by Jessie Cooke
AJ: Phoenix Skulls Motorcycle Club
(Skulls MC Romance Book 26)
Jessie Cooke
Redline Publishing
Copyright © 2019 by Jessie Cooke
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.
License
This book is available exclusively on Amazon.com. If you found this book for free or from a site other than Amazon.com country specific website it means the author was not compensated and you have likely obtained the book through an unapproved distribution channel.
Contents
Don’t Miss Out
Other Books by Jessie Cooke
Description
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
Epilogue
Excerpt from Hawk
Acknowledgments
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Other Books by Jessie Cooke
Coming Soon…
Hawk: The Early Years (Skulls MC Book 27)
Lion: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 28)
Available NOW!
DAX: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 1)
CODY: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 2)
GUNNER: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 3)
ZACK: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 4)
LEVI: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 5)
KAT: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 6)
HUNTER: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 7)
GARRETT: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 8)
WHEELIE: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 9)
JIGSAW: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 10)
CHOPPER: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 11)
RYDER: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 12)
WOLF 1: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 13)
WOLF 2: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 14)
BRUF: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 15)
ASH: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 16)
SLEDGE: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 17)
MAZ: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 18)
Doc Marshall: The Early Years (Skulls MC Book 19)
Coyote Lee: The Early Years (Skulls MC Book 20)
BECK: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 21)
Rise of the Phoenix (Skulls MC Book 22)
JACE: Phoenix Skulls (Skulls MC Book 23)
FINN: Phoenix Skulls (Skulls MC Book 24)
Tse ‘Rock’: The Early Years (Skulls MC Book 25)
AJ: Phoenix Skulls (Skulls MC Book 26)
Bad Boys
Jake: Bad Boys (Book 1)
Brock: Bad Boys (Book 2)
Jagger: Bad Boys (Book 3)
Kyle: Bad Boys (Book 4)
Blake: Bad Boys (Book 5)
Just like Grey
Just like Grey: Series ONE Complete Collection
Just like Grey: Series TWO Complete Collection
Coming Soon…
Just like Grey: Series THREE Complete Collection
Description
Atsa Jacy “AJ” Basillie felt like at thirty-five, he woke up each morning to face the same day, over and over again. The proof that something had to change, came in the form of his beautiful fiancée naked and in bed with another man, and a chance meeting in a bar with an old Navajo biker who poses a simple question;
“What's your passion?”
For AJ that question will become a quest for self-discovery that will take him on his new Harley Davidson to Phoenix, Arizona. There, in the clubhouse of the Phoenix Skulls, and on the edge of the Navajo Nation, his journey will become a timeless experience of family, forgiveness, loyalty and love. He'll discover ways to open his mind and heart that he never knew existed, and he'll meet Jolene, a passionate young woman who will teach him that the true key to happiness is learning to love yourself first.
Meanwhile, the Phoenix Skulls will have to come together with their brethren in California and Boston to save the life of a young woman. Their goal will be to get Madison to the Southside Skulls ranch in Boston, out of the clutches of the men who want to kill her, and into the arms of her “loving” father. One little problem is that Madison just happens to be the daughter of one of the most infamous bikers to ever sully the Skull's doorstep.
Another problem, the man who Dax Marshall entrusts with her care, loathes her father more than any of them.
“Lion” has been a nomad for the Skulls long enough to know that family comes first...no matter how despicable that family might be. The quiet, reclusive biker will follow his president's orders without question, but that doesn't mean the next seventy-two hours on the road won't be his most difficult assignment yet.
Saddled with protecting a reluctant flight risk with three inexperienced bikers as help would be bad enough...but the inexplicable desire for the woman sired by the one person on earth he hates the most, might just be his undoing.
Book 26 in the Skulls MC Romance Series.
This is a Standalone Romance Novel but characters from this story, will appear in future books in the series.
HEA and No cliffhanger.
Intended for Mature Readers.
The Skulls MC Romance Series is about members of the MC club, their friends and associates.
Each story, while focused around one main character, is not necessarily about a Skulls club member, but the story is related to Skulls members and the club.
1
Lake Havasu, Arizona
It was nearing closing time for the bar as Jace and five of his men sat in the shadows across the street and waited. Jace saw Streak, illuminated underneath the lights of the parking lot as he came out the front door. He’d left his vest on his bike and his white t-shirt was almost luminous under the full moon. He’d gone inside to make sure the woman they had come for was there, and now he casually walked until he was under the cover of the thick row of trees across the street and then he jogged toward them. He stopped in front of Jace’s bike and said, “She’s there...but so is one of the Garibaldis.”
“Fuck. Which one?” Jace’s dark mood was quickly turning as black as the night. He hadn’t wanted this job in the first place.
Jace’s club, the Phoenix Skulls, had spent the past year building their shop and their club and recruiting new members. Although the Boston and California chapters had both financed the Phoenix chapter’s initial expenses, Jace ended up having to put a tremendous amount of his own money into the club over that first year to keep things going and make sure everyone got paid. Eventually he was faced with the task of deciding exactly how his club would support itself, and that was what had led them there tonight.
As a chapter of the Southside Skulls in Boston and the Westside Skulls in California, the Phoenix Skulls were automatica
lly tagged as a 1% club by everyone—most notably, the local authorities in Phoenix and the rest of Maricopa County. Jace had spent years as a nomad for the Skulls and he was well aware that every move they made was being watched...by someone. During his time in the MC, he had seen too many good men die violently and even more incarcerated for the better part of their lives. Even worse, he had seen entire families wiped out—innocent women who stood by their men, and children who weren’t given any choice in the matter. He’d seen women abused and mistreated and he’d seen brother kill brother over things like sex and money. So, before Jace made any major decisions he made a promise to his old lady and to his brothers that this club would be a safe place for them all. They could raise their families there without the threat of having their doors kicked in by rival clubs or federal agents; and as far as the community that their families would have to learn to live in harmony with, they would be model citizens. Then he set about making a plan that would support his club and protect his “family.”
Jace’s strong point was research and he used it that first year to gather information on all the clubs located within the state of Arizona and even a few in Utah and New Mexico. He’d categorized them from lowest to highest risk based on what type of business they did and how often they were in the news due to deaths, arrests, or affiliations with organized crime or cartels. He tried to veer away from clubs that associated with the kind of people that didn’t hesitate to come after a man’s family for retribution. Once he had his list narrowed down he began to reach out to them and offer them the “services” of the Phoenix Skulls. The services were varied and didn’t always fall on the right side of the law, but Jace evaluated each one individually and always reserved the right to say no. He weeded out the crap and took the others to church so the club could vote on them. Jace didn’t have a problem saying no, but this job had been different from the start. This request had come directly from Wolf Lee, the president of the Westside Skulls in California. Wolf was one of the few people on earth that Jace couldn’t say no to, so here they were.
“Eugene,” Streak said.
“Fuck.” Jace said again. As usual, Jace had done his homework before they headed out to Lake Havasu. Finding information on the Garibaldi clan had been easy. Not only were they one of the wealthiest families in America and written about often in the news, but Jace had an entire dossier on each family member that had already been collected by a man named Hunter. Hunter was an investigator and bounty hunter who worked closely with the Skulls and the dossier had been done years earlier at Wolf’s request. Jace didn’t know what Wolf’s business was with the Garibaldis, or why he was interested in the woman they were there to grab that night...but those were need-to-know questions, and those things Jace didn’t have a need to know. Everything else, however, he had committed to memory.
Angelo Garibaldi, the patriarch of the clan, owned casinos in Atlantic City, Tahoe, Reno, and Vegas. His empire was built with crooked money, huge payoffs, and a lot of blood. He had been arrested multiple times and so had his four sons. In over twenty years, not a single one of them had ever been convicted of a crime, however. According to Hunter’s report, that was thanks to the gaming commission officers, politicians, and local police officers that Garibaldi had threatened, paid off, or otherwise convinced to come over to the dark side for the most part, but there had also been times when his “friends” in high places didn’t come through. That was when Angelo and his “boys” resorted to other measures. Normally the Skulls, any of the chapters, wouldn’t be interested in how someone else handled their business, but disappearing witnesses was exactly why Jace and his guys were there.
The girl they were picking up that night was one of three witnesses who had gone missing just prior to testifying against Angelo’s oldest son at his murder trial. What Jace knew was that the Feds had them all in a “safe house.” The house blew up in the middle of the night...gas leak, supposedly. Three FBI agents and one of the witnesses died, or at least that was the body count when the fire was put out and all was said and done. But the other three witnesses, including this girl, were nowhere to be found. The Feds assumed Garibaldi had set up the explosion and since none of the witnesses had been seen or heard from in eight months, they presumed they too were dead, somewhere. As usual where the Garibaldis were concerned, they didn’t have any evidence, only presumptions. Anthony Garibaldi had to be set free for lack of evidence in the murder trial and as yet, no one had been charged with arson or murder in the deaths of the FBI agents and the witnesses. Jace had read about it in the papers before he received Hunter’s file. His assumption had been the same as everyone else’s, that the witnesses were all dead. He had no idea how Hunter had tracked this girl down, how she’d managed to escape both the FBI and the Garibaldis, and how she’d been living for eight months on the run. He was curious, but again, it was all need to know.
Eugene was the youngest of the Garibaldi clan. He was fresh out of college and the least recognizable of them all. He was rarely photographed, and the only picture Hunter had in the file he’d sent Jace was taken five years before while Eugene was still in high school.
“You’re absolutely certain it’s him?” he asked Streak. Streak nodded, not an ounce of doubt on his face. “We’re going to have to go in,” Jace said. “We can’t afford to wait for her to come out, just in case.”
Streak nodded again. “He looked pretty comfortable, in a corner booth, not even in her section. But, he’s watching her. I sat at the bar so I could see him in the mirror and he didn’t take his eyes off her the entire time.”
“She didn’t look nervous, like she’d made him?”
“Nah, but I doubt she’s ever seen him before and this place seems to have a lot of leering creepers hanging around. She’s probably used to it.”
Jace stepped off his bike and looked at the other men, waiting on theirs. He had most of his executive positions filled by that point. Finn was VP, Bubba and Streak were Sergeants at Arms, and Boots, a man who had come out from California to be their treasurer, also accepted the position of Road Captain. Vic, a man Beck had worked with in the Navy, and a guy named Toad, who was referred through one of the brothers in Boston, were patched as enforcers. They were all there now, waiting for Jace’s orders.
“Vests off. I don’t want anyone identifying us. There’s only one man in that room that I expect to leave bleeding so if you shoot, shoot straight. Nobody speak unless I speak to you first. Finn and Bubba, wait out front. Vic, go around back. Toad, you’re grabbing the girl while Streak and I handle crowd control. Any questions?” Once he got five negative answers he said, “One last thing, I’d prefer to not have to tell anyone’s old lady, or mother, that they got their head shot off tonight, so do me a favor and get out of there in one piece.”
2
Tempe, Arizona
AJ stood in the doorway and watched the scene in front of him unfold with a sense of horror and disbelief. He had walked into the bedroom of the luxury apartment he shared with his fiancée Pamela, intending to surprise her. So far, he was the only one who was surprised. Pamela, his fiancée of eight months and girlfriend for two years before that, had her back to him, her naked back. That was because she was on her knees on the bed between a pair of masculine, hairy legs. All AJ could really see of her was her smooth back, the backs of her thighs, and her naked ass. It was an ass he easily recognized, however, not because she let him touch it often, but because he’d seen dozens of pictures of it before finally shelling out the cash to a plastic surgeon to give her the Brazilian lift. AJ liked the butt, but of course he’d liked the one God have given her too. The surgeries were all her idea and after a while they had become almost an obsession, or addiction. AJ kept shelling out the cash for them, though, because that was what made Pam happy, and making her happy was his job, or so he thought.
AJ could see the back of her right arm too and it was obvious by the way it was moving and how the muscle was flexing that she was using it to jack the guy on
the bed off as she sucked his cock. He knew she was sucking it because she was making loud slurping noises and the man in his spot on the bed was moaning and had a look of pure ecstasy on his face. It was a look he hadn’t had the opportunity or pleasure to have on his own face in a while. When he complained, and that wasn’t often, Pamela told him it was his fault, because of his schedule. However, when business was slow or the weather bad and he took a day off or came home early, she’d goad him about how much he could be doing to promote and advertise the business if he had a “real” office, a place where he could “entertain” prospective customers. The “real” office was the one thing she wanted that AJ was holding out on. He knew it was silly but he felt like once he had a “real” office, he’d be really and truly tethered to the company and after seven years of being at the helm, he still wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted.
He returned his attention back to the man on the bed, enjoying the fruits of his fiancée’s labor. His eyes were still closed and AJ wondered if he would think it was all worth it when he opened his eyes and realized the cost.
