Filthy Savage (Satan's Saints MC Book 3)

by Bella Love-Wins

  “I have no doubt you’ll win her over, sweetheart, but as for the impression she’ll make on you, well, I just can’t wait for the fireworks.”

  I absolutely need to keep my sister’s location private, no matter what.

  I pulled a couple of wrong turns that are quick enough to fix without Angel noticing. I still don’t like the idea of telling her who we’re visiting, and although the information settled her down, I have no reason to trust that her silence means she’s satisfied. About two hundred yards from my sister’s place, my instincts prove dead on.

  Angel turns to face me, but says nothing.

  “What?” I bark impatiently, pulling over to put the truck in park right here in the middle of the suburbs.

  “With what happened last night, you should talk to someone.”

  “I’ve been in worse situations.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m not talking about the bad guys. I picked up bits and pieces. Those nightmares didn’t sound too cozy, you know?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’m serious, Axe. No one should have to go through that alone.”

  The sick joke is that I’ve not been alone. Though I might as well have been, with the way I was forced to grow up fast and look out for my sister after Social Services took us away from Vincent. Just because he wasn’t related to us by blood, Nancy and I ended up in foster care. The couple we ended up with was good to us, but in a way, that was the problem. They were so nice, Nancy began to think that suppressing what happened to us, pushing away the memory, keeping it hidden, would be easier. She didn’t look back because she didn’t want to feel like she was letting them down. When I turned eighteen, I left and went back to stay with Vincent. Nancy refused to leave, and when she hit eighteen, she carried on like she was one hundred percent their child.

  “That’s the house,” I say as we turn onto Nance’s street.

  “It’s a really nice slice of suburbia. What are we waiting for?”

  Cracking my neck, I drive off again, thankful she isn’t going to push the issue. I don’t owe her an explanation, except for getting her out of this situation in one piece. “For the sake of peace in my sister’s place, and respect for her young children, leave the attitude at the door.”

  “Fine. For the children,” she agrees.

  “Thanks.” I stop on the road beside identical sprawling ranch-style houses with perfect white picket fences.

  She cranes her neck left and right to take in the street. “Your sister lives around here?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must be excited to see her.”

  That’s quite the assumption. Too bad I don’t feel like correcting her.

  17

  Angel

  I feel like a lump of cooling clay in my seat, still reeling from the brush of Axe’s lips across my palm. It’s a small touch, almost non-existent, yet it sears in my brain as my pulse thrums beneath every inch of my sensitive skin. Something so light shouldn’t be as intimate or more meaningful than the handful of encounters that we already shared together, with our clothes off.

  Quotes about solemn passion and powerful flames from romance classics like Jane Eyre twist through my thoughts as I stare at my empty hands in my lap. Clearly I’ve spent way too much time reading at the library instead of actually working. And all those idealistic meanderings ruined me a long time ago, causing me to gravitate to men like Axe all the time. It’s obvious to me that except for the fact that he’s in a biker gang, he needs fixing. He’s as broken as any other man I’ve been attracted too. Which is exactly why I need to back off.

  I’ve always been drawn to damaged bad boys, yet with this man, the baggage he carries around is bigger than this truck. Working on him is sure to be a doozy, a project I’ll never overcome or grow sick of until his pain spills over and wrecks everything good in my life. My track record is stellar for picking men who are all kinds of wrong for me. I start seeing them, and eventually try to fix them, and sometimes, I’m partially successful. But then a spring will come loose, and I’ll be frustrated at my failure. The majority of my exes either wound up hating me for trying to make them better, or leaving me after their improvement.

  Axe is an utterly gorgeous disaster waiting to happen—or rather, happening right this second—and I have hardly seen the tip of the snowflake resting on the tip of the iceberg that’s his unique set of issues. Even his secrets have secrets. The messy shadows waiting in the depths are sure to swallow me whole, spitting me out ragged, exhausted, and alone. Or dead, given the last day’s events.

  I try to inwardly express a few affirmations.

  Axe is not my problem.

  Axe is not my mission.

  I’m a librarian, not a goddamned missionary.

  The sad reality is that Axe Voltaire is not someone I should ever give my heart to, even if I allow myself the pleasure of being with him casually. The reason has nothing to do with the fact that he’s a gang member, or from being traumatized as a child. It’s not because he’s desperately in need of weekly therapy, and not because he’s probably the worst of the outlaws in his motorcycle club. It’s not because he’s completely my type either.

  Nope.

  None of those.

  I can’t afford to fall for the man because his touch still lingers on my skin long after he let me go, and it rests there even after we pull up beside his sister’s suburban cookie-cutter dream home, and probably after I return to my life before he came into it.

  I glance in his direction as he puts the truck in park. Maybe he’s intentionally avoiding me for the same reason. I follow his gaze, which is glued to the front door, and realize I’m dead wrong about that part. The door has opened. A small boy and a taller girl hurtle outside, descend the front porch and run around in circles on the perfectly manicured front lawn. Their exit from the house is randomly timed, because they begin to play, not noticing that me and Axe are watching them from the side of the road.

  My eyebrows pop up when a woman bustles out of the house in an outfit that looks like something straight out of a Talbot’s catalog. Axe’s sister has the preppy soccer mom thing down pat. How on God’s green earth can that woman be related to the man sitting less than two feet away? He’s possibly immersed in organized crime, doing deals with the underbelly of society. And there’s his sister. She could have easily been put in a time machine in her ‘as-is’ state and do a walk-on role on Leave it to Beaver. Their paths must have deviated somewhere or another, never to rejoin—until today.

  The woman watches the kids for a moment, and her stare travels, settling on the bullet-ridden, beat-up eyesore of a pickup truck at her sidewalk. Neighborhood watch in the area is probably firing texts down the emergency call tree of homeowners, or may have already put out a BOLO on the vehicle. Axe’s sister’s lips compress for a millisecond, and her face slowly stretches into a broad smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. Still, she doesn’t make a move toward us. She stands on the porch with her hands clasped at her middle as if waiting for some kind of direction. I remain neutral, waiting for Axe to make the first move. He remains glued to his seat, staring through the windshield.

  I poke him in the ribs with my elbow. “Go talk to her,” I hiss. “You’re being weird right now.”

  “I’m going,” he says, sounding strangled.

  His fingers click his seatbelt buckle and throws the belt off his shoulder. Opening his door, he slides out of the seat and just stands there. Something is not right between these two people. I’m sure I’m missing some crucial piece of the puzzle. They act more like strangers, like there isn’t enough history between them. Axe eventually walks across the driveway to meet her, and they embrace in the most awkward, uncomfortable way. It’s hard to watch.

  So, things with Axe’s family aren’t simple either.

  Why am I not surprised?

  18

  Axe

  I didn’t think far enough ahead to the whole hugging part. When Nancy came toward me, I froze. I try
to recover, and end up patting her on the back as though she’s one of the boys. What else am I supposed to do? I’m standing in front of my estranged sister, with no buffer, and a mutual grudge the size of a tanker truck. Touching is not part of the reunion I envisioned. Holding her makes my mind spin and gives me no time to tamp down the hard fact that facing her is almost like facing this nightmare. No, exactly like it.

  “You look good,” Nancy says, giving me a once-over, but the lie is still a lie.

  “Thanks. You look the same.”

  I dig my hands into my pants pocket, gaze flicking around the front yard. God, coming here was a fucking mistake. Possibly the worst one I’ve made in a while. My niece and nephew don’t even recognize me. They laugh and shriek, playing some weird cross between tag and dodgeball. How could I show up here and threaten these kids’ wellbeing just from my presence, or destroy the perfection Nancy has built for them? After everything we went through as children, she deserves her delusions. My very presence fucks that all up. She needs her idea of control in the same way I need my adopted family, the Saints. Both are a form of safety, a coping mechanism. I rushed headlong into her little bubble without even thinking about the repercussions.

  As usual, I’ve been a selfish prick.

  Forgetting to take them into account could cost them a lot in this suburban hell that Nancy idolizes. She gravitated toward the lifestyle of our foster parents, wanting nothing to do with our past. I ran to the Satan’s Saints. Neither of us chose the path of our parents. Sadly, that’s probably the only thing we have in common.

  In Nancy’s mind, choosing the life she did probably means she can have a reasonably sound assurance that nothing bad will ever happen to her—until today, when her asshole of a brother showed up asking for a favor and dragging dirt right up to her pristine front door.

  Except, she’s been the one trying to keep our connection alive all these years.

  “I, uh, like what you’ve done with the place,” I tell her.

  “It hasn’t changed much. Not since the last time.”

  I kick a loose stone in the driveway. It probably drives Nancy nuts, but it’s easier to do that than make small talk. We both knew why she agreed to let me come here in the first place—weird ass circumstances. Once the crazy shit is over and Angel is out of danger, everything will go back to normal and in all likelihood, Nancy won’t see or hear from me again for a very, very long time.

  That’s our normal.

  She waves at the kids. “Annalee, Asher, come and say hi to your Uncle Alexander.”

  They run over, each of them taking a side to hug me.

  “Hi, Uncle,” Asher says, staring adoringly up at me.

  “You don’t remember me, do you Uncle Alex?” Annalee asks, slightly more reserved.

  “Are you kidding me? Of course, I do. How have you been doing with your dance classes?”

  Her eyes light up, and she prattles on, filling me in on all the recitals she performed in, the competitions she wants to win, and more details on ballet and dance techniques than I need to know.

  Nancy sends the kids inside to neaten up their toys. “Do you think your friend will ever get out of the truck?” she asks after we hop up the porch. “She knows I don’t bite, right?”

  “No, she’s pretty clear that I’m the one who bites.” Saying that to Nancy sounds so creepy that even I wince.

  “I’m beginning to see that. This is what Vincent meant when he said the MC went legit?”

  “Don’t start. We are legit. We set up a company, and we do real private security work. Look, I’ll introduce the two of you.”

  She cocks her head, studying Angel through the windshield. “That’s your job, huh? Do I need to ask if it comes with benefits?”

  “None of your business,” I snort, turning to open the passenger door, and give Angel a helpless look. “Come over here and meet Nancy, my sister.”

  For a beat, Angel goes pasty white. Is she nervous?

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I’m great,” Angel insists, taking my hand to get out.

  I realize where some of her hesitation comes from. No shoes, no bra, no panties, wind-blown hair. To me, she’s sexy as fuck, but stepping into the burbs like this, especially for a person like Angel, who’s normally perfectly put together, must be her own personal waking nightmare. Still, she holds her head high and takes the few barefoot steps through the grass until she’s face to face with Nancy. Nancy arches a knowing brow in my direction and gazes down at the spot where my hand is still touching Angel’s upper arm.

  Nancy takes a step forward and offers her hand. “Hello. I’m Nancy. So you’re Axe’s current pet project?”

  “I’m Angel.” She takes Nancy’s hand and shakes it confidently. “It’s good to meet you. I didn’t realize your brother told you anything about me.”

  I refuse to touch that flaming red flag. Women are going to girl talk, and shit is going to hit the fan, so if I know what’s good for me, being elsewhere is better. I motion toward the front door with my chin.

  “Help yourself, I have to get something from the garage.”

  That statement is probably as close to a formal invitation as I’m going to get, I let myself into my sister’s sanctuary. Not much has changed in the house itself. Not design-wise. The layout is still clean and modern. Definitely sleek and impersonal, just like Nancy and her husband, who I’m yet to meet because me and Nancy weren’t on speaking terms when she sent me the invitation to her wedding. All the other times I’ve come around—which I can count on one hand—the man is always away on business.

  I’m overwhelmed by the silence in the house. Nothing is out of place, even the kid’s toys. I walk down the hallway into the kitchen for a glass of water, and by the time I’ve taken my first sip, the rattle of the backyard doorknob makes me shoot up straight. My hand goes to the gun holster at the small of my back. The kids are upstairs. Nancy and Angel are at the front door. Then, who is edging their way into the house through the back door?

  I draw my weapon just as the women step into the kitchen behind me. I point my gun at the intruder as he shows himself, ducking past the small door into the kitchen, and juggling keys in his palm. He’s a Los Diablos member.

  “If you want to keep your sorry sack of shit in one piece, I suggest you get the fuck out of this house. Far away from me and mine. Got it? Otherwise, we’ll have to dig a large hole in my sister’s flowerbeds for your bullet-riddled corpse.”

  All my senses go on red alert as I stare more closely at the prick’s face. The man standing in my sister’s kitchen, eyes wide at the gun trained on his forehead, is wearing a Los Diablos cut. Which makes sense because he’s Kade Jackson, the president of the Nevada Chapter of the Los Diablos MC.

  “How the fuck did you find us?” I demand. “Does Antonio Vasquez even know you’re here? He may be the Arizona Chapter Prez, and this may be your territory, but you have some nerve showing up at my sister’s, motherfucker.”

  “Get the fuck back,” the man warns.

  “Alexander, no!” Nancy throws herself in front of my line of fire with both hands outstretched. “Stop it. Both of you. The kids are upstairs!”

  “Get out of the way, Nancy.” Kade says, putting his arm on her shoulder.

  “Don’t fucking touch my sister!” I shout.

  “Let’s take this song and dance outside, shithead,” Kade snorts. “I’ll calm you right down.”

  What the fuck am I missing here? Now isn’t the time for jokes. I readjust my angle and harden my jaw. “Stop talking. Turn the fuck around and start walking.”

  Nancy stretches her arms out in both our directions, unafraid. “Alexander, I really don’t need my brother to shoot my husband in front of my children. Put the gun down.”

  19

  Axe

  “Excuse me?” my stare shoots back and forth between Kade and Nancy, and rests on my sister. “Run that by me again? I must be out of my mind, because what I thought I heard was th
at this motherfucker is your husband?”

  “You heard correctly,” Nancy says, meeting my gaze. “What part of I’m getting married to Kade Jackson did you not hear back then?”

  “How the fuck was I supposed to know it was this Kade Jackson? You never gave bikers or anyone who wasn’t perfectly white bread and middle class the time of day. I just assumed—”

  “Don’t give me that. Your assumptions almost killed my kids’ father in his own home!”

  Groaning, I lower the gun and jam the safety into place. I put it away, wiping my palms across my face. “Maybe you’re right. We do have a lot to talk about, and sleeping with the enemy is right at the top of the goddamned list. It may have occurred to you to have told me something like, Hey, Axe. Guess what? I married a Los Diablos member, and not just any Los Diablos, the president of the motherfucking Nevada Chapter. I mean, Jesus Christ, what if you hadn’t come in the house? Did you consider that, sis? Kade’s big ugly mug would be splattered all over your perfect kitchen.”

  I clutch one arm to the counter beside me, suddenly visualizing that night all over again. “I could have fucking killed him, and the kids are right upstairs…they would have seen…”

  Unable to cope, I quickly push off from the spot, brushing by Nancy and Angel. I make a dash for the front door, heading right back to the truck. One stupid move could have put those kids through exactly the lives me and Nancy had, even though I fought damn hard to protect her from it back then. My head pounds and even in the blistering hot truck interior, my skin is cold and sweaty. Thank fuck I haven’t had much to eat yet, because the thought has me ready to puke my guts out.

  “Alexander?” Nancy’s muffled voice floats in as she knocks on my driver side window.

  I crack the door open slightly, not wanting to bother with starting the engine to lower the window. “What?” I croak, swallowing down bitter bile.