Bish wouldn’t want me to wait, because the upshot of all of it was, I was doing it for Jessa. Being Defiance was the best way I knew how to protect her. So for her, I would stay here, make attachments. Risk everything. Because, by falling in love with her, I already had. And as I prepared to get my cut, Jessa squeezed my hand and said, “I wish...”
Me too, Jessa.
“I guess he’s here with us, right? He always is.”
I’d always believed that, but it was good to hear she did as well.
“He’ll be okay,” she said firmly. “He is okay.”
I don’t know if I agreed with that, but I nodded anyway, because today was a day for Defiance. The day I presented myself to get the Defiance tattoo—done by Tru, because that seemed entirely fitting—and the day Caspar gave me the Defiance rocker. I’d fought against many members of this club in order to be let in, and now, I’d be fighting for them.
I’d be fighting for the rest of my life for the people I cared about and that’s the way it was always meant to be.
Epilogue
Save a prayer
Luna
Four months later
A month earlier, Mathias had passed his final test and became a full-fledged Defiance member. There was some grumbling about the fact that he’d skipped the probie process, but most argued that six months of solid service to Defiance, while asking nothing in return, was more than enough during these times. Besides which, Mathias was a sniper, and Defiance needed more military men in their corner.
Luna watched him when Caspar presented him with his rocker and she knew it killed him not to be there with Bishop. It killed her too, but for different reasons.
She’d learned that Mathias wanted to wait for Bishop to come back before he had this ceremony. He hadn’t told her so directly, but she’d heard that Caspar was getting pressured to bring Mathias into the fold.
“Keller offered Bishop a night off to come here,” Tru told her last night. “Bishop refused.”
When she checked this with Mathias, just hours before, he’d signed, Yeah, I know.
“Why would he refuse?”
He doesn’t want to see what he can’t have.
“So why ask him in the first place?”
That wasn’t me. I’d never do that. He paused. He’ll come back, Luna. I know that. I’ve just got to keep being happy.
“But how can you be happy?”
Because otherwise, his entire sacrifice is a waste, and Bish is a big believer in sacrifice. It’s an important part of who he is.
It was a part of Bishop she thought she’d never understand. Now, she found herself driving through the night to Keller’s compound.
Normally, she’d have shared her plan with Rebel, because she’d shared everything with him for as long as she could remember. She’d been the butt of jokes, of pitying looks, but she’d kept a secret she wouldn’t even tell her best friend.
But Bishop...he’d known. They’d never talked about it, but it was there, in the way he looked at her, the way he treated her.
Most of all, it was in the way he looked at Rebel. I can’t protect him forever.
She drove the truck over the potholed roads at what seemed to be a hundred miles an hour. She’d thought about taking her bike, but knew that wasn’t smart, and these days, she forced herself to be smart.
Like driving up to Keller’s gates all by yourself is such a brilliant idea, right?
She told herself to shut up and pushed the car viciously into gear. Because she might be a lot of things, but scared wasn’t one of them. She’d thrown that emotion away after Aimee had gotten hurt, because fear had never gotten any of them anywhere.
* * * * *
Afterword
If anyone should ever write my life story...
—Gladys Knight & the Pips, “Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me”
Music’s always a huge part of my process, so it’s no surprise that it’s a big part of my characters’ lives as well. For both Mathias and Jessa, music is inside of them. Music saves them And I loved being able to tell their stories through the music, so I’ve included some of the playlists—aka the mixed tapes—they made for each other below.
These are the songs on the tape Mathias’s dad made for his mom while they were dating:
The Rolling Stones, “Wild Horses”
Frankie Valli, “My Eyes Adored You”
Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly”
The Eagles, “Take It Easy”
Queen, “Play the Game”
Janis Joplin, “Piece of My Heart”
Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Simple Man”
Styx, “The Best of Times”
The Rolling Stones, “Shine a Light”
Bad Company, “Ready for Love”
Seals & Crofts, “Get Closer”
Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Southern Cross”
George Thorogood and the Destroyers, “Who Do You Love?”
These are some of Mathias’s favorites:
Metallica, “Enter Sandman”
Def Leppard, “Photograph”
Godsmack, “Saints and Sinners”
Billy Swan, “I Can Help”
Alice in Chains, “Man in the Box”
Audioslave, “Like a Stone”
Cypress Hill, “Insane in the Brain”
David Bowie, “Young Americans”
Eagles, “New Kid in Town”
Kansas, “Carry on Wayward Son”
Sister Hazel, “Your Winter”
4 Non Blondes, “What’s Up?”
George Thorogood and the Destroyers, “Bad to the Bone”
Quiet Riot, “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)”
The Notorious B.I.G., “Hypnotize”
Great White, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”
Montell Jordan, “This Is How We Do It”
AC/DC, “Back in Black”
Rob Halford, “Light Comes Out of Black”
Duran Duran, “The Wild Boys”
REM, “Losing My Religion”
Styx, “Renegade”
Fleetwood Mac, “The Chain”
Papa Roach, “Last Resort”
Cypress Hill feat. Tom Morello, “Rise Up”
Pearl Jam, “Alive”
Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Trapt, “Headstrong”
Triumph, “Fight the Good Fight”
Godsmack, “Good Times, Bad Times”
Godsmack, “Love-Hate-Sex-Pain”
These are the songs that Mathias managed to find for Jessa:
The Verve, “Bittersweet Symphony”
Ace of Base, “The Sign”
Avril Lavigne, “Complicated”
Melissa Etheridge, “I’m the Only One”
Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Aeroplane”
3 Doors Down, “Here Without You”
Jay-Z, “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”
Sheryl Crow, “The First Cut Is the Deepest”
Linkin Park, “Numb”
Los Lonely Boys, “Heaven”
Maroon 5, “She Will Be Loved”
No Doubt, “It’s My Life”
Santana feat. Chad Kroeger, “Why Don’t You & I?”
Gwen Stefani, “Hollaback Girl”
Papa Roach, “Scars”
3 Doors Down, “Let Me Go”
Buckcherry, “Sorry”
Kings of Leon, “Use Somebody”
All-American Rejects, “Gives You Hell”
Marcy Playground, “Sex & Candy”
TLC, “Waterfalls”
Britney Spears, “...Baby One More Time”
Smash Mouth, “All Star”
Santana feat. Rob Thomas, “Smooth”
Creed, “Higher”
3 Doors Down, “Kryptonite”
Christina Aguilera, “What a Girl Wants”
Macy Gr
ay, “I Try”
Staind, “It’s Been a While”
Duran Duran, “Save a Prayer”
Elton John, “Levon”
Mötley Crüe, “Home Sweet Home”
Fleetwood Mac, “Over My Head”
The Moody Blues, “Your Wildest Dreams”
Don Henley, “The Boys of Summer”
Night Ranger, “Sister Christian”
Bad Company, “Ready for Love”
Supertramp, “Take the Long Way Home”
Papa Roach, “Scars”
Bad Company, “Shooting Star”
Pink Floyd, “Comfortably Numb”
Buckcherry, “Sorry”
Billy Joel, “Don’t Ask Me Why”
Eagles, “Try and Love Again”
These are the songs on Mathias’s goodbye tape to Jessa:
Santana feat. Everlast, “Put Your Lights On”
Guns N’ Roses, “Paradise City”
Coldplay, “Yellow”
Def Leppard, “Bringin’ on the Heartache”
Gladys Knight & the Pips, “Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me”
Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Simple Man”
Supertramp, “Take the Long Way Home”
Frankie Valli, “My Eyes Adored You”
Janis Joplin, “Piece of My Heart”
Snoop Dogg, “Beautiful”
Bad Company, “Bad Company”
Sublime, “What I Got”
Go back to the beginning of the post-Chaos world where motorcycle gangs rule with Defiance, available now!
Defiance
Rebelling against her legacy as the MC’s princess, Tru Tennyson escaped the ruthless, male-dominated culture of the Defiance motorcycle club. Three years later, her newfound freedom is ripped away, thanks to a massive hybrid storm that killed millions. Now, in the post-Chaos world of semi-darkness and near-total anarchy where gangs rule, she discovers the dangerous world of Defiance may be the one thing that can keep her safe.
Tru is at the MC’s mercy when she’s dragged back to her former home...and to the only man she’s ever pictured a future with. Caspar is the bastard son of the club’s leader, her safe haven when life got rough—and her onetime lover the night she left. When Tru refuses to trade sex for power and be claimed by a rival club leader, she also dares to announce she wants Caspar instead, throwing the MC into turmoil.
Tru’s brazen revolt could start a gang war and destroy the club from within. Now both Tru and the MC must wait for Caspar’s response...and the inevitable fallout.
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About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Tyler worked as a teacher while pursuing a PhD in English Literature, all the while trying to convince herself that she would eventually get back to her dream of writing as a career.
When her daughter was born with serious medical problems, Stephanie found inspiration in the fighter her child proved to be—and found her own way back to writing. She has published in a variety of genres, including romantic suspense, new adult and paranormal, and she also cowrites erotic paranormal romance under the name Sydney Croft. She lives in New York with her husband, her kids and her crazy Weimaraner, Gus, and they’re all cool with the fact that she’s permanently on deadline.
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ISBN-13: 9781426896361
REDEMPTION
Copyright © 2013 by Stephanie Tyler, LLC
Edited by Angela James
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Redemption: A Defiance Novel Page 23
