But that was then and this was now, and things weren’t the same. Not even close.

He’d gotten her message loud and fucking clear about who she really wanted on the day she’d told him the baby inside her was Jase’s, even though they’d both known she was a damn liar.

Yeah, he’d fucked that all up. Taking what hadn’t been his to take, forcing her hand, essentially blackmailing her into his bed, none of it had been the right way to woo a woman you wanted. But even now, older and wiser, he still couldn’t bring himself to regret not even one fucking second of it. Not when it had resulted in the birth of his son. Hearing that little boy call him Daddy, seeing those big eyes looking up to him for . . . everything. No fucking way would he ever regret a single moment that had led to Christopher. Not a chance in hell.

Still, he’d always kept his feelings, his yearnings, and his disappointments to himself. Well, other than announcing to all and sundry that Christopher was most certainly his. After finding out Dorothy had been shot, not knowing whether she was going to live or die, there was no way in hell he was going to let a lying, cheating piece of shit like Jase Brady raise his kid.

A good thing, too, seeing as Jase couldn’t seem to do much of anything since then other than lift a bottle to his mouth.

I’ll be there tomorrow.

As he typed out his message, he felt his dour mood begin to lighten. Shit might be in permanent stasis between him and the woman he loved, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t thankful for the time he got to spend with them in some semblance of a family. When you lived on the road, you learned to appreciate the little things.

“Brother.”

Hawk recognized Hammer’s voice before the man himself walked out from the shadows. Hammer was president of the Las Vegas chapter of the Hell’s Horsemen motorcycle club. With a shaved head, sparrow beard, and built like a tank, Hammer was a fearsome-looking beast of a man. He’d gotten his nickname after beating a man into a bloody, unrecognizable pulp with nothing but his own two fists.

If Hawk hadn’t been secure in his own reflexes, in knowing his trigger finger was as steady as a rock and he hit dead center hit every damn time, he might have feared the man.

“You look like hell,” Hammer said, approaching him. “Long ride?”

Sliding his phone back into his cut, Hawk shook his head. “Long fuckin’ life, brother. Long fuckin’ life.”

Hammer snorted. “I hear that. My old lady’s been givin’ me hell. Knocked up a patch whore, bitch is demandin’ money . . . I’m about ready to start eatin’ concrete outta here.”

“Been runnin’ 66 for a grip now,” Hawk said, his gaze dropping to his saddlebags. Inside lay his Miles City rocker, the patch he’d given up when he’d gone nomad. “Shit’s startin’ to wear on me.”

Hammer’s expression turned grim. “I got you, brother. I like to bitch, but ain’t nowhere I’d rather be than here with my boys. You do this job, you goin’ home?”

Hawk shrugged. He didn’t have a home, not really. As much love as he had for Deuce and the club, after everything that had happened, he wasn’t able to sit in one place for too long. He’d start dwelling on the countless things he couldn’t change, wishing for things he couldn’t have. The road was a better place for him. Running jobs across the country, keeping him busy, too busy to sit down and think about how jacked up his life really was. But Hawk had never talked about his problems, or worse, his feelings, with anyone. And he wasn’t about to start now, especially with an asshole like Hammer.

“So this shit’s for real then?” he asked, jerking his chin toward the broken-down warehouse. “Z’s really inside?”

“Shit’s real,” Hammer answered. “Seen ’im with my own two eyes. He’s lined up now, got two boys ahead of ’im. Coulda put ’bout fifty holes in ’im by now.”

Hammer’s expression hardened. “Wanted to. Man’s gotta pay the price for what he’s done.”

Hawk wished he had, wished the deed was already done, and done by anyone but him. But ZZ had been one of Deuce’s top boys. Because of that, it had to be one of his own that put him to ground. It was the rules of the road and a code they’d all sworn to live by.

Pulling his smokes out of his leather jacket, Hawk lit one up and surveyed the warehouse. “How many exits?” he asked.

“The whole fuckin’ place is full of fuckin’ holes and ready to crumble.”

“Fuck,” Hawk muttered.

“Yeah. I got three of my boys with me, each of ’em hangin’ by an exit. But this fucker’s a slippery bastard. How many times he been spotted and got away clean?”

“Too many,” Hawk said grimly. An intense wave of exhaustion washed over him, settling deep into his muscles. He took another drag off his cigarette, hoping the nicotine would shake him awake some. After all day on the road, he was more than tired. He was damn near comatose.

Blowing out a breath of smoke, Hawk flicked his cigarette away. “Let’s do this,” he said, and together he and Hammer headed toward the front of the building. As they grew closer, the din of noise that could be heard from outside grew louder, more discernable as excited shouting.

Stepping past the broken and bent steel door, he found the large room empty, other than a few pieces of rusted-out machinery and scattered garbage that could just barely be seen. As he’d suspected, the noise was coming from beneath their feet, from the basement of the building, making him all the more wary of what was to come.

Silently, the two men continued slowly toward the stairway, the noise growing louder and louder with every step they took, until they’d reached the bottom, where it had become damn near deafening.

After exchanging a look with Hammer, judging by the man’s expression he was more than ready to put ZZ six feet under, Hawk gripped the edge of the already partially open door and pulled it open. The dimly lit, smoke-filled storage room was filled with wall-to-wall bodies, both men and women, pressed up against one another, all shouting at the top of their lungs.

This wasn’t the first bare-knuckle cage fight Hawk had been to. The underground fighting circuit was infamous in Vegas, and in his youth he’d taken part in his fair share of illegal betting in abandoned warehouses very similar to this one.

But as Hawk shoved his way through the spectators, his hearing began to adjust, the screams of the crowd beginning to sound less like excitement and a lot more like bloodthirsty war cries.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” They chanted the lone word over and over again, in and out of unison.

Realization slammed into him like a runaway freight train. This wasn’t any ordinary cage fight, this was a fucking death match. All around him, bodies were straining against one another, their arms raised in the air, holding up their money as they continued to trample one another, attempting to get a better glimpse of the gory entertainment.

His apprehension mounting, Hawk glanced over his shoulder, looking over top of the crowd seeking out Hammer. Due to the sheer volume of people packed inside the room, the man had fallen a ways behind him. Only because of Hammer’s size could Hawk find him, violently shoving people out of his way as he made his way toward him.

Hammer having reached him, the two of them stood side by side and charged forward. The size of their combined statures created a human battering ram that allowed them to slam easily through the remaining people, clearing a path to the front of the crowd.

A wall-to-floor steel cage had been erected in the center of the room, the floor within stained brown with the blood of past fights, and currently slick with the fresh blood of the battle presently raging inside it.

“There he is!” Hammer shouted, jerking his chin in ZZ’s direction.

At least it looked like ZZ—if ZZ and the Terminator had a fuck fest that had produced a love child named “Warmonger” who had been kept on a steady diet solely consisting of raw eggs and steroids.

The man was all deadly muscle, furrowed brows, and fists flying with a single-minded focus. To kill.

One, two, left, right, left. Hawk watched as ZZ hammered his bloody, swollen fists into his opponent’s stomach, chest, and face in that precise order, sending blood and teeth flying with every bone-crunching punch.

Like a machine, ZZ never once paused to catch his breath, never once missed a beat. On and on it went, him beating the other man senseless while deftly avoiding all punches aimed at him.

Watching him, Hawk felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention. Hawk wasn’t looking at ZZ; this was not ZZ, this wasn’t even a man. Hawk was looking at a slab of meat covered in skin, a walking, talking, still-breathing carcass.

But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. ZZ had just cornered his opponent against the cage wall and in a quick maneuver, grabbed a fistful of the other man’s hair, forcing his head down and his body to fold over. Then bringing up his own knee, ZZ slammed it into the man’s face, snapping his head backward and breaking his neck.

As the man slumped to the ground, his lifeless eyes wide open, the crowd erupted in an explosion of exhilarated cries and shouts. Only Hawk and Hammer remained still, frozen in the midst of the chaos.

What in the holy fuck had he just witnessed?

Seeing his former brother like this, a man who’d once been so damn easygoing, always had a grin on his face and a joke to tell, turned into a ghost of his former self, a stone-faced killer . . .

Well, it didn’t exactly leave him feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Quite the fucking opposite, actually. And he might have just continued to stand there, staring, leaving him vulnerable to ZZ noticing him if Hammer hadn’t grabbed him, yanking him backward into the crowd. The cheering people swarmed around him, hiding him from sight just as ZZ straightened and turned to face his fans.