Azrael, Angel of Death.
“You okay, brother?”
Patriot was standing next to me, his hand resting on my shoulder. I never heard him approach.
“Yeah, just lost a bit in the past.”
“You and me both,” he replied with a broken smile. “I know just what you mean.”
“We’re tough motherfuckers, Patriot. If our past didn’t break us, nothing will.”
He smirked, dropping his hand. “You got that right.”
“How about you? That was some fucked up shit, bro.”
Patriot shrugged. “Evil has to be punished. If I have to be the one to do it, so be it.”
“You’re not alone.”
“I know that, brother. I truly do.”
He left me to return to his room and I thought about Nylah, her sister, the missing girls in Nevada, and all the fucked up shit with the Scorpions. The last six years of my life had taken a drastic turn and it didn’t stop when I joined the Tonopah chapter. Maybe I was just destined for a certain life. Maybe fate had intervened, and I was set on a collision course that couldn’t be stopped until I ended up dead.
Perhaps that was why I never had any hesitation or trouble accepting that contract on the Devil’s Ride. It just felt right. My Reaper had embraced my thirst for vengeance and from that moment on, we were one.
I’d go to any lengths to get retribution after what Rancid did to my sister, and those fucking Russians were to blame as much as he was. If it meant my soul would suffer eternal hell and damnation, I could accept it. After all, I was commissioned by the devil.
Standing face to face with that calculating and greedy bastard was the scariest thing I’d ever done in my life. Once he presented that contract, there had been no turning back. Anyone who’s ever looked death in the eye will understand how deeply he can see into your soul. He always enticed you with the one thing you desired above all.
No one ever turned that brilliant monster the devil down.
I grew to love that vicious bastard that intertwined with my soul. We both got a thrill out of the messy, dirty work that an Enforcer did for his club. Torture became as addictive as a drug. Sure, I’d sold my soul for vengeance, but I chose the Devil’s Ride for the chance to confront those who deserved justice and calm my growing rage. In addition, I’d fallen in love with the carnage. Blood soothed my soul when it spilled from the bodies of my enemies.
I was lost to the darkness . . . but I was also embraced by it.
Six years ago, I came to Tonopah with Jameson. Grim opened his doors and his club. I would always be grateful to him for taking me in when I had nowhere else to go.
When the devil came calling and offered a chance for retribution, I couldn’t refuse.
Elrik Jameson and I split ways because it was too painful after that. Time and distance had grown the need for reconciliation, but it was something we both had to be ready for. I didn’t doubt someday it would.
Walking outside, I lit up a smoke and leaned back against the exterior of the compound. My Reaper was restless, his agitation increasing my own.
I didn’t know about Rancid’s connection to Solonik in the beginning. He kept that under tight wraps but when he began making his way through chapters of the club, using up resources and women, my fellow brothers became suspicious. Grim and Mammoth did some digging and when things didn’t add up right, they enlisted Xenon’s help. A whiz with computers, he found the financial records that proved Rancid was receiving substantial payments. The evil fucker didn’t even try to hide where the money was coming from.
That was the true connection.
I was shocked to receive a phone call from Rancid only days later . . .
The unknown number flashed across my screen as I straddled my bike, sitting in the parking lot of the Crossroads as I waited on Grim. I didn’t usually answer these types of calls. I only ended up cussing out some stupid telemarketer or scammer.
My gut instinct told me to answer this one, so I did. “Yeah?”
“You’re a hard man to track down, Ian Braxton.”
It was the first time I had heard his voice in three years, and it brought me right back to that night.
Snarling into the cell, my reaction was instantaneous. “I’m gonna kill you, you sick motherfucker.”