Engage (Disciples' Daughters Book 3)

by Drew Elyse

  “What the fuck is this?” I demanded.

  The guys looked shifty, eyes moving to one another and avoiding me and Roadrunner. I’d never in my life known a situation where my brothers couldn’t look me in the fucking eye like men. Giving up on that shit, I turned to Roadrunner.

  “You gonna tell me what this is?”

  “Fuckers aren’t letting us in,” he rumbled.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Pres’s orders,” Roadrunner shared, staring daggers at the door to the shed. “Said they need time to get intel from Yeltz before we go at him.”

  “We don’t need any fucking intel on Kuznetsov. Motherfucker’s too dumb to hide shit.”

  Roadrunner didn’t voice his agreement, but I knew we were on the same page.

  There was nothing to be done until Stone came out and said otherwise, but that shit did not sit well with me. I moved my eyes to Gauge and Sketch.

  “You two fuckin’ know. You know exactly what you’re doing keeping me out right now,” I spat. Each of them had had some motherfucker mess with their woman. Tank wasn’t there, or I’d throw it in his face too on Roadrunner’s behalf.

  “If that motherfucker had info about Barton that could have prevented him nearly taking my woman and Ace taking those bullets, I would have waited to get it,” Sketch answered.

  “Bullshit,” I spat.

  His jaw tightened because he knew it was. He could say it now with his woman and daughter safe, all that shit in the past. In the moment, when we brought that asshole back here, nothing would have stopped Sketch from laying into him. Only thing that cut it short was Ash being in trouble.

  Things were tense, really fucking tense in a way they shouldn’t have been between Disciples until the shed door opened. Stone and Tank came out, not reacting to the sight of us all facing off. They knew exactly what was happening while they were in there.

  Neither Roadrunner nor I spoke. Stone, taking that cue, did. “Didn’t want to do that to you two. You both gotta know that, but that fucker had info. Shit we can use to take down Kuznetsov before he decides he wants Ember or any of the women here added to his sick as shit auctions.” He indicated the shed behind him with his thumb. “We took Yeltz right out from under him. Fuck, we took him off the man’s own property. You don’t think we need to be prepared for retribution after that, you are dead fucking wrong.”

  I knew retribution was coming. I even knew exactly what kind of threat that presented to Ember. I also fucking knew we could handle it. Whatever it was, we would handle it. We didn’t need Yeltz for that.

  “Now, I gotta delay you again,” Stone said. I could feel the tension come from Roadrunner as my own body tightened.

  Tank decided to step in there. “Ember deserves to know what happened, what that fucker did to her. She deserves her pound of flesh more than either one of you. My Cami got her shot. Ash didn’t, but that girl doesn’t have the stomach for it. Both of them knew who did them wrong. Ember deserves at least that, but you gotta consider she might need her chance to confront him in order to let this shit go.”

  Fuck.

  I looked to Roadrunner, seeing his face tight with frustration.

  He knew, just as I did.

  She’d want that. She might even need it.

  And we had to give it to her.

  “Call her,” he said without looking.

  As much as I wanted to keep her home in my bed, safe from the emotional turmoil this shit might cause, I knew I had to.

  Ember drove up to the farmhouse just over an hour later. She wasn’t done up the way I’d learned she usually liked to be. My girl had her style, and she did the work to rock that look daily. I couldn’t say that shit wouldn’t get frustrating when it took her half a lifetime to get ready and out the door, but I could say I always appreciated the results. But with her in a simple t-shirt and jeans, her hair pulled back into a basic ponytail, I also appreciated that she didn’t need to do any of that work.

  I appreciated it more right then, because her gorgeous face helped pull my head away from the burning desire to head back out to that shed and do what I wanted. And what I wanted meant there wouldn’t be enough of Yeltz left for her to confront.

  As she got out of her car and came to where Stone, Roadrunner, Doc, Ace, and I were standing, she looked nervous. I couldn’t fault her for that. I’d woken her with a phone call in the middle of the night when I should have been beside her, only to tell her I needed her to get up and come to an address she wasn’t familiar with.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, coming right to me and fitting herself against my side.

  Roadrunner told her. I couldn’t. It took everything in me to focus on holding her when she got tense learning about Louis/Yeltz. I internalized that, let it feed the fire burning in my gut. I was going to remember it with every nightmare she woke from, the tears she cried into my chest when she realized she was safe. Once she was done here, I was going to let those memories drive every blow, every single thing I would do to Yeltz, and his screams would wash them away.

  “We have him,” Roadrunner finished. “We wanted to give you the chance if you—”

  Ember cut him off, turning in my arms and looking up at me to demand, “Take me to him.”

  There was fire in her eyes—a fire to match my own.

  I did as she asked.

  I had just stopped my bike outside the shed when she jumped off, charging right past the brothers still collected outside. Stone, Roadrunner, Doc, and Ace’s bikes were all still pulling up behind me as she hit the door. Daz was on it and halted her there. Not knowing what she might do, I hurried to put down the kickstand and shut my Harley off.

  Just as I got to her, she demanded in a firm voice, “Let. Me. In.”

  Daz looked to me for the go-ahead before opening the door, something Ember saw if her little growl was anything to go by.

  Inside the shed, there was a single lightbulb dead center lighting the room. Beneath it, tied to a sturdy wooden chair with knots I’d checked over, was Yeltz. He had a ragged cloth shoved in his mouth to keep the fucker quiet.

  Ember froze when she made it in and faced off with him. I stood behind her, giving her space to do or say what she needed to. I had no idea what to expect, which was why she caught me off guard.

  Her head turned away from Yeltz, something I thought was an emotional move. I thought she needed a moment to collect herself. That wasn’t it at all.

  No, Ember was searching, and she found what she was looking for. In one swift move, she reached to the table where the boys had unloaded everything we needed to play with the motherfucker, grabbed a large hunting knife, then swung around and buried it in his thigh.

  Brothers cursed while I grabbed onto her. Yeltz screamed behind his gag.

  “You motherfucker!” Ember shrieked. “What? You think the fact that I dumped you before you got to fuck me means you can pull some fucked up shit like this? You’re fucking disgusting!”

  Yeltz’s eyes got hard and he tried to spit venom back at her to no avail.

  “Shut your fucking mouth!” she ordered. “You tried to destroy my whole life! Now you get to sit there while my family destroys you!”

  Blood was still streaming from the goddamn knife sticking out of the guy’s leg. A knife my woman had been driven to put there. Her words revealed she knew exactly what we had in store for Yeltz, but that didn’t mean she needed to see any more gore than she’d already caused.

  I wrapped both my arms around her. “You’re done,” I told her.

  She didn’t fight. Whatever had possessed her to that level of violence—while understandable—had run its course. It was time to get her out of there before the whole episode turned traumatic. She let me lead her out of the shed, but that was as far as we got. Her feet stopped and her eyes widened as she stared off in the distance.

  “Oh my god,” she whispered. “I just…I…I stabbed him.”

  “Don’t think about it.”

  She blink
ed a few times and gave me her eyes. “But, I—”

  “Baby, don’t go there. You’re fine even though he almost made you not that way. He deserved that shit, and he deserves worse.”

  “And you’re going to give him worse,” she stated in a blank way that had me questioning how she felt about it.

  “Ember,” I started, but she spoke.

  “You have to.” Her eyes went to the shed where all the brothers had disappeared inside. “All of you.”

  “Yeah. We do. You belong to this club, you don’t hurt without retribution.”

  “He deserved that.”

  “He did.”

  She nodded.

  The door to the shed opened, making me look over. Sketch stepped out, his phone in hand.

  “Ash is coming to get you,” he said, focusing on Ember.

  “I’m okay. She has Emmy,” Ember protested.

  “Jasmine got to town today,” he replied. “She’ll be good there if Emmy wakes up before you two get back.”

  “Okay,” Ember agreed.

  I gave Sketch a chin lift, a silent thank you for doing that. Knowing my girl was being taken care of meant I could focus where I needed to.

  When he was gone again, I gave Ember my attention, making sure she was okay to go when Ash got there. Her head was still turned away, but I used a finger to tilt it my way. Her eyes had been distant, but she focused on me.

  “Make him pay,” she said.

  That was it, just those three words told me what I needed to know.

  I kissed her for being so fucking strong, for giving me permission to dismantle that motherfucker who hurt her. She kissed me back, letting me taste her deep. I wanted that sweetness on my tongue while I made Yeltz’s blood flow. When it was there in a way I hoped would last, I pulled back.

  “I fucking will,” I promised.

  “Good,” was her response.

  Good.

  I walked through the gym on somewhat unsteady legs. There were guys scattered around, working out or training. Some gave me chin lifts. Some didn’t look my way at all, such was their focus. Some let their gazes linger. These were, I was not surprised to see, only men I hadn’t met before. They didn’t know who I was, and thereby, who I was with. They’d learn. Jager always made sure they learned.

  I’d started tagging along with Jager to work since that night with Daniel.

  Wait, no. His name wasn’t Daniel. It was Anthony Yeltz.

  Bastard.

  I had no idea what exactly happened to him after I left that shed while the knife I’d put in his leg was still there. I knew, of course, whatever had followed for him had been excruciating. And Jager’s words when he’d returned to me that night had been “taken care of”.

  I tried not to do too much soul searching about it. The fact of the matter was the asshole had me kidnapped. He tried to give me to those people who would have auctioned me off and god knows who would have bought me for things I didn’t even want to imagine.

  I’d stabbed him—something I tried not to remember the actual sensation of, but I didn’t regret. My man, my dad, and the men I’d come to consider family did far worse. Maybe I wasn’t a good person, but that reality didn’t bother me.

  He deserved it all.

  And I deserved what I was getting, which, at that moment, was a whole lot of good in the form of watching my man in the ring, working with a younger boxer.

  This was one of the many boons of coming to work with Jager. Not only was it a change of scenery, I got to watch Jager work out, I got back into a gym, which I’d missed, and I’d gotten back into the rhythm of working out, often doing it with Jager. So, watching him work out came both while I did it beside him and in moments like right then when I was just a spectator. Both of these were highlights of my days. Jager, I learned, never wore a shirt when he was working out.

  Seeing him move, his muscles flexing and glinting with sweat, was almost too much. I couldn’t let myself focus on him when we were working out together. When I did, I had to stop what I was doing because it took all my focus not to drool.

  This also led to one of my other favorite parts of going to work with him: the one-way mirror in his office window and the lock on the door.

  We’d taken advantage of those office amenities more than once and each time was amazing. Though, I preferred when we took advantage of the variety of amenities Jager had at his place.

  Since the night he gave it to me, playtime with Jager meant him collaring me. I loved it. Not only the collar and what I knew it meant, but the affectionate way he always put it on me. What followed was the same powerful, hard man I always had and loved, but those few moments only made what we shared better.

  I touched where the collar would sit around my throat, remembering how he’d taken his time to kiss every part of the skin it covered the night before when he’d been ready to put it on me, and the similar treatment I’d gotten when he took it off that morning. Whenever Jager took me before bed, he liked me to keep it on while we slept. He always secured it tight enough that it was on, but nowhere near it being uncomfortable, so I was happy to give him that.

  Although I always hated to, I’d taken the collar off and laid it on Jager’s nightstand where it always stayed unless it was on me. At some level, I wanted to wear it all the time. I wanted to have that sign that I was Jager’s and he was mine to be ever present. But a collar wasn’t an engagement ring or even a property cut. People wouldn’t understand. They’d bastardize it. So it stayed on the nightstand.

  Though, Jager didn’t need to put it around my neck to get me in the mood, as was evident by the activities we’d done not twenty minutes ago upstairs.

  Like I said, I greatly enjoyed his office.

  After I used the always-empty ladies’ locker room to freshen up, I intended to go back up to it. I’d started taking over some of the administrative stuff for Jager while we were there. I liked it. If the monotony of the desk work got to me, there was a whole gym full of life just outside the door. I’d been thinking about talking to Jager about making my work there more permanent. In preparation for that, I was doing my best to show him how useful I could be.

  I was going to head back up and get some more work done, including thinking up some ideas about getting female membership up—a thought I had while I’d been in that locker room by myself. But first, I was going to give myself a little time to enjoy the show Jager was unwittingly putting on for me.

  Later that evening, after Jager handed over running the gym to Leo—one of the instructors he employed—we were at the clubhouse. Jager needed to do something on the crazy computer set up he had in his room there and we’d decided to hang around for a while with the brothers.

  Dad was around and he’d made chili for the guys and me. For the most part, Dad—like I was learning was true for most of the Disciples—was hopeless in a kitchen. The one thing he could make that didn’t involve a grill or smoker was his chili. Jager and I had joined him, Stone, Ham, and Daz in kicking back with a bowl while we watched a UFC fight on pay-per-view.

  “Did you ever think about going pro?” I asked Jager.

  He took his attention from the stat breakdown for the next fighters up to answer, “Thought about it when I was a kid. Boxing, at least. But I’d been focused more on college.”

  That made sense. Something I’d learned about Jager while getting to spend time with him when he wasn’t fucking my brains out was he was kind of a nerd. I say that with all the affection in the world, but it was true. He read a lot, and I’d noted this was all sorts of books. History, science, philosophy, technology, even classic literature had all made an appearance and that was just in the last few days. I hadn’t seen him with the same book twice. I wasn’t sure whether that was how fast he was going through them or he was reading multiple things at once.

  “What were you going to study?”

  He shook his head, but didn’t blow me off like he might have once. “I’ve got three degrees.”

  �
�What?”

  He chuckled. “Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Mathematics.”

  “I thought…”

  Well, he knew what I thought.

  “Went off the rails after it happened, but I still went to school. That was the only fucking thing that still made sense to me.”

  “Where’d you go?” I asked.

  “Stanford.”

  “Are you a genius?”

  He laughed all out at that and I noticed heads swing our way. “Never been tested, pet.”

  “I’m going to take that as a yes.”

  He didn’t confirm or deny that, just settled back in to watch the fight, tucking me into his side as he did.

  After a bit, I ventured into the kitchen to store the excess food and grab Jager and I fresh drinks. I was closing the fridge when I noticed Daz there.

  “You might be a miracle worker, babe,” he said.

  I tilted my head, giving him a bemused smile. “I’m sorry?”

  He leaned against the counter, nodding to the side to indicate the lounge. “Known the brother in there for a long time. If I tried, I could probably count on both hands the number of times I’ve actually seen the motherfucker smile when it wasn’t a sick fuckin’ one he was offering to some poor dick he was about to beat the shit out of. Yet, I just saw him laugh. Twice.”

  That was heavy. It was also beautiful. I loved that I was able to give that to him.

  Still, I found what came out of my mouth next couldn’t be helped. “I thought you were the champion of not having more balls and chains around here.”

  He gave me that cheeky grin he was always sporting. “Maybe the right ball and chain ain’t so bad.”

  He came over, grabbed one of the beers from my hand with a wink, and took off with it.

  “Ass,” I called after him.

  But, as I went to grab another bottle, I couldn’t help but think for the second time there was a lot more to Daz than met the eye.

  I woke in Jager’s bed alone.

  Alone was something I was getting accustomed to over the last few weeks.