Kingdom's Reign

Prologue Kingdom’s head throbbed like someone had slammed it with a ten-pound sledgehammer. Cracking an eye open, light blazed through it like a cruise missile. He shut it with a moan. Nails drilling into his eyeball would have caused less pain. He tried to pull himself up. His eyes snapped open again and found his wrists manacled to a white paint-chipped wrought-iron headboard. Fury wracked his chest, and he jack-knifed up off the bed, only to be yanked backward by the cuffs linked to the iron bars. Straining against the shackles, he growled, “What in the ever-loving-fuck?!” Kingdom dropped down to the mattress with an exhausted thud. A metallic odor suffused his nostrils. He glared up and caught the blood stains covering his hands. Choking on his saliva, he cried out, “Chop.” Neon snapshots splashed through Kingdom’s mind. Heaving up Chop’s sprawled body, his wounded face glued to the floorboards. Touching Chop’s temple, tainted with coagulated blood. Chop’s favorite Glock lay in his palm. Kingdom’s gaze sliced from Chop’s temple to his hand. Temple, hand, temple, hand. A single lucid fact coalesced in his mind: Chop had gone and killed himself. He’d gone ballistic, swinging at the air and smashing objects across Chop’s living room. Abruptly, he stood stock-still amid the chaos, snorting through his nostrils like a bull. The next moment, his head rammed into the wall. On and on he went, bashing his skull, leaving splintering holes in his wake. It took three brothers to take Kingdom and knock him out. “No wonder my damn head is pounding.” They may not have shared the same blood, but they were more than blood brothers to one another. They’d grown up together, served together, and joined the Demon Squad together. Fighting against the metal cuffs, he cut up his wrists, his fresh blood trailing over Chop’s dried blood. “For fuck’s sake, I was his keeper. I failed him,” he bellowed out. Out of breath, he paused and surveyed his surroundings through swollen, itchy eyes that begged to be scratched. Chained up in a bare room, the dents and scrapes in the plaster told him that he was in one of the Squad clubhouse’s crash rooms. Christ. I’m on fucking lockdown. Pissed to hell and back, he thrashed against the handcuffs and the nylon ropes lashed around his ankles. “Cocksucking motherfuckers! You pussies hogtied me. When I get free, I will kill you, every damn one of you!” The door banged open and Prez, the Demon Squad’s president, entered with a warning rolling off his tongue. “Calm the hell down, or I’ll get Cutter to come in and tranquilize you again.” Prez’s words rattled through his head as if he’d used a bullhorn in his ear. “Again? What in the hell do you mean again?” Kingdom raged. Prez reached the bed and viciously pressed his elbow down on Kingdom’s bruised shoulder to get his attention. Panting through his mouth, Kingdom gasped, “Son of a fuckin’ bitch!” “Get your shit together, Kingdom. Chopper put you down as executor of his will. We gotta bury him, and we ain’t doin’ it without you.” Prez took out a key and released Kingdom from his bonds. It was the mention of Chop’s funeral that kept him from choking Prez out once his hands were free. Peering closely at the cuffs, he said, “Wait, these better not be the ones Cutter uses on his bitches.” Ignoring him, Prez stated, “You’ve got five minutes to settle your ass down before you join the rest of the brothers waitin’ on you downstairs.” Lancing Kingdom with a sardonic look, he continued, “I trust you won’t wreck this place like you did Chopper’s.” The motherfucker walked out, leaving the door swinging wide open. Kingdom wiped the cuts on the mattress, cursing under his breath, and swung his legs over the bed and onto the ground. Soundlessly, Loki walked in and stood, glaring down at him, arms folded over his chest. “You’ll get no forgiveness from me, you murdering bastard. I’ll let you live a while longer to see you suffer, but when I’m ready, I will fucking decimate you.” Kingdom stared up at the ceiling. “Bring it, my brother.” The last words were tinged with sarcasm. He got that Loki was suffering. He really did, but if Loki was looking to heap more hurt on Kingdom than he’d piled on his damn self, he’d be in for serious disappointment. “You at your worst ain’t nothin’.” “Is that right? You crowned yourself the motherfucking King of Pain?” He snorted. “I don’t think so. You have to suffer a helluva lot more to deserve that honor.” “Fuck you, Loki. I’m not trying to get off easy, but I missed the signs. Shit, man, we all came back fucked up from Iraq. You were his brother by blood and you didn’t see one damn thing, so don’t think taking your grief out on me is gonna get you off the hook.” Loki was on top of Kingdom in an instant, his hands wrapped tight around Kingdom’s throat. He swallowed against the pressure on his windpipe but did nothing to break the other man’s hold. Loki’s voice cracked. “I gave him to you for safekeepin’, you good-for-nothing piece of shit. You might as well have pulled the trigger for him.” With two sets of fingers pressing on Kingdom’s throat, Loki slammed him down repeatedly. The stripped mattress creaked with each impact. Nose-to-nose, Loki snarled, “Too fuckin’ easy. It’s too easy to kill you now. I’m your fuckin’ shadow till I decide to off you. Till then, I will make every second you breathe a living nightmare.” “Stand down, Loki,” came an uncompromising voice. Loki released his death grip on Kingdom. “I won’t stand for a brother threatening another brother,” Prez pronounced. “If you kill him, then be ready to die. Feel me?” Loki’s face went hard with rage, stretching the skin of his cheek and tugging at the ragged edges of his scar. Voice tight, he seethed, “I get you.” “Good. Now get the fuck outta here.” Kingdom covered his eyes with his forearm as Loki’s biker boots stomped down the stairs. He understood Loki’s point. Chop was thirteen, Kingdom fourteen when they struck up a friendship. Chop was the youngest in a family headed by a son-of-a-bitch named Crimpton Scott, a serial-killer name if he’d ever heard one. He sure as hell acted like a psychopath. Chop’s mom was long gone before they’d met because of that son of a bitch. Before leaving for his first tour, Loki had made him pledge to take his place and protect Chop. He sure as hell had fucked that up. Raising his arm, Kingdom said, “Thanks. I don’t blame him for hating me, but it was gettin’ a little too real there for a second.” “Get over yourself,” Prez grumbled. “Brothers from the neighboring chapters are downstairs waitin’ on you to drink themselves half to death. We gotta represent.” Walking toward the door, he halted. Holding the doorknob, he counseled, “Watch your back because Loki’s gonna be mad-doggin’ you for as long as it takes to get over Chopper’s death.” After leaving him alone, Prez’s message hung heavy in the air as the door shuddered in its frame. Kingdom let out a strangled cry. With Chop gone, I’m done.