Page 1 of Vandal Unbound

PROLOGUE

VANDAL

It’s the kind of Florida night when the air sticks to your skin and the roads still radiate heat from the day. My bike, perfectly tuned, growls beneath me as I cut through the dark, one hand loose on the bars while I think about nothing except what a perfect night it is.

The sky is clear, an inky blue. The stars are bright.

As I ride, I hum an old Scorpions classic. I was raised by a lover of eighties hair bands, what can I say. My mom and I would ride in her beat-up old car and sing on the way to anywhere. She used to say the best thing you could do with three minutes of your life was listen to your favorite song.

Better than meditation, she used to say.

Even while we ate her contradictory sweet and tart Key lime pie tonight after dinner, Cinderella’sNight Songsalbum played in the background. She jokes she was born in the perfect era of music and doesn’t feel the need to explore other options.

I pass Annie’s bar, still half lit but quiet for a weeknight, and roll onto the long stretch that leads me to the Iron Outlaws’ motorcycle club compound. Cypress trees crowd the road outhere, interspersed with the odd property that fronts onto the Everglades’ marshland beyond.

But I barely have time to acknowledge the headlights that flare in my mirrors before the vehicle slams into the back of my bike hard enough to launch me forward.

“Fuck—”

The rear wheel fishtails violently, and the metal beneath me protests.

The handlebars rip out of my hands, and suddenly I’m airborne. A weird weightlessness sends me flipping and spinning before the road explodes beneath me. My shoulder lands first, then my hip. Thoughts about fate flash through my skull. Any other day or time, I wouldn’t be wearing a half helmet for such a low-risk ride, but Mom hates seeing me ride without one, same with leathers, so I always wear both when I go to see her and when I ride away.

It’s the only reason my skull and skin remain attached to the rest of my body. My bike cartwheels ahead of me in a shower of sparks.

Pain tears through me so violently that I can barely breathe through it.

I roll maybe six times more before finally slamming to a stop on my back, staring up at the sky, while my body screams.

For a second, all I hear is ringing. Then a groan drags out of me as I try to move. But every time I go to push up onto my elbow, agony races through my body fiercely enough to make my vision blur.

Headlights wash over me as whoever knocked me off my bike comes to a stop beside me. At least they didn’t hit and run.

For a moment I’m relieved. Someone blocking the road is a good thing, because there’s no hope I could get out of the way fast enough if a car came chasing around that bend.

But when the black van’s doors open, three men, all big bastards, dressed head to toe in military-grade black uniforms step out. My heart stops.

“They weren’t joking about the size of this fucker,” one of them mutters as he nudges me with the toe of his boot.

Fuck.

They aren’t friendly. This wasn’t an accident.

I try to get my hand on the knife at my belt, but my right arm barely responds.

One of them, a man with a snake tattoo that winds up and around his throat, grabs me by the cut and hauls me halfway to upright. Stars spin as pain detonates through my shoulder. Then his first punch lands. Straight into ribs I swear are already broken.

I puke on his boots as breathing starts to feel optional.

“Motherfucker—” His boot catches me a second time hard in the hip as he kicks me and tries to wipe my vomit off his boots using my denim.

I want to scream at them, tell them to fuck off, but right now what few breaths I manage to take are only to preserve my life.

White-hot heat flashes through my skull as one of them kicks the helmet, the impact rattling my teeth. The grunt of pain the asshole makes when he realizes helmets are hard is little consolation.

My vision bursts apart. Warm blood pours down over my eye.

“Hold him,” a man says. His voice is new. Calm. Well-spoken. I hear the passenger door slam.