Thrust_Throb (Lost Devils MC #2) - Madison Faye

Prologue

Oliver

“Do you want to die?”

For most people, there might be a fairly obvious and quick answer to this question. There’s a right solid chance that the answer might even come a little faster when there’s a gun in your mouth. But, I’m not most people, and the answer is slightly more muddied than that. Okay, yeah, sure, the basic answer is “no.” But it’s never that bloody simple, now is it?

A week ago, I might have given Bryce the finger and told him to go fuck himself—not because I have a death wish or because I actually want to die, it’s just the way I’ve lived my life. Hard, fast, and without brakes. I’ve been that way since I was five—why change things up for a limp-dicked prick like Bryce Barnes?

“Hey!” Barnes stares at me before turning to giggle like a fuckin’ schoolgirl with his mates. “Is he fuckin’ retarded?”

To be fair, it’s a little hard to talk with four inches of cold Desert Eagle steel between your teeth. It’s like being in the dentist’s chair when the cunt starts asking about your holiday. No, you daft geezer, I can’t tell you how Spain is this time of year with half your fucking hand in my mouth. It also puts into sharp perspective any question a man has ever asked a woman while she’s blowing him. I guess the difference is, you can tell the dentist to fuck off. You can take a dick out of your mouth.

Bryce Barnes’s gun is only leaving my immediate vicinity when he damn well decides, and there’s a good chance that his decision depends on what I say next. And as we’ve covered, speaking ain’t exactly an easy feat right now.

This is what you’d call a tricky situation.

“Listen, you stupid, stupid little fucker,” Barnes grunts and pushes the gun against the inside of my cheek. I can taste gun oil and dirt and the coppery taste of metal. The grit and grime of the abandoned warehouse bites into my knees through my jeans, and I can feel the trickle of blood down my temple.

On a good day, Bryce Barnes is not what you’d call a balanced, rational individual. That’s actually putting it lightly, like saying Ike Turner “wasn’t the best husband” or that Jeffery Dahmer wasn’t an ideal neighbor. In normal circumstance, it’s not like Barnes needs a reason to have you on your knees in the middle of a crime-scene-looking abandoned warehouse with a gun in your face. In my circumstance though, it’s warranted.

Well, to him it is. To me, justice would be taking that gun, sticking it down his throat, and pulling the trigger until I paint this place with whatever shit fills his head.

But here’s the problem: at the end of the day, I stole what was his. I put hands on what wasn’t mine. I saw something beautiful, and good, and pure, and I put my dirty hands all fucking over it.

All over her.

“Listen you limey little cunt,” Barnes hisses and leans close. The gun presses hard into the side of my fucking cheek, and I grunt.

“I said, do you want to die?”

The answer, if things were simple, is no. Like I said, a week ago, I might have flipped the geezer off, told him to go fuck his mother, or if I was feeling especially, well, me, maybe just go ahead and pull my dick out or something. But that was then, and this is now. And now, things are different. Things have changed.

Now, there’s a light in my life I never knew before. I never actually wanted to die before. But now, I want to live. But this situation isn’t that simple. Nothing ever is in life, especially when you’ve lived it at a hundred-eighty miles an hour on two wheels and no brakes like I have.

Barnes isn’t really asking me if I want to die. He’s asking me if I want to turn over and sell out my brothers, and my soul. He’s got me on my knees asking me the impossible—choose between the brothers and the club that gave me a second shot at life and who would walk through hell for me, and the woman I love.

That’s why my mouth is shut. Or, as shut as it’s going to get with his gun filling it.

“Blow his fuckin’ head off, Barnesy!”

I turn my eyes towards the peanut gallery and roll them at Jay, Barnes’s thickheaded cunt of a second in command.

“Mfmmmgg.”

Barnes frowns. “The fuck did you just