by A. J. Macey
Oh, hell no.
Game on, fuckers!
Sprinting, I tackled Bastard #1, a muscular guy holding on to Abby’s boots. We made contact with the cement, the burning of the rough surface cutting through my shirt barely noticeable due to my pumping adrenaline. Abby had wiggled a thin arm free and had scratched up Bastard #2’s face, blood welling up at the large, red welts. Arms clamped around my chest holding my elbows to my sides as Bastard #3 lifted me off his buddy’s groaning, barely conscious body.
“We were only tasked with bringing the Aces’ bitch, but a two-for-one deal I’m sure will be appreciated.” Bastard #3’s voice was harsh and taunting as he lifted me further off the ground and toward the van. Kicking back, my geriatric-style tennis shoe made solid contact with his knee. As he screamed I was able to maneuver myself slightly from his ironclad grip, noting the patch on his vest.
Prospect. Alloy Kings Motorcycle Club.
Fucking 1%ers. I growled, kicking my heel back and up, hitting him squarely where the sun doesn’t shine. He lurched forward and released me so he could tend to his family jewels. He won’t be having kids for a while. I mentally applauded my efforts at the sound of his cries. I stumbled forward a bit but regained my composure right in time to see Bastard #1 get up and scurry like the bitch he was back into the van. Abby, who was fighting for all she was worth in Bastard #2’s arms, was being hauled over to the open van door. I threw myself at his back and latched on, distracting him enough to let go of Abby. She dropped and rolled out of his way like a pro and soon it was just me and Bastard #2. He attempted to grab me, but his large calloused hands missed as I jumped off. Several well-delivered punches later and Bastard #2 had retreated to their van with Bastard #3 hot on his heels, but before I could grab Abby and leave, Bastard #3 sucker punched me in the side of the head. Stars burst in front of my eyes as the van squealed its tires out of the parking lot.
“Kiera!” Abby’s voice was the last thing I heard before slipping to the ground.
Brooks
“What the fuck do you mean our shipment was taken?” I snapped. My Road Captain, Nate, stood before me, his face taut with irritation.
“Meaning exactly what I said, Boss.” Nate’s voice trembled harshly as he ground out the statement between clenched teeth. His anger radiating off him in waves as one of his hands curled and uncurled. “Our contact wasn’t at the drop, only this.” He held out the small piece of paper. Snatching it from him, I studied the crumpled page. A crown stared back at me.
“God fucking damn it!” I kicked out, putting a hole in the plaster of the office. “Fucking Alloy Kings. These fuckers are really starting to piss me off.” Before Nate could respond, his phone rang loudly.
“Not a good time, babe…” His bearded face paled significantly. “You almost here?” More silence rang out as he waited for an answer. “Good, we’ll meet you out front.”
“What?” I scoffed. I had more important shit to take care of than whatever his Old Lady needed. Like these fucking bastards who think they can take our damned shipments out from under our nose.
“Abby and her friend were nearly kidnapped at the store this morning,” he filled me in as we headed toward the front of the main compound building. The bar was empty and clean as Cheryl wiped down the lacquered surface erasing the last bit of evidence of the guys’ party last night.
“And?” I knew there was more to it than what he had revealed. His lip twitched, his large beard shifting with the movement, before continuing.
“She’ll explain, they’re almost here.”
“They? We don’t need outsiders here.” Shooting a glare at Nate, I stepped outside into the hot spring weather, the desert dust glaringly bright in the overhead sun. I had to squint until my eyes adjusted from the stark change, the bar seemingly pitch black compared to the sunniness of Nevada’s outdoors.
“Kiera’s good, Boss. I’ve known her as long as I’ve known Abby.”
Swallowing my retort I focused on the familiar red truck as Abby pulled up. Her thin face was set in a scowl as she climbed out and headed toward us, her dark brown hair starting to fall out of her ponytail. There was a darkening bruise on her arms and a swatch of blood dried on her fingers.
“What happened?” Nate immediately questioned his wife who stormed around the front of the truck, her boots pounding loudly against the pavement.
“Three guys tried to force us into their van.” She pulled open the passenger side door to reveal a thin woman with wavy, dirty blonde hair. Her skin was tanned, but I couldn’t get a good look at her face with the way she was slumped in the chair. “Punched Kiera on their way out.” Nate lifted her out of the seat, his burly muscles able to hold her with ease.
“Take her to one of the back rooms.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “How’d you get away?”
“Kiera took care of most of it. She’s pretty scrappy when she wants to be.” Abby followed us into the bar area, her husband continuing down the hall to one of the extra bedrooms. “There’s something you need to know,” she urged, her grave tone bringing my attention to her. “They were Alloy Kings’ prospects; they knew I was an Aces’ Old Lady.” Building rage thrummed in my veins, my fists clenching at my sides. I ground my teeth thinking through what we should do before I spoke.
“Warn the other Ladies and any hang-arounds to keep an eye out.” Fuck. Stone’s thudding footsteps filled the quiet area as he entered the bar from the back office.
“What’s wrong, Boss?” his deep voice asked quietly. Stone rarely raised his voice-- his near-permanent scowl, broad shoulders, and muscles conveyed more of a threat than his voice ever could.
“Alloy Kings are causing issues.” Abby had pulled back from our huddle to go check on her friend at the first sight of Stone, figuring we would start talking club business. She had been around long enough to know when to give us privacy. When she was far enough away, I continued to explain what happened. “Jacked our latest shipment and tried to take Abby and her friend.”
“She looked a bit scuffed up,” Stone agreed. “What’s the plan?”
I was about to answer when Abby and Nate filed back into the bar with their friend trailing behind them. I couldn’t help myself, my gaze skimmed over her body and face trying to get a better look at her than when she was slumped in the seat of Abby’s truck.
Her dirty blonde hair was knotted on the back of her head and stuck out at weird angles. Her outfit was drab and did nothing for her; I had to keep myself from grimacing at it. She sported a nice tan and her eyes, a dark green-brown, scanned her surroundings warily.
She might be pretty if she wasn’t dressed like my grandmother…
Kiera
“Boss, this is Kiera.” Nate’s booming voice was restrained as we neared the two jacked guys standing near the bar. I recognized them from my file on the Aces Motorcycle Club—MC President Brooks ‘Boss’ Abbott and the MC’s Enforcer Stone ‘Grave’ Ronin. Since I wasn’t supposed to know anything about them, I kept a confused yet curious look on my face. You know the one I’m talking about. The one when you’ve farted in a crowded room and you wonder if anyone is going to call you out on it, so you just look around with that ‘who did it, it wasn’t me’ face.
Thank fuck for my ugly ass outfit. I prayed it would be enough to keep them from looking too much into me. Glancing around, I made mental notes of everything I could see. I had blueprints of the building back home, but I didn’t really know what it looked like.
The flooring was a dark cement, nearly as black as the ceiling tiles in the long rectangular room. The walls were a dark grey and covered in different motorcycle memorabilia. A lacquer topped bar ran almost the length of one of the short walls, only stopping by the open hallway that led to the rest of the building. There was a wall of liquor on glass shelving in front of a giant mirror, the reflective surface only broken up by a black unmarked door.
I tallied the exits: two main doors since I wasn’t sure if the unmarked one was an exit, a large air co
nditioning system based on the vent grates, and a few windows that could be opened along the front of the room looking out over the parking lot. Several scuffed and chipped wooden tables and chairs were situated around the open space, broken up by leather lounge chairs. I had to keep my face devoid of emotion as to not gag at the amount of blood, spit, and other human fluids I was sure coated the surface of nearly everything in the building.
“You want a drink?” Brooks offered. His voice pulled my attention away from the dark, dingy bar. Waving toward the very boobilicious bartender with permed blonde hair, he took a sip of his drink while the woman shuffled around behind the counter. Her chest bounced with any minute movement as she picked up the half empty bottle and a clean, well, hopefully clean, glass.
A lowball of whiskey appeared in front of me, and I eyeballed the glass a few seconds before I lifted it to my lips. The drink pleasantly burned when I took a small sip, my eyes on the MC’s president as I felt Abby and Nate shuffle a few steps away. Their soft words were muffled as I discreetly took in the sexy man in front of me. Brooks’ golden blond hair, a bit on the long side, was brushed away from his too-pretty-for-his-own-good face. Which is why he probably chose to cover his strong jaw with that rough looking beard, I thought. He wore traditional rider’s attire of jeans, plain t-shirt, and his cut, the skull in the Ace of Spades glaring at me from its position within the Aces’ club name patches. I had to get ahold of the desire that slowly uncurled within my stomach at his muscled body clothed in his tight shirt.
“You got someone you can call?” Brooks’ voice was as smooth as the whiskey I was drinking; the throaty quality warmed my body right along with the alcohol. I nodded softly, thankful Abby had been there when I came to so I could tell her to keep her mouth shut about me and my not-so-typical career choice.
Brooks nodded back at me, his grey-blue eyes darting back toward the bar and his own glass. Stone’s ebony eyes were locked on my face; the steely gaze seemed to take in every movement and nuance. Watching him, I caught the way his body shifted, as if he was readying for a fight. His dark skin stretched tightly over bulging muscles, and only a shadow of black hair dusted his scalp and jaw.
I busied myself with my phone knowing the one person who would, hopefully, put the suspicious man at ease. My top priority was to keep myself from being exposed to one of the few criminal enterprises of Nevada. Against my better judgment, I dialed Garrett’s number.
“Yes?” his harsh voice gritted out. “What do you want?”
I held back my growl and used a ‘normal’ people voice to not draw attention to myself as I explained. My eyes were trained on my glass, refusing to make contact with anyone, even Abby. The amber liquid winked in the soft overhead lighting.
“I need you to grab my on-the-go bag,” I murmured, not faking the embarrassment that flooded my cheeks. I hated being in a position to have to rely on him. Of all the assholes in the world, I mentally grumbled.
“Where are you? Damn it, Kiera.” It was his turn to growl at me, the revving of his Harley loud in the background. “You better not be in the middle of fucking nowhere again.”
“I’m at the bar. With Abby.” His grumbling stopped as he processed what I said. He knew what I was attempting to say without giving myself away. I mean, I am sitting here pretending I didn’t know this was the home base for the main motorcycle gang in the area.
“You’re at the compound?” he stated very slowly, with a brief pause before screams erupted on the other end of the line. I had to yank the phone away from my ear in case he burst an eardrum. His obscenities cracked through the speaker at the volume at which he shouted them. Annoyed with the situation and his assholey behavior, I hung up on him. Fucking bastard. A small smile curled my lip when I imagined Garrett’s face when he realized he was no longer screaming at me, but at a dead line. Ha!
“He’ll be here shortly,” I muttered, taking another sip of the delicious liquor. Brooks and Stone were both eying me with suspicion now, Garrett’s tantrum having caught their attention. They didn’t talk as we waited and, with Abby and Nate stepping over to the other side of the bar to let Nate check over her, I was left to fend for myself. The rumble of Garrett’s bike filled the awkward silence fifteen minutes later, and his familiar grouchy face zoned in on me as he shoved the door open.
“Warden?” Stone finally spoke, choosing to use Garrett’s road name. Surprise littered his single-worded question. Garrett briefly glanced at the other MC officers, a slight dip of his head in greeting before turning his full, seething attention on me.
“If you’ll excuse us, gentlemen. I need to have a discussion with my stepsister,” he bit out, his baritone voice laced with fury. I slipped off the worn wooden stool, looking toward the floor as if I was properly chastised by his words.
Yeah right, fuck this asshole, I thought privately.
I followed closely behind him as we made our way back to the same spare bedroom I had woken up in, taking note that it was the second door on the left-hand side of the dingy carpeted hall. When he shut the door with a slam behind me, Garrett took several steps to close the distance between us, our chests brushing together causing my nipples to peak. Fire burned my veins at the feeling of his taut, tattooed muscles rubbing against me. Pushing the heat down, I focused on what he was saying.
“What in the ever-loving fuck are you doing here?” Each word was enunciated with deadly precision. I snatched my bag away from his closed fist, his reflexes too slow to pull it away from me. Setting it on the bed, I unzipped the plain black duffle and pulled out another pair of mom jeans and another stupid turtleneck, this one a dark grey instead of black.
I am so ready to be done with this job so I can burn these fucking clothes.
“Abby and I got jumped and she brought me here. Don’t worry though,” I sneered, looking up at the asshole before me. His green eyes sharpened and sparked as I glared at him. “I’ll be out of here after I change. I have to prep for a job tonight.” I shucked the ruined sweater and blood splattered jeans, leaving me in a black bra and matching thong. Garrett’s eyes zeroed in on my body as I dressed quickly, his intense perusal heating my blood. There’s no time for hate fucking, I reminded myself, unfortunately.
Garrett Newlyn came into my life when I was sixteen. Having just turned eighteen years old himself when his mother married Frank, his tattooed, muscled body had caught my attention, but no amount of sexiness could take away the amount of assholey-ness that spewed from his damned, kissable mouth.
“What job?” he demanded. His eyes finally focused on my face as I adjusted the turtleneck, his anger unmollified by my nearly naked body minutes before.
“None of your damned business, Warden,” I mocked his nickname. “I’m going to leave with Abby, you’re going to keep your nose in your own fucking shit, and you’re not going to call attention to me or my jobs to your boy band buddies. Got it?” I jabbed him in the chest with a finger. His lip pulled back in a snarl.
“Fuck you, Kiera. I don’t want you here in the first place, so you’ll get no objections from me when you leave.”
I flashed him a sardonic grin. Good. Weaving around him, I stepped back out into the hall, the weight of my duffle secured on my shoulder.
“What job?” he asked again, following me. I huffed at his annoying, overprotective persistence.
“Don’t worry about it.” I rolled my eyes before stepping back into the bar area. “I’m ready, Abby.” I tried to make my voice sound polite, friendly, and overall like a normal person. All of which I wasn’t. At all. Garrett’s hand clamped down on my shoulder keeping me from stepping forward.
“Don’t do this job, Kiera,” he urged quietly, but not quietly enough for Brooks or Stone to be blissfully ignorant. Damn him, this isn’t keeping his nose to himself.
“It’s only some volunteer work at the law office.” I glanced over my shoulder at him. My words filled with innocence hoping to direct any attention away from me. I kept my eyes away from the other MC
members and glared at Garrett. “Don’t worry, it’s only for tomorrow.” He gritted his teeth and let go of my shoulder. Taking the opening, I shuffled quickly to Abby and out into the hot desert sun.
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Also by A.J. Macey
Best Wishes Series
Smoke and Wishes
Smoke and Survival
Smoke and Mistletoe
Smoke and Betrayal
FSID Agents Series
Whisper of Spirits
Whisper of Pasts
High School Clowns & Coffee Grounds Series
Lads & Lattes
Misters & Mochas
Chaps & Cappuccinos
Fellas & Frappes
The Aces Series
Rival
Adversary
Enemy
The Auckland Kings Crime Family
Liam
Hunter
Vega City Vigilantes Series
Masked by Vengeance
Cloaked in Conspiracy
Revealed through Redemption
Besties & Booze Shared Universe
Faked
Not Your Basic Witch Series with Jarica James
Witch, Please
Resting Witch Face
Witches Be Crazy
Born to be Witchy
Criminal Underground Book Collection with Lucy Smoke
Sweet Possession
Scarlett Thief
Sinister Engagement
