by Leah Wilde
“Thanks for the warm welcome, guys, but let’s go ahead and get down to business,” I addressed the five men sitting around the table.
“Alright, boss, what is the first order of business?” asked Reese, sitting directly to my left. His tone sounded eager. I imagined he already knew what I was going to say, because he sounded like he was ready to handle business for me.
“Well, now that I’m back on the outside, I think we all know full well what my first priority is going to be. I’m going after Titus.” Titus Darren was our biggest rival. The little stunt he pulled, pinning those crimes on me and getting me thrown in prison for some shit I didn’t even do, was supposed to wipe The Hellions off the map. Judging by the five faces staring back at me and the handful of guys downstairs working on their bikes, I would have been forced to say he failed. Miserably. All he’d managed to do was help us trim off the dead weight while pissing off the remaining members.
“How do you propose we do that?” Brodie asked.
“Yeah, we’re all ears, brother,” Reese chimed in, looking at the other men at the table. Everyone nodded at me. They were all on board with whatever I told them. I knew what they were thinking, though. They wanted to go shoot him up or something drastic like that, while I wanted to demoralize the bastard, just as he’d done to me.
“I’m going to hit him where it really hurts,” I told them.
Their eyes gleamed with the promise of violence while they looked back at me.
“I’m going after the one thing he cares about most in this world,” I continued. “I’m going after his little sister.”
“What’s that going to do?” Vance asked. “Titus doesn’t care about anybody. What makes you think he’s going to give a damn what happens to his sister?”
“Guys, I’ve known Titus as long as I’ve been doing this. Violet Darren is the one thing he cares about most in this world. Now, when I went in, she was barely more than a legend. She wasn’t even quite eighteen at the time, I don’t think. But I heard that she’s of age now and out of college. I’ve also heard that she’s still a pretty little virgin,” I explained, educating my men.
“How do you know so much about her?” Reese asked.
For a moment, I considered telling him about the photos I had commissioned from my cell. I’d had someone track Violet down and trail her for a few days to get photos for me. I used the photos to figure out where she worked, where she liked to eat, who she hung around, and everything else I could learn about her while sitting in my cell. I let my mind drift back to those photos.
There had been photos of her walking down the street in a black tank top and blue jeans, photos of her leaning over the counter at Greetings and Salutations, the locally owned card shop where she worked, and even pictures of her eating at different restaurants. I had spent hours in my cell looking over those photos. The backs had the time and place written on each one, giving me an idea of where she was and how often she went there.
I didn’t want to tell the guys that I had sent someone outside of the MC to investigate for me, and I didn’t want them to know that I had targeted her so specifically. I could still remember how it felt the night those photos were delivered to me in my cell. I could remember the gruff voice that had called out to tell me my package was there and the scarred hand that passed it to me through the bars while I kept my eyes down, avoiding his face.
Flipping through those pictures had felt dirty. It felt like I was in possession of something I shouldn’t have had. In those pictures, her skin had looked so soft. It was hard to believe that a body like that hadn’t been touched. It would have been more believable if someone had told me that she used the whole still-a-virgin story to attract men.
Her virginity, however, wasn’t what had turned me on so much. It was knowing that taking her virginity and ruining that sweet little girl would destroy her brother. It wouldn’t compare to the havoc he’d wreaked upon my own life, but it would be a damn good place to start. Afterwards, every time he looked at his little sister, he would think of Marcus “Rogue” Erich, the man he had tried to screw over for some shit he probably did himself.
“I did some digging over the years,” I answered, bringing myself back to the present.
“Care to clarify?” Mason asked sharply. I got the feeling that he probably understood what I was keeping from everyone better than anyone else in the room did, but that also meant he was more likely to try to bust my balls about it.
“The world didn’t stop when I went in, so I didn’t stop either. I got word about some of what was going on with the MC, but I spent most of my time and energy working on leads I could use against Titus. Everything that came back to me pointed to Violet as my best bet,” I explained further. I still wanted to keep my prison connections to myself. They were separate from the MC, and they needed to stay that way. I needed alternate channels in case things didn’t work out with the guys now that I was out.
“Alright, so, you go after Violet. What then?” Brodie asked me.
“I’m going to ruin her,” I replied with a dirty little grin on my face. “She won’t be a pretty little innocent virgin when I’m done with her. But that’s not all I’m going to do. I’m going to make her fall in love with me. Then I’m going to crush her and toss her away like a broken little plaything that outlived its usefulness,” I told them, unable to hide my satisfaction with the plan.
“What is this, Rogue, middle school? Isn’t that the plot of some afterschool special?” Mason mocked me.
“You don’t understand how much Titus loves his little sister, Mason. Once I crush her pure little spirit, that’s going to be like crushing Titus himself,” I explained. “That’s going to break him. And once he is broken, he will be ours.”
“It just sounds like a lot of trouble to go through. Why break him down when we could just ambush him and kill him?” Mason asked.
“Well, if it’s so easy to kill Titus Darren, why the hell haven’t you done it?” I snapped, standing up from my chair and slamming my hands down on the table.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was he really going to challenge me on what the best way to get my revenge was? I was going to get my revenge, whether I had the MC’s support or not. I had spent five long years sitting in that cell, waiting for the day when I would get out and have my chance to get back at Titus for what he’d done to me. For what he’d done to Mike, our weapons connection. I had spent long nights fantasizing about what I was going to do to Violet. Nothing was going to get in my way of exacting revenge on that sick little coward, especially not a member of my own damn MC.
“Look, if this is the way our president wants to approach this situation with Titus Darren, then that’s how we’re going to have to handle it,” Brodie stepped in, addressing everyone, not just Mason.
“Right, thank you. Once we get him broken down, we’ll see if there’s anything else we need to do to take him down. If he makes a move, which he probably will, we’ll kill him,” I told the room.
“So what, we sit around here and wait for you to fuck his little sister, and then, if he does anything, we take action?” Mason challenged me again.
“Pretty much. So, I guess what I’m saying is, since you guys couldn’t handle it while I was in, you really don’t have to worry about it now that I’m out. When the time comes, if need be, I can get eyes on him so we can see what he’s doing before he does it,” I explained.
Mason grumbled and looked away. I could see that I really only had one person on my side in the room, and that was Brodie. The rest didn’t seem too thrilled that I had been gone for five years just to come back in and try to take charge. Their welcoming had been forced. It was all just a show.
“Look, Titus set me up to take the fall for something that didn’t even need to happen. In the meantime, while I was plotting from my prison cell, I kept up with what you guys were in here doing. I’m not happy with what I heard. I heard you went soft.” I looked at everyone, including Brodie.
> “What else were we supposed to do?” Mason snapped at me. “We didn’t have any leadership. The club just fell apart around us.”
“You were the leadership, Mason. Each of you sitting in here today. You are here because you have the ability and the authority to lead this MC if anything were to happen to me. Now, if you were too busy sticking your heads in the sand to hide from the reality of what we do here, I don’t blame anyone for leaving. I wouldn’t stay and serve under a bunch of cowards afraid of their own shadows.”
I paused to let my words sink in and to watch them shift uncomfortably in their chairs.
“But I’m back now,” I continued. “If you want to move forward and handle the single biggest threat to the MC, then by all means, let’s do it. If you’re just going to challenge my authority every step of the way and try to hold us back, let me know now.”
Everyone looked at me and nodded, letting me know they were still in, even Mason. We were all still Hellions, and soon enough, we would get our chance at revenge. It felt good to be home.
Chapter 2
Violet
In between holidays, I hated my job. No one seemed to shop for cards just because. It was always for a holiday or special occasion, and even those special occasions like weddings and birthdays seemed to all happen right at the same time. Occasionally, we would get customers stopping in for a trinket or a postcard for a visiting relative or to send to family at home, letting them know they’d been here.
I leaned on the sales counter on my elbows and yawned. Some days it would get so slow I wished we could just shut it down and go home, but that wasn’t how it worked. We had to stay open on the off chance that someone would need a card they couldn’t find at the mall or in one of the big box stores.
“This can’t be all there is,” I said to myself, resting my chin on the palms of my hands. I looked around the empty store and dreamed of the day when I would open my own print shop. I told myself the reason I kept to myself was so I could work and save my money. I needed to stay focused on the goal here, which was earning enough startup money that I didn’t have to take out a giant loan to get off the ground.
I was lying to myself, though. The real reason I kept to myself was because I didn’t know anyone, and I didn’t know how to meet anyone. In high school, we had all been forced to know each other. We all came from a pretty small town. Everyone knew everyone from day one.
Then, in college, we all lived together on campus, so we got to know each other that way. I had made some friends, but for the most part, friendships ended at graduation when we packed up and moved away. I hadn’t moved away. I went to the university in the same city where my big brother lived and ran his successful consulting firm, so I stayed after graduation and let him help me find a nice apartment.
Titus was helping me out so I didn’t have to rush into anything just to make ends meet, and I appreciated that, but I felt like he would have helped me out a lot more by just loaning me the money to get my own business started. I also figured he would have helped me meet more people than he had, but he kept to himself a lot.
Oh well. I laughed to myself. It seemed to run in the family.
“Could be worse,” I said, standing back up from the counter.
The bell on the door startled me in the silence of the shop. I turned to see who was coming in. My stomach immediately knotted up when I saw the man who was entering the store. I had to force a smile when he looked at me.
My new customer had closely cropped brown waves and eyes that were hidden behind dark shades. His face could have been chiseled from a piece of stone. He wore a black leather motorcycle vest with several patches on it. I couldn’t tell one from the other because there were too many. Underneath the vest, he wore a plain black t-shirt that hugged his broad shoulders and firm chest muscles. He wore nice jeans, not an old ragged pair like I would have expected, and black boots.
I set myself to committing his appearance to memory, just in case things went wrong. Sure, it was possible that bikers needed greeting cards, too, but so many of them in and around the city were violent thugs.
This man didn’t look like a violent street thug, but I didn’t want to take any chances with him. I wanted to be able to identify him if he decided he didn’t want to play nice while he was in the store. While he looked dangerous, he also looked very clean cut. He didn’t look like he was coming in to start any trouble, but I figured they never did.
“Welcome to Greetings and Salutations,” I called out to him. “If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know,” I added.
He turned to face me with his warm smile and bulging muscles. He walked up to the counter and took off his shades, revealing the most beautiful green eyes I’d ever seen. He leaned over and looked down at my shirt. I felt my skin flush under his gaze as I realized my shirt was open and he could probably see straight down it.
“There is something you can do for me, Violet,” he said with a gleam in his eye. He wasn’t thinking about cards, and my body responded to his suggestion in kind. The delicate place between my thighs knew exactly what he meant, and it was obviously on the same page.
This man was dangerously seductive, and I had the sneaking suspicion that he was fully aware of that fact. In fact, I was pretty sure he was the kind the man who would use it to his advantage.
“Well, now I’m at a disadvantage,” I told him, deciding to play along to see if he actually needed anything from the store or if he was just another man coming in here to flirt with the girl behind the counter.
“How is that?” he asked.
“You know my name, but I don’t know yours.” I cocked an eyebrow.
“Marcus,” he said, extending a hand across the counter, “but my friends call me Rogue.”
“Nice to meet you, Rogue,” I said playfully as I shook his hand. His grip was firm but gentle. I couldn’t help but wonder if he always touched like that. His skin was soft and smooth, but it couldn’t hide the strength underneath, the raw power that was surely just beneath the surface of his smooth exterior.
Our eyes locked together while we shook hands. His eyes seemed to be asking me something, seemed to be luring me over the counter. I had to tear my gaze away from the emeralds set in his face to break the spell. Then, I realized we weren’t shaking hands anymore. Instead, we were simply holding hands over the counter. I slowly pulled my hand back from his, and I could feel his fingers reluctantly letting my hand slide away.
“So, Rogue, what can I do for you today?” I asked, mustering up the most professional customer service tone I could manage.
“I’m really just here for information,” he said, and my heart sank. My stomach turned to ice. Though his tone was still flirtatious, I knew enough about the streets to know that it was never good when a member of a biker gang started talking about information. Someone was in trouble, and if I didn’t know what he needed from me, I was probably going to join them.
“What kind of information?” I asked slowly, nervously.
“Well, I was wondering what a guy needed to do to get a date with a beautiful young woman like yourself,” he said, keeping his dreamy green eyes on me.
“Well, um, I’m not really s-sure if we have anything here that will help,” I stammered. I blushed. There was nothing I could do about it. I felt my face light up bright red and slowly start to turn deeper shades as the realization sank in that he really was just talking about me.
“I didn’t know if cards, flowers, or chocolates were appropriate for introducing myself and trying to score a date, so I figured I’d come to the source to see what I needed to do,” he added.
“I think your technique definitely has its place,” I told him, trying to regain my composure to answer his question with some sort of professionalism. “You know, a card or flowers, or anything like that might seem like a bit much to someone the first time you meet them. I definitely recommend introducing yourself first,” I continued.
“So I did alright, then?” he
asked me.
I blushed again. I had never been put in the awkward position of having to evaluate the way someone introduced himself to me. Rogue was definitely different from anyone else I’d ever met before him.
“Yes, I think you made the right decision,” I admitted. He certainly had me talking to him, so who was to say it wouldn’t work with someone else?
“Good. So, when should I pick you up?” he asked me.
“I’m sorry, what?” His blunt question floored me.
“Well, if I did a good job introducing myself the way you said I did, we should be at the point where I ask you out, right?” he reasoned with me.
“Right, but I didn’t know you were talking about me,” I told him. I should have been put off by how forward he was being. I should have asked him to leave the store. Instead, I found myself fascinated by his confidence. It was as if he just knew I was going to accept his invitation. But I didn’t know if I was really going to decline or just make him work harder for it.
