his eyes, it was working.

But he suddenly frowned and raised his aim again.

“Don’t you say that!” he yelled, shaking the barrel of the gun and jabbing me in the chest.

I shrugged, like it was no big deal. But my heart was doing its best to beat itself out of my body.

“It’s the truth, Travis. You pull that trigger and your entire family is gone.” I was desperate to swallow the big damn lump in my throat. But more determined to show him that I wasn’t afraid of him. Which wasn’t true. Because I was fucking terrified. But I had Indy to think about. And my younger brother, Caleb, and my cousins, Isaac and Abby, who were somewhere nearby. I also had an entire high school of friends cowering under desks, terrified they were going to be blown away by this psycho.

Ha. And I was the one they called crazy.

The tip of the shotgun pressed deeper into my chest.

Then again, maybe they were right. After all, I was standing in front of this nutball with a loaded shotgun pointed at my chest—so clearly my peers had a point.

“Think about your mom, Travis. Think about Eve.”

At the mention of his sister’s name Travis Hawthorne’s eyes unfocused and he looked distant.

It took a split second for me to grab the barrel of the shotgun and rip it out of his grasp. Panicking, he reached for the Glock he had holstered to his hip, but he lost his grip when I hit him in the jaw with the butt of the shotgun.

I took aim, but he grabbed me and we both crashed to the floor. The Glock and 12-gauge spun across the linoleum and we both struggled to reach them with our outstretched arms.

With one well-placed knee I got him straight in the balls, and he growled with pain and curled up like a Roly poly. I launched for the closest weapon, and the instant my fingers curled around the handle of the Glock, I leapt to my feet and took aim.

Then I shot him.

For as long as I could remember, Indy and I had always talked about going away to college. When she got into med school, I applied to a college nearby and was accepted. Excited, we spent the summer planning our home together. Life was looking good. We would be far away from the club life that Indy hated so much.