by Emma Creed
Lost Soul
Dirty Souls MC - Book 1
Emma Creed
Lost Soul - Dirty Souls MC Book 1
Copyright 2021 by Emma Creed
All Rights Reserved
First Edition
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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.
Cover design: Rebel Ink co
Interior design: Rebel Ink Co
Model: Sander The Netherlands
Photographer: Paul van der Linde
Editing: Sassi's Editing Services
Proofreading: Sharon Powell
Dedication
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For Sharon, who chose to come on the ride with me…
Author Notes
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***Warning***
Lost Soul and all future books in the Dirty Soul’s Mc series are all a work of fiction. Due to the nature of the series you should expect to come across subject matter that some readers may find disturbing.
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Lost Soul is intended for readers 18+
Contents
Dirty Souls
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Acknowledgments
Also by Emma Creed
About the Author
‘Bound not by blood but loyalty.
We live, we ride, and we die
by our own laws’
10 YEARS OLD
I know there was a time before he came into my life, but I don’t remember a single moment of it.
For me, the day my life began was the day my daddy brought him home to me.
I was only ten years old, but even back then I knew I would love Jessie Donavon’s beautiful lost soul until my final breath left my body.
I could sense that he knew he didn't belong in our home, his eyes gave him away. I also knew that Jessie being here would have something to do with the club, with Daddy, everything had something to do with the club.
Everyone in Manitou Springs knew that my daddy was different to regular daddies. He didn’t dress in a suit and work a nine to five. He didn’t pick Mama flowers up on the way home from work on a Friday, or watch football at weekends. No, Jimmer Carson rode a Harley, he smelt of leather and cigarettes, and his home wasn’t here with Mama and me, it was at his club with the members of the Dirty Souls MC.
Daddy lived at the club compound, an old holiday resort that was tucked up in the mountains on the border of our town. It was a place I hardly ever visited, which suited me just fine because I hated it there. I hated the people who lived there too. They had all of Daddy’s attention, he spent all his time with them, when he should have been here with me.
Mama was always telling me how much he loved us, just that he showed it in his own way. But the way I saw it, there would always be us and them. His club brothers… his real family. And today, looking at Daddy’s face, and how it was all twisted up somewhere between sad and angry, I could tell that something terrible had happened to one of them.
“The kid’s daddy died for the club, baby.” Daddy spoke to me as if the boy stood behind him wasn’t even there. “He’s one of us, and he’s gonna stay here with you and Mama for a while.” I watched his eyes narrow warningly as they shifted over my shoulder to where Mama stood, they softened before fixing back on me though.
“I’m counting on you being a good girl. Make him feel welcome, and be sure he knows the rules. Keep him in line, princess.” Daddy winked, attempting to ruffle my hair as he stood up. It didn’t budge though, it was too strong. I got my hair from Mama, long, jet black, and poker straight. Daddy always told me I got my stubbornness from her too, but I knew better than that.
I nodded my head back at him like an excited puppy, thinking how cool it would be having another kid around. I never really got to play with kids my own age, the kids from school’s parents never let them come over. I guessed that was because of Daddy. He seemed to scare everyone, everyone except me that is.
Looking at the boy, I wondered if he’d be as cruel as the other club kids I’d encountered at the compound. Daddy tried hard to keep me away from the place he loved so much, so I rarely had to hang out with the kids that lived there. They were mean anyway, especially the boys. When they thought no one important was listening, they’d call me spoilt and tease me ‘coz me and Mama lived differently to them. I understood why. Daddy never failed to give me what I wanted. He never came calling without a gift for me, and I always got my way with him. All I had to do was make my green eyes a little wider, and give him a pleading smile.
Still, none of the gifts he’d brought me in the past compared with the beautiful broken boy stood in front of me that day.
Jessie was silent, it could have been his grief, but it seemed more like he was too grown up for his age and didn’t want to be treated like a kid.
When Daddy left the house to get back to the club, I showed Jessie around the house. He didn’t speak the entire time, just let his eyes roam as I led him from room to room. Daddy hadn’t instructed me on where the boy was supposed to sleep. I made that decision for myself, showing him into the bedroom directly opposite mine.
I wanted him close. Something about him intrigued me, and even the cold vibe he gave off didn’t stop me from feeling drawn to him. Though, I didn’t doubt that had a lot to do with the way he looked.
Jessie was tall, much taller than the other 7th graders at my school. His eyes were such a crystal blue they didn’t seem real, they even sparkled when the light caught them right. A few freckles sprinkled over the bridge of his nose, slightly softening the hard expression his face seemed determined to keep in place. But before I left him alone in his new room, I’d already decided my favourite feature of his were his lips. Rigid and straight, they were much more peachy than pink. When I left him alone closing his door behind me, I squeezed my eyes shut, balled up my fists, and wished
really hard that one day I'd get to see what they’d look like smiling. Something sad told me it would take a really long time, but it would be worth the wait.
That night, just before I fell asleep, I wrote Jessie a letter. Using the pretty stationery set Daddy had brought me from the run he went on last month and my mama’s fountain pen. I took my time, making sure all my letters were even in size and sat perfectly on the lines. My words were promises to Jessie, vows that I would take care of him and teach him that he could still love and be loved back, despite all he’d lost.
I sealed the envelope and wrote his name neatly on the front.
Jessie.
I liked his name. It suited him.
Tiptoeing my bare feet across the hall, I stood for a while and stared at his door. Wondered what he was doing on the other side. Silently I prayed that he wasn’t feeling lonely, or worse… crying. His eyes had looked a lot like they wanted to cry earlier, and I wanted so badly to take away the pain he’d tried so hard to hide.
Bringing the letter to my mouth, I pressed a kiss on to the pastel-colored flowers printed on the border of the envelope. Then just before I slipped it beneath the crack of his door, something made me pause. All my confidence suddenly vanished and I felt like a silly little girl.
The boy was one of them, and Dirty Souls don’t want to be loved, they don’t need silly promises like the ones I’d made him in my letter. Straightening myself up slowly, I backed myself away from his door and crept back into my room.
I hid my letter to Jessie in a shoebox that I kept under my bed. It was my safe place where I kept all my precious things, like the Russian banknote Daddy had given me, the dolphin keyring I’d convinced Mama to buy me from SeaWorld—despite her argument that I didn’t own a set of keys—and a really pretty stone I’d found in the backyard. They were my treasures. No one else knew where I kept them because they were special to me, just like the promises I’d made to Jessie in my letter.
Over the next few months, I tried so hard to make the boy feel like he belonged with us. I wanted to heal him of his sadness, so he could be a child and have fun. But despite my hopes and efforts it soon became clear that the boy I wanted so desperately to fix, just saw me as an irritation.
Jessie spent most of the time in his room, alone, and when he did venture out, he ignored me. Mama saw how it made me sad.
“He’s sad baby, he lost his mama a few years ago, and now he’s lost his daddy too. Just give him some time.” She’d tell me. I tried to understand, but it was difficult. Sure, I didn’t see my daddy as often as I’d have liked to, but he was alive, and Mama always made sure she was there for me.
My parents may have shown their love for me in different ways, but I knew it was there. To lose even one of them would be unimaginable. And that was the blissful oblivion that I lived in for the next four years. Something that I took for granted right up till the day the unimaginable happened.
AGED 14
The way Jessie changed around me hadn’t gone unnoticed. My fourteenth birthday had just past, and with Jessie turning seventeen only a few months before there was a new awkwardness between us now. For so long it had seemed like he couldn’t stand to look at me, yet lately I felt him watching me more often.
I like the way his attention feels, I crave more of it. So much so that I’d started carelessly leaving the bathroom door unlocked when I was taking a shower in the hope he might walk in accidently. I made sure my newly developed curves were shown to their full potential by wearing revealing tops, the kind my daddy would strike a match to if he ever saw me in them.
I wasn’t the only one who had grown up over the past few years, Jessie was even taller now and he’d filled out perfectly. He wasn’t too big like some of the other guys at the club were, but every inch of him was solid. His hair was longer than most boys his age, hanging just above his shoulder when he wore it down, and he’d grown an impressive covering of sandy colored facial hair that I really liked too.
It hadn’t come as a surprise when Daddy made him a prospect on his fifteenth birthday. Jessie hung out at the club every chance he got, and the club owed it to Jessie’s daddy to take care of him, and they always took care of their own, it was their way.
Since Jessie had become a prospect, the brothers Chop and Skid had given Jessie a part-time job at the club garage. It sucked because he spent all his time there these days. I hardly ever saw him, which meant I really had to make the times we were together count.
Today he must have come home after school instead of heading straight to the club like he usually does. I was making my way across the hall from the bathroom to my bedroom with the smallest towel in the house wrapped around my chest. It only just covered my ass cheeks, and it wasn’t even intentional on this occasion, because seeing him caught me completely by surprise.
The timing is perfect, I couldn’t have got it better if I tried, and when he steps onto the landing from his room the shock on my face is genuine and I almost drop the towel completely.
My stomach somersaults as his eyes search me over, and I can’t help but smile when his lips lift into a smirk. I love Jessie’s smirk. I’ve seen it so many times before when he’s offered it to the older girls at school, but here, today, that smirk was all for me.
“I didn’t think you’d be home,” I say, trying to sound annoyed, but at the same time savoring every moment of his eyes being on me.
“I’m just headin’ to the club now.” Jessie moves towards the stairs, and just as I’m about to open the door to my room his low voice stops me.
“You shouldn’t have ridden back from school with those boys today, your daddy wouldn’t like it.”
I roll my eyes at the door before glancing at him over my shoulder, as if he is lecturing me about who I hang out with. The boys he’s referring to aren’t half as bad as the company he keeps at the club.
“Well maybe if you offered me a ride home I wouldn’t have had to,” I add, feeling proud for airing that one out with him. Me and Jessie had been walking to and from school together since the day I started high school. Granted, Jessie had always been a good few strides ahead of me, but the fact that he never left without me was what meant so much. Since he’d gotten his bike, he hasn’t offered me a lift once, which in my opinion is rude.
I make sure I give him a wet flick of my hair before storming into my bedroom. A few seconds later I hear the front door slam, followed by the loud rumble of a bike engine that fades as Jessie rides further away.
Mama got home around seven. She hangs out at the club for most of the day. It’s the only way she gets to spend time with Dad. Even now that I’m older I still get kept away from the club. There are times when it’s been unavoidable, during lockdowns, and the family BBQ’s that even Mama insists I attend. Then there are the school holidays when I never get to go to summer camp like the other kids at school do. Instead I have to endure the club’s makeshift version, which consists of all the club kids, of all ages, in one of the cabins being overlooked by a few of the old ladies.
I hate it, and even more so since Jessie has become a prospect. The boys never used to tease me when Jessie had been around.
Mama and I eat dinner together. She watches some crap on TV while I finish off some homework, and after a few hours spent mostly in silence, she kisses my forehead and stumbles on to her feet.
Mama seemed to be drinking a lot in the evenings lately, or perhaps she’d always drank and I just hadn’t noticed. I put it down to her worrying about what Daddy gets up to at the club when she isn’t around. Since I’ve been born, she’s stopped going there at night. Choosing to spend her evenings with me instead. It was one of the reasons I felt better than the kids who lived at the club.
Their mamas never choose them.
Around eleven I decide to head upstairs myself. Jessie still isn’t home, but that’s nothing to worry about, some nights he doesn’t even bother to come home at all anymore.
Climbing the stairs, I try not think about him
being near the women at the club. Especially the ones who linger around anything in a leather cut like flies attach themselves to shit.
I check in on Mama as I pass her room. She’s still clothed, sprawled out on the bed like she was trying to make a snow angel in her duvet. I manage to shift her body enough to pull the covers from under her and tuck her in.
Mama is beautiful, I really hope I age the way she has. Despite being forty-three, there isn’t a trace of grey in her thick mass of black hair. Nor a single crease on her olive skin. Often I find myself wondering if she deserves better than the life Daddy gives her. Maybe he even knows it himself and it’s the reason he doesn’t want us living at the compound like the other families do.
Mama stirs, uttering sentences I can’t quite understand, but I do manage to decipher a, “Love you Hayley,” somewhere among them.
“I Love you too, Mama,” I whisper back, placing a kiss on her cheek and creeping back out of her room. I close the door quietly and take the few paces to my own room.
Snuggling myself into bed, I roll onto my side and wait for tiredness to kick in. It’s no surprise that Jessie is my last thought before I drift off. It’s been that way since the first day he came to me.
