by Voss, Deja
Law
Indignant Few MC Book 3
Deja Voss
Copyright © 2019 by Deja Voss
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
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
41. THANK YOU FOR READING!
42. COMING SOON!
Chapter One
Fifteen Years Ago:
Law:
“Goddammit!!” a woman screamed, and it was obvious by her tone she was distressed. Her voice sounded hoarse and I wondered how long she’d been doing that. Apparently I wasn’t up here, down here, whatever the hell place here was alone. It was so dark I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. My mouth was dry, but tasted like I’d been sucking on a handful of nickels. My head was spinning, like I was coming off the worst hangover of my life.
I mean, we did drink a shit ton last night on base. I was at the end of my second nine month deployment in Iraq. I was excited to get back to the states to see my family. I had a new baby niece I needed to meet. I was excited to start Airborne School. One step closer to my ultimate goal of becoming a Ranger. I was excited to get away from the everyday grind of working patrol on the streets. I wanted so much more for my career than what I was being given.
Today was supposed to be one really long plane ride, a bunch of paperwork, and getting picked up at the airport and paraded all over my tiny little hometown. Kissing hot chicks and shaking their dad’s hands.
Today was not going anything as planned.
I tried to push myself up off the concrete floor. This had to be some sort of elaborate prank. I couldn’t remember anything about last night except making sure I took my boots off before I passed out in my bunk. Didn’t need to waste any time this morning trying to scrub Sharpied dicks off my forehead. Did I even make it to my bunk, though? I was definitely barefoot at this point.
“Get me the fuck out of here!” the woman screamed again. “I don’t know who you are, but this is some bullshit!” Her screaming was growing more desperate. It hurt my fucking heart hearing a woman in distress like that.
“Ma’am?” I tried to call for her, but my throat felt like it was full of broken glass. It came out weakly, like a little boy calling for his mother. I tried to sit upright again, but my body felt so tired, so bruised, I was certain by the stickiness of my hands, I was bleeding from somewhere. This had to be a bad dream.
“Who are you?” she asked. “How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I wished I could see. Wished I could think more than three words at a time. Wished I could move. Nothing was making sense. “Where are we?”
She burst into tears, her sobs making the room feel suddenly smaller, or maybe she was just coming closer. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. It feels like I’ve been here forever. I’m starving. How long until you die of thirst?”
I wished I could tell her nobody was going to die of thirst, but I had no clue what was going on. “Please don’t cry,” I said. The sounds of her wails were not only hurting my ears, they were breaking my heart. Made me want to cry, too. “I don’t know shit, but I feel like we should be saving our energy.”
“Don’t stop talking,” she pleaded. “I haven’t heard a voice in so long, thought I might not ever again. I don’t care what you say.”
“Do I know you?” I asked. Her voice sounded vaguely familiar. Couldn’t put my finger on it, but maybe I was delusional. I was certain at this point I wasn’t just hungover. I could distinctly feel the bruise in my bicep where somebody had jammed a needle in me. Who knew what kind of shit I was coming down from. “Come over here.”
I pushed my hands into the cold concrete floor. “I’ll try.”
“I can’t see anything,” she said. “Can you? Am I blind?”
The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. Now that it had, it was horrific. Was it really dark in here or was I blind now? How would I even know? “I think it’s just dark. Do you remember anything?”
“Nothing at all,” she said. “I was supposed to be on my way home from deployment.”
I slowly belly crawled through the dark towards the sound of the woman. Every movement I made brought awareness to another bruise, another cut, another welt on my body. I tried to keep my groans in check. This woman had already been through enough. I needed to keep my shit together, if not for me, then for her. It’s just the kind of man I was.
“Me too,” I said.
“I don’t know if I’m just losing my mind, but you sound so familiar.”
“I think I’m getting closer,” I said as her voice drew nearer. I felt her fingertips graze my face and winced. Was there a single stretch of skin on my body that wasn’t somehow damaged? “There you are.”
To my surprise she laughed. It wasn’t nervous. It wasn’t short, either. I couldn’t describe the emotion I felt when she tucked her hand in mine. Was it relief? Who was comforting who?
“Are you Army?” she asked. I wished for nothing more in that instant than to be able to see her. To see this woman that was making me feel all sorts of ways in this strange dark place. For all I knew, we were being kidnapped and tortured, and all I cared about was this connection. Maybe that’s the kind of tricks your mind played on you when you were dying.
“Yeah. Just finished up my second tour. Heading back to start Airborn school.”
“Same,” she said, to my surprise. That’s when it hit me. I did know that voice. Hadn’t heard it in years. Not since basic training, but Sage Gordon had earned herself quite the reputation in her time in the service. She’d earned herself kind fo a GI Jane reputation. Anything the boys could do, she could do better. She was a legend. A once in a lifetime kind of woman. Not to discredit her skills, but she was smoking hot and rumor had it, she was a beast in the bedroom. “Sage? Is that you?”
“It depends,” she said once again punctuated with that laugh. “I don’t owe you money, do I?”
“I don’t know if you remember me. Landon Albreight. We did basic at the same time. We called you Run for Fun.” We called her a lot of less flattering things, too. I was a lot less mature back then, though. At eighteen years old, getting ready to serve your country, a lot of my bunk mates and I felt like we were some kinds of gods. Thought we were entitled to be douchey little brats. Run for Fun was the nickname that we called her to her face. The woman was always running, every chance she got, even after the hours and hours of training, her
ponytail bobbing behind her.
“If any of you suckers were ever man enough to follow me, you would’ve found out that I was just running far enough away from basic to hide behind a tree and smoke cigs. Landon,” she squeezed her fingers into the palm of my hand and this time I couldn’t hold back the groan from my lips. As much as I didn’t want her to let go, she was hurting me. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just got a little enthusiastic. You took me out of this place for a minute. I remember you. I remember back then. Shit sure was a lot simpler.”
“Well, if I’m going to be scrapping my out of whatever this situation is, I couldn’t chose a better person to have by my side.”
She gently took my hand and moved it to her thigh, and for a moment I thought this was going to be one of those real life pornography moments where if we were both about to die, we might as well get one last fuck in. Instead, I felt the blood. Her leg. It was actively bleeding. A lot.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered. “How are you even alive?” I used whatever strength I had to rip the sleeve off my t-shirt. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
I began to tie the tourniquet around her leg and she didn’t so much as flinch. As fun as it was reminiscing about the good old days, reality was, we were fucked. I feared the worst was yet to come.
“Who would even do this?” she asked. She leaned back, her head resting on my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her for lack of a better option. I couldn’t make her better. I couldn’t tell her everything was going to be okay. I guess this was what people meant when they said sometimes you just had to be there for someone. I was here. Even though I wasn’t exactly useful. “I’m a nobody. I’m a scrub. I don’t know jack shit about anything. If they’re looking for intelligence they got me pinned all wrong. I’m just here for the action. I barely graduated high school.”
I wished I could answer her questions. I had nothing. I didn’t think of myself as a scrub. I worked my ass off to serve my country. Sure, I still had a lot of training to do, but I took pride in my career. Didn’t mean there was any kind of value on my head. She was right, I knew nothing.
We were both disposable. Once whoever captured us figured that out, we could easily be disappeared.
“I don’t want to die,” I blurted out, instantly regretting the words. She didn’t need to hear that.
“Yeah, me neither,” she said, and I felt her breath on my skin, like she was trying to choke down her tears. “I feel like a failure. If I’m going to go down, I want it to be protecting my country, not bleeding out in some dungeon. I’ve never done anything cool. What I’ve seen of the world has been so little. I never got to love. I never got to make anything of myself that my parents would be proud of. I never even got to see Boyz II Men live in concert.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Boyz II Men? I don’t think that’s on anyone’s bucket list, Sage.”
“I’m just talking crazy,” she said with a sigh. “Just talking so I don’t have to think.”
“I mean that was my shit back in the 90s. Little fourth grade Landon in his polo shirt pushing up on all the chicks at recess.”
She started to laugh, for real this time, and it made me feel good. She was right. Talking was better than thinking, even if it was crazy talk.
“Can somebody tell me how to get things back the way they used to be,” I started singing as she cracked up. She punched me weakly in the shoulder. “Oh God give me a reason…”
“Stop,” she pleaded. She was laughing so hard she was flopping around like a fish, pounding on my chest. Her punches were weak, but my body was sore. I wasn’t going to stop though. “Just stop.”
“I’m down on bended knee,” I blurted out before collapsing in laughter next to her.
Then the lights flicked on and everything changed. My laughter turned into screaming as my eyes struggled to adjust to the light, pain searing through my skull.
“Told you they were special,” a man in a lab coat said.
The guy behind him just stood there with his hands in his pockets, nodding in approval.
I looked down at her face, expecting her to be as terrified as I was. Instead, she looked peaceful. Contented. The lights came on and a lightbulb had gone off in her head.
Who was this crazy chick and what were we doing here? It was obvious by the way she reached for my hand, we were about to get to know each other a lot better.
Chapter Two
Present Day:
Sage:
My nerves were on high alert as I leaned up against the bar, sucking down another Jack and Coke before the bartender could even bring me back my change. She was an older woman who drew her eyebrows on so thick, it almost looked like she wanted everyone to know she was in a constant state of disappointed. I couldn’t blame her. The Tar Pit was worse than a dive. It was a straight up shit-hole. I’d set foot in a lot of vile places in my life, but The Tar Pit definitely made the top three worst ever list. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much. Maybe that’s why I always insisted that Landon and I met up here. It made it that much more exciting.
It smelled like bleach, but not in an inviting way, more of a ‘bad shit happened here and we’re trying to cover it up,’ kind of way. The ceiling tiles were a hue of yellow that bordered on straight stomach bile thanks to the cloud of smoke that just hung limply in the air no matter what time of day it was, or how many people were actually actively smoking. I rested my arm on the bar, and instantly regretted my decision, as it took a little effort to pick it back up again without peeling off all my skin in the process. Who knows how long that sticky stuff had been crusted on there. I didn’t even want to think about what it actually was.
“You better slow down there, skinny,” the bartender clucked. “Liquor control board’s been on our ass lately.”
I chuckled, trying not to roll my eyes too hard. I’d only been here twenty minutes and I’d already seen three drug deals go down. Besides, she didn’t know the first thing about me. The liquor control board wasn’t watching this place, I knew that for a fact. I could drink seven of these weak ass watered down drinks in an hour and still be under the legal limit. Also a fact. I didn’t know if she was trying to call me skinny ironically or if she was as high as the guy passed out on the bar next to me, but my bodyweight definitely wasn’t putting me in the low range of any BMI charts. Also a fact.
She had no idea who I was, and that was just another reason why I liked this place so much. Nobody ever asked any questions.
I was beginning to regret my choice in boots as I watched the hands on the old wooden clock hanging behind the bar click away. No amount of toe wiggling or shifting my weight side to side was going to abate the cramping in my feet. The pointy toes and stiletto heels were not my usual go to attire, but I knew he’d appreciate them. That is, if he ever showed up.
Debbie Downer finally caved and poured me another drink, and I looked around restlessly, wondering if today was going to end up being a wash. He’d never ditched me before, but things were different now. He was on his way out. I was all the way in. He had a new life, new friends, a motorcycle club. He probably didn’t need to entertain his kind of crazy booty call anymore. He said he’d be here, though, and Landon was always a man of his word.
I peeled a few dollar bills off the bar, pushing the rest aside for a tip, and grabbed my drink, slowly pacing through the crowd towards the jukebox. I pretended like I couldn’t feel the eyeballs all over my body. Dressed like this in a place like this, it was to be expected. My bright red dress just barely covered the bottom of my ass, and it sucked my waist in so tight, I knew my curves were out of control. I fed some dollar bills into the machine and started flipping through the pages of CDs. Just another reason why this place was the greatest. Bootleg jukebox that hadn’t been updated since 1998. Mostly good old fashioned Southern rock. I didn’t really care what I played, I was just killing time. Trying to keep the focus off my jitters. Trying to keep my fingers off my cellphone. The anticipation made the wait that
much more delicious when the time actually came.
I put on some Creedence Clearwater Revival, and a bunch of irritated groans echoed through the barroom. These people weren’t right. I looked over my shoulder with a ‘come at me’ smirk, then quickly turned back to the jukebox. Fighting, fucking, they were pretty much the same to me, ticked all the same boxes. I didn’t come here to fight, though. If Landon wasn’t here by the time I finished picking out songs, I was probably going to have to indulge.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as soon as I heard the sound of his leather boots on the hardwood floor. I knew it was him just by the sound, the vibration, the silence in between every step could only be attached to a man who was six foot three and solid muscle. I looked down at the buttons in front of me, trying to hide the flush of red quickly overtaking my skin. I bit my lip to try and hide my smirk, my heart pounding through my chest.
His hand grazed my hipbone. I looked down at his tattooed fingers that I’d grown to love on him. The smell of his leather cut mixed with open road, a breath of fresh air in this dirty place, I inhaled with a gasp as his lips hovered a centimeter from an ear.
“You wet?” whispered.
I gulped as his hand traveled down my hip, lifting my skirt up in the front ever so slightly, his callused fingers brushing against the inside of my thighs.
