by Lane Hart
MADDOX
A Savage Kings MC Novel
By Lane Hart and D.B. West
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue were created from the authors’ imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual people or events is coincidental.
The authors acknowledge the copyrighted and trademarked status of various products within this work of fiction.
© 2019 Editor's Choice Publishing
All Rights Reserved.
Only Amazon has permission from the publisher to sell and distribute this title.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editor’s Choice Publishing
P.O. Box 10024
Greensboro, NC 27404
Edited by All About the Edits
Cover by Marianne Nowicki of PremadeEbookCoverShop.com
WARNING: THIS BOOK IS NOT SUITABLE FOR ANYONE UNDER 18. PLEASE NOTE THAT IT CONTAINS VIOLENT SCENES THAT MAY BE A TRIGGER FOR INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE BEEN IN SIMILAR SITUATIONS.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Prologue
Maddox Holmes
Six years ago…
Most birthdays are the same old shit. They come and go without you feeling any differently than the day before, despite being an entire year older.
My fifteenth birthday on the other hand was a game changer, and not just because I was going to get my learner’s permit.
“Good luck. I’m sure you’ll do great,” my mother says with a quick hug before she shoves a manila folder toward my chest. “Everything you need is in here. Just hand the whole thing over to the officer.”
“Okay, Mom.” I take the folder from her and follow the DMV official down the hall to her small, messy office.
“Have a seat so we can finish up your paperwork, then get you started on your written exam.”
“Sure,” I happily agree before I plop my ass down in the chair across from her desk.
“Do you have your two proofs of identification and proof of residency?”
“Yep, got that all right here,” I say before I squeeze the metal clasp to open the folder and start pulling out the documents my mom put together for me. I grab the small white and blue piece of paper first. “Here’s my social security card.”
Then, I go for the thickest piece of paper, my birth certificate. Since I’ve never actually seen it before, I lower my eyes to look it over while the agent scans my social security card. It’s pretty cool seeing today’s date on there, just fifteen years ago…
“Who the fuck is Deacon Fury?” I exclaim when I see the unfamiliar and unusual name.
“Excuse me?” the DMV agent asks with an arched eyebrow.
“Sorry, nothing,” I tell her before reading the man’s name again, then the title underneath that says, “Child’s Father.”
I swear it feels like the tiny room starts to spin around me. My father’s name, the man who has raised me for the past fifteen years, even if he did a shitty job most of the time, is Todd Holmes.
“Do you have your birth certificate?” the agent asks, snapping me out of my vertigo.
“Ah, yeah. Here.” I hold the paper out to her.
“Hmm,” she says when she reads it. “These have two different names.”
“What?” I ask.
“Do you have any other paperwork?”
“I…I dunno,” I state, while staring at her in confusion. “Here.” I offer her the entire folder, since I can’t seem to do much more than blink at the moment.
“Ah, here’s your Change of Name form.”
“My what?” I ask.
“Change of name,” she says, holding up the documents in her hand. “Your parents changed your name from Maddox Fury to Maddox Holmes when you were just a few weeks old.”
When my jaw falls open, she adds, “You didn’t know that?”
I shake my head because the ability to speak has left me.
My parents changed my name?
And my father is…not my father?
What kind of alternate universe did I step into? Is she pranking me right now?
“Could I…could I see those again?” I ask, snatching the paperwork from her hand instead of waiting for her response.
“Are you okay?” the officer asks while I read over the official Change of Name form that has everything she just said written out. I’m not Maddox Holmes. I was born Maddox fucking Fury.
“Should we do this another day?” she asks, while I continue staring at the words as if expecting them to suddenly shift around on the page and make more sense.
“Ah, yeah. I’ll, um, I’ll come back,” I tell her as I get up from my chair, still holding the form, and start toward the door.
“Wait! Here are your other documents,” she says.
I take them from her, then sit down in the hallway outside of her door and reread them a hundred times. My emotions switch from confusion, to anger at my mother for not telling me, to…relief. I’m relieved that Todd is not my dad, he’s just asshole Todd. We’re not related, which is sort of a miracle, because deep down, I’ve never liked him. As for Todd, well, even when I was just a kid, I thought he hated me. I’m starting to realize that he really did. He hates me because I’m not his son, but he’s had to pretend to give a shit about me for fifteen fucking years.
Being free of him feels great. Only now, there’s this gaping hole inside me where that asshole used to be, and I don’t have any clue who belongs in it other than his name—Deacon Fury.
Deacon. He sounds like a badass, much more so than Todd. Fucking Todd. I never met anyone with that name that I liked. My father—no, my stepfather—completely ruined the name.
“You can’t sit here,” a guy in a wrinkled suit and combover says to me.
“Okay, I’m going,” I reply before I shove all the documents inside the envelope and get to my feet, ready to finally face my mother and get some damn answers.
“How did it go?” she asks with a smile when she stands up in the chair and comes over to meet me.
“I didn’t take the test,” I tell her.
“Well, why not?”
“Because there was some confusion over who the hell I am!” I yell at her.
“Wh-what are you talking about?” she asks, her eyes cutting around the crowded waiting room, probably searching for any of her uppity friends who may have overheard my outburst.
“Who the fuck is Deacon? And why didn’t you tell me he’s my father?” I shout at her, not caring who hears.
“Maddox!” my mother hisses at me before she grabs me by my elbow and leads me out of the office. On the sidewalk out front, she stops and then has the nerve to tell me, “It doesn’t
matter.”
I blink at her in disbelief at her brush-off before I repeat those same words aloud. “It doesn’t matter? It doesn’t matter who my father is? Maybe not to you, but it matters a whole fucking lot to me, Mom!”
“Maddox, calm down and watch your language! This is not the time nor the place—”
“It’s not?” I interrupt to ask. “Then when is a good time and place? You’ve had fifteen fucking years to tell me, and you haven’t found your moment yet?”
“I’m sorry, okay?” she says as her prim and proper posture starts to deflate.
“Who is Deacon? Does he even know that I exist?” I ask, since it’s the first I’ve heard of him.
My mother shakes her head and then crosses her arms over her chest. “I never told him because we knew it would only cause problems…”
“We?” I ask. “You mean you and Todd?”
“Yes. You have to put yourself in his shoes. Your father and I met while I was pregnant. Todd married me right after you were born. He agreed to raise you as his son but didn’t want to deal with having another man in our life…”
“He’s not my father!” I shout at her. “And you kept my real father from me to make Todd happy? What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you even know where this other man is so that I can find him and tell him that I’m his son?”
She looks away before she answers so softly I almost miss it. “He’s dead.”
“What?” I ask as a heavy boulder settles into my gut.
“If I knew he was sick, I would’ve told you. He died of lung cancer.”
“Would you have really told me, Mom? Or would you have kept on lying to me every fucking day?” I bark at her, still not entirely sure if I believe her when she says he’s dead. “When? When did he die? Before I was born?” I ask, wanting more details. Deserving more details. I deserve to know every fucking thing about the man who makes up half of me.
“A year or so ago,” she responds, which only floors me even more
“So, I missed meeting my father by a year? Fourteen years, you could’ve told us both and you didn’t, so now I’ll never meet him! How could you do this to me?”
“I’m sorry, Maddox. We did what we thought was best…”
“No,” I say, cutting her off. “You did what Todd thought was best for him, not me! He’s always hated my guts and I guess now I know why. He made me think I wasn’t ever good enough for him because I’m nothing but a reminder of another man you were with before him! I’ve never been his son and I never will be!”
The anger I’ve made myself keep bottled up inside me for years chooses that moment to burst free. No, it’s more than anger, it’s pure rage. Fucking Todd is about to get a shitload of payback by way of my fists pounding into his face.
Screw him, his money and his life. I’d rather have nothing and the truth than all the money in the world and living a lie.
Chapter One
Maddox
Present day…
Teenagers have enough problems trying to figure out who they are. Throw in the added complication of having a part of me, half of me, that I knew nothing about and I nearly went insane on my fifteenth birthday.
The night I learned the truth, I beat the living shit out of Todd. He was so badly injured that he and my mom sent me away to military school for the next two years.
After I graduated, I couldn’t go back home. I had to leave, to search for the answers about who my real father was so I could finally find myself.
That’s why I set off on my own without a penny to my name when I was eighteen.
A search of the internet brought me to Emerald Isle and the Savage Kings MC, thanks to the memorial page for my father on their website. I figured if anyone knew who Deacon Fury really was, it would be these guys, since he was their founder and former president.
But once I was there and found out the current president and VP were my family, I couldn’t find the words to own up to who I was. Hell, I didn’t really know myself. So, I kept my mouth shut and listened and watched them, hoping to learn about the man I’d never get a chance to know.
It turned out the brothers in the MC were cool as fuck. I didn’t just want to know my relatives, I wanted to be one of them. I needed to become a Savage King. It was the only thing I had been certain of in my life.
The one person who found out my secret was Reece, the MC’s computer genius. He dug into my history when I was finally nominated to become a prospect. He took me aside after he did my background search and asked me about the name I was born with. I told him the truth and begged him to keep my secret. Not to deceive anyone in the club, but because I wanted to earn my patch on my own merits, not because of the man who unknowingly made me.
Thankfully, Reece agreed. He’s kept his mouth shut after I assured him I wasn’t here to make a claim to my father’s estate, the MC, or anything else I hadn’t earned.
And my sponsor, War, well, he took me in off the streets and was a helluva lot nicer to me than Todd ever was, without knowing anything but my second name. Over the last few years, War began to fill the place of the father I wish I had and the father I’ll never meet. He and the other brothers in the MC have made me feel like I’ve finally found the place where I belong.
So, whenever War calls, like right now, you better believe I fucking jump.
I toss down the hammer in my hand to pull my untraceable flip phone from my pocket.
“Yes, sir?” I answer when I quickly put the burner phone up to my ear.
“Where are you? Are you still on the island?” War asks, the usually calm man sounding frantic.
“Yeah, I’m just finishing boarding up the Jolly Roger, and then I’m gonna get inland.”
“Good. Great. I need you to do me a favor.”
“Sure,” I respond.
“I’m tied up, so I need you to take the club’s van and get your ass down to Wilmington to pick up my sister—”
“You have a sister too?” I ask in surprise. I’ve known the man for almost four years and he’s never once mentioned her. Which isn’t that surprising, I guess. War barely talked about his son before the whole Child Protective Services mess.
“Yeah, I have a sister, Audrey O’Neil,” he replies. “She goes to school at Westchester in Wilmington, and she lives in the Chatham apartments, number two-twenty-eight B. Got all that?”
“Yes,” I tell him, repeating it over and over again in my head so I won’t forget it until I have some pen and paper.
“Whatever it takes, get her inland, at least west to Raleigh or Cary, and keep her safe. She should have credit cards to pay for a hotel if you’re low on cash. Do this for me and I promise to slap that top rocker on your cut.”
“I’m patching in?” I ask in shock. “Seriously? It’s finally gonna happen?”
“It’s happening, kid. First, get my sister away from this fucking hurricane," he assures me.
“I’m on it. I’ll leave right now,” I say before I end the call.
Fuck, this job is one of my easiest since I start prospecting. Picking up some chick and driving her a few hours inland is nothing compared to disposing of dead bodies.
Oh yeah, I’ve done that for my patch.
Hell, I would do anything to finally get patched into the Savage Kings MC. It’s the only connection to my father I’ll ever have, and since I left home, well, it’s the only social life I have now, period.
…
An hour later, I’m standing outside the locked apartments, in the pouring rain that’s blowing sideways, hitting me right in the face, waiting for someone to come in or out of the fucking door.
The whole campus looks like a wasteland. They’ve placed sandbags all around the edges of the brick buildings, but the water is already halfway up them, covering the tops of my steel toe boots. Thanks to the whipping wind, an occasional piece of trash swirls around me. When I’m finally able to locate the right call button on the intercom for Apartment two-twenty-eight B, I hit it but get no respon
se.
Finally, a chick comes running out of the building with a raincoat over her head and arms full of bags. She’s in too big of a rush to see me, or care when I slip through the door before it shuts. I take a second to relish the dry environment before I push my wet hair out of my eyes and trudge up the first set of stairs I come to. My soggy boots squeak and echo on the linoleum the entire way. The only other sound in the building is the faint hum of electricity from the fluorescent lights. “Two-twenty-eight B, Two-twenty-eight B,” I repeat over and over again once I’m on the second floor. Finally, I find the right apartment and raise my knuckles to knock.
Not a minute later, the door cracks open just an inch, revealing one-half of a pale, petite face, her single dark chocolate eye wide in terror…and a yellow kitten climbing up her shoulder.
“Can I help you?” she asks, looking me up and down while trying to keep the cat from escaping.
I’m one hundred percent certain there’s no fucking way this girl could be War’s sister. The dude is enormous and she’s…tiny, like no bigger than one of his tree trunk thighs.
“Yeah, I’m looking for Aubrey,” I say, then pause when that doesn’t sound exactly right. “No, shit, it’s Audrey, I think. Audrey O’Neil.”
“You sure about that?” the girl asks me after I stammer over the name.
“Yeah. Yes. Definitely Audrey. Maybe?”
“Well, I don't know who you are, so I can't give you information about...my roommate.” She hesitates, like she was going to say her friend or something else, but maybe they don't get along or whatever.
“Come on. I really need to find her, and the eye of the hurricane is coming up on the city fast!”
“How do you know Audrey?” she questions me.
“I don’t know her,” I respond. “Her brother War sent me.”
“You’re friends with her brother?” Her eye lowers to look at my leather cut in disbelief.
“Sort of, yeah. I guess you could say that.”
