CHAPTER ONE

      THE three men stood in close proximity.

      Tall. Dark. Silent.

      Clad in uniform black leather, motorbike helmets dangled from one hand. They each held an icy, uncapped bottle of lager in the other hand.

      Moving as one, they raised the bottles and touched them together, the dull clink of glass a sombre note.

      Speaking as one, their voices were equally sombre.

      ‘To Matt,’ was all they said.

      They drank. A long swallow of amber liquid. Long and slow enough for each of them to reflect on the member of their group no longer with them. Cherished memories strengthened by this annual ritual but there was an added poignancy this year.

      A whole decade had passed.

      Two decades since the small band of gifted but under-challenged boys boarding at Greystones Grammar school had been labelled as ‘bad’.

      The label had stuck even as the four of them had blitzed their way to achieving the top four places in the graduation year of their medical schooling.

      But now there were only three ‘bad boys’ and the link between them had been tempered by the fires of hell.

      Minimally depleted bottles were lowered but the silence continued. A tribute as reverent as could be offered to anything that earned the respect of these men.

      The sharp knock at the door was inexcusably intrusive and more than one of the men muttered a low oath. They ignored the interruption but it came again, more urgently this time, and it was accompanied by a voice.

      A female voice. A frightened one.

      ‘Sarah? Are you home? Oh, God…you have to be home. Open the door…Please…’

      The men looked at each other. One shook his head in disbelief. One gave a resigned nod. The third— Max—moved to open the door.

      Please, please…please…

      Ellie squeezed her eyes tightly closed to hold back tears as she prayed silently, raising her hand to knock for the third time. What in God’s name was she going to do if Sarah wasn’t home?

      It was enough to make her want to hammer on the door with both fists. Her arm moved with the weight of desperation only to find an empty space. Too late, Ellie realised the door was moving. Swinging open. It was all too easy to lose her balance these days and she found herself stumbling forward.

      Staring at a black T-shirt under an unzipped, black leather biker’s jacket. An image flashed into her head. She’d passed a row of huge, powerful motorbikes parked outside this apartment block and she hadn’t thought anything of it.

      Oh…God! She’d come to the wrong door and here she was, falling into a bikers’ den. A gang headquarters, maybe. A methamphetamine lab, even. Huge, powerful male hands were gripping her upper arms right now. Pulling her upright. Pulling her deeper into this dangerous den. Her heart skipped a beat and then gave a painful thump.

      ‘Let me go,’ she growled. ‘Get your hands off me.’

      ‘No worries.’ The sexy rumble from somewhere well above her head sounded…what…tired? Amused? ‘I’d just prefer you didn’t land flat on your face on my floor.’

      It was a surprisingly polite thing for a gang member to say. Ellie could do polite, too.

      ‘I’ve