Reaper's Promise: An MC Romance (Savage Kings MC Book 19)

by Carter Steele

  “Emergency club meeting at Brock’s hospital room. 1 p.m. Come.”

  Walking back into the hospital wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been last night. Though Landon had looked like an utter wreck when I had walked in—and he still looked the part—the damage was actually far more superficial than I had initially feared. Brock, actually, had suffered the worst wounds, but the fact that he was hosting the meeting in his room said everything we needed to know about his well-being.

  Unfortunately for me, I was about to learn that the person who would be suffering the most by the end of the meeting was the only person who wasn’t actually at the clubhouse the night before.

  I got my first hint when Parker stood outside Brock’s room, waiting for me. He still had his bandages and scars on, but like the sergeant-in-arms that he was, only death could have kept him from watching over the club president.

  “Ya the last fuckin’ one to show up,” he said. “Were ya bangin’ some broad after ya visit last night?”

  “Funny man, Parker.”

  “Who said a goddamn thing ‘bout me makin’ a joke?”

  I ignored him as I stepped in the room, ignoring his incessant swearing and attacks on me. If I didn’t ignore them, there was probably a decent chance one of us would have to get wheeled back into one of our own rooms.

  Inside, almost the entirety of the Savage Kings club was present. Everyone looked at me briefly, as if the culprit had arrived—and they wouldn’t have been wrong, though I had my doubts that they knew what was going on yet. Not that I have anything to support that—they probably have plenty of reason to find me guilty, actually.

  “Is that everyone?” Brock said as Parker shut the door behind me.

  “Everyone that matters,” Parker said. “Though I coulda said that before this one showed up.”

  I turned and glared at Parker, but the big Texan gave no reaction to me. I turned back to Brock, his eyes now trained on me.

  “Zane,” he said, and like a son who knew he was in trouble with his dad just by the way his name was uttered, I knew there was no getting around the trouble I was in here. “Last night, you told Landon that you were going to go and hunt Owen down. Obviously, the fact that a few of us are here suggests that you failed. We can accept failure in this club if we know what’s going on. So… what’s going on? What happened?”

  I’m sure a part of me wanted to lie and make up some sort of story. But the same part of me that believed in telling the unvarnished truth to women because it was the most attractive thing was the same part that now compelled me to blurt out the words that were going to put me in some deep shit with the club.

  “I didn’t actually hunt Owen last night.”

  “God fuckin’ damn, I knew it,” Parker snipped behind me. “Owen’s not his target, he’s—”

  “Parker.”

  Brock may have had a calm demeanor, but that didn’t mean what was about to come down upon me was going to be calm. Quite the contrary—I was about to get fucked hard.

  “I… went for someone else instead,” I said.

  Murmurs broke through the crowd.

  “You’re gonna let this fuckin’ guy stick around?!?” Parker said. “I got suspended for bein’ a kamikaze, but at least I tried to help the club out. This asshole went and tried to get himself some damn pussy!”

  “I know, OK!” I roared unexpectedly. “I fucked up! I won’t deny that! I acknowledge I fucked up! There’s nothing I can change about that.”

  “Hey!”

  Of all the people to speak up then, Landon was probably the last on the list. Quiet, reserved, and not the most actively involved member of the club, he usually deferred to Brock, but if he was speaking up…

  Maybe I wouldn’t get totally shat on this meeting. But probably not.

  “Jesus, Parker, you speak like you’ve never made a mistake in your life,” Landon said. “I’m not saying that what Zane did is excusable. He fucked up. But Christ, can you at least place yourself in his shoes?”

  “Can I?” Parker said, his eyebrows lifting. “Why yes I can. At that age, I was in the military, tryin’ to blow the shit outta ISIS and Al-Qaeda. I sure as shit ain’t puttin’ my friends on the line by chasin’ after ass.”

  “OK fine, we get it, you’re some badass American hero! For the rest of us—”

  “The rest of y’all who are a buncha fuckin’ idiots?”

  “That’s enough!” Brock shouted.

  We were dissolving into chaos. And though I appreciated Landon taking the mantle for me and trying to protect me, Parker wasn’t wrong. I probably didn’t need to get shot in the skull, but I had committed an atrocious sin here.

  “Look,” I said. “I know I fucked up. I let my lust for the therapist—”

  “Your therapist?” Parker said. “The one who got shot at just outside the clubhouse?”

  I nodded. Parker didn’t say anything in response, which I took as some sort of weird validation—as if it was him saying “OK, at least you went after a real chase.” Not that I’m going to say that out loud.

  “I let it get in the way. I didn’t think Owen would try anything. I was wrong, I was wrong, I was one hundred percent wrong. I fully acknowledge that, and there’s nothing I can do to fix that. So…”

  I looked Brock in the eye.

  “I’ll step away for as long as need be,” I said. “If I have to permanently revoke my officer title, so be it.”

  “Hope ya can measure long as need be in eternity.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Parker, can you let him just take his punishment in stride?”

  I took off my cut before the sniping between Landon and Parker could get physical. I’d done enough to split the club and cause consternation; I didn’t need my presence to continue that problem.

  “You know how to reach me if the need arises,” I said, tossing my cut to Brock.

  Without waiting for his reaction, I turned around, moved past Parker—taking care not to bump against him—and headed outside back to my bike. I got all the way to it when I saw Parker hurrying toward me, sort of half-limping, half-running toward me. I took a deep breath, already on the bike, my key on the ignition, and gave him a chance to speak.

  “Ya ain’t turn everythin’ in yet, dipshit,” he said. “Give us the bike.”

  There were some things I was willing to leave aside. My cut. My title. The parties.

  But the bike?

  First, I had bought the bike myself, so it was mine anyways. Second of all, asking me to give up the bike was like asking me to give up one of my hands—it was as much a part of me as my limbs. My bike took me places, gave me my identity, and gave me a sense of freedom that nothing else did. I wasn’t going to fight to stay in the club, but if Parker wanted to make this a fight, it wasn’t one I was going to back down from.

  I just turned away from him, revved the engine, and drove off. In the rearview mirror, I could see Parker staring at me, giving me the middle finger, but he wasn’t chasing after me, nor was he rallying support for me to be chased. I think he knew when he wasn’t going to win a fight, and this was one.

  I drove all the way home, plopped on my couch, and tried to make sense of my life.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to do but just be. I couldn’t do anything with the Savage Kings, and there was nothing I could say to Renee that would be anything other than mean.

  I decided there was nothing to do but wait until I saw her in person. Hopefully, by then, I would be calm, I would be a little better in the head, and time would help her not be so childish.

  The days leading up to Friday were excruciatingly boring.

  I couldn’t go to the clubhouse. I didn’t have any sex drive to chase after anyone else. I had sent one text to Renee Sunday asking if I could speak to her before Friday, but she had deflected it by simply telling me to see her on Friday.

  In short, my life was reduced to watching TV, streaming videos, and trying out different restaurants in the area. Occasionally, I wou
ld see a fellow club member, but as if I’d been excommunicated, no one dared to approach me or even look at me for longer than a quick glance. I was, for all intents and purposes, a pariah.

  But finally, Friday morning came, and I had never felt so happy to be up early for a session.

  I sat in the lobby about two minutes before our scheduled appointment, my foot bouncing on the ground like a kid on a sugar rush. I stared at the door, listening intently for footsteps or anything that would indicate Renee was coming forward. I took a deep breath, trying to think of what I would say.

  And then the door opened. Renee… looked completely neutral. Not disinterested per se, but she had a blank expression on her face.

  “Ready?” she said.

  “Of course,” I said, trying to sound upbeat, though I was a little thrown by the lack of enthusiasm on her end. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, and you?”

  It was so… professional. And bland. And unlike her.

  I walked into her office, sat down, and smiled.

  “So,” I said. “Have you thought about what happened last weekend?”

  4

  Renee

  Have I thought about last Friday night? What do you think, Zane?

  I’d done so well being a detached professional in the six days before, but that was very easy to do without him staring me in the face as he was now. The image of Zane was easy to deflect, but the presence of Zane was not.

  Those two choices that I thought I had just moved to the side suddenly roared their head back up, as if to say that I had not finalized my choice. Zane had dug them out of the grave, thrust them back in my face, and demanded that I either bury him with them or accept what I had done.

  I took a deep breath and just trusted whatever came out next to be what was best.

  “I am not sure what you mean,” I said.

  Well that was about the worst thing I could have said.

  “You know exactly what I mean, c’mon, Renee,” Zane said with a laugh, though it seemed more like a laugh to push off tough emotions than to actually find humor in the situation. “What happened last Friday? In the evening? Do I need to spell it out for you?”

  “I know that, but it is not a topic of discussion here.”

  Boy, I had not meant to be so cold. But here it was.

  “I am here to help you become a better man and to overcome the issues that led to your arrest. We have not been doing this long enough for us to discuss other issues. Until we do so, I am afraid that we will have to remain on topic. Do you understand?”

  I had never seen Zane look so hurt. Granted, I hadn’t seen him much at all, but the expression on his face told me I’d driven something through his heart that couldn’t be so easily removed. Therapy could have some tough moments, but when said therapy involved you, the therapist, telling the patient to leave that behind…

  Zane was going to need another therapist just from dealing with me. But as long as that wasn’t something that Sheriff Jones became aware of, I would be able to process it at some point. I just wouldn’t be able to do it very well while he was sitting here in front of me.

  “Yeah, sure,” Zane said.

  There was nothing about him that actually accepted it. He may have understood what I had said, but, well, acceptance didn’t seem to be a part of what he’d said.

  It was of no surprise that the rest of the meeting was the most “going through the motions” therapy sessions I had ever done. Zane gave glib answers, but I didn’t do much better; much of our discussion was in how the club would respond to the violence from the weekend, not even accounting or addressing the fact that both of us were responsible somewhat. I asked cliche questions, and Zane gave cliche answers.

  It was decided by the end of the session, in my head, that I was going to “accidentally” forget to charge Zane for this; even when I had zero experience and only a couple of college courses under my belt, I could have provided something better than this.

  “Well, if there is nothing else, than I will see you next Friday, same time, same place,” I said as the session came to a close. Both of us suddenly seemed quite allergic to looking each other in the eye.

  “Yep,” Zane said.

  He rose and headed for the door so fast, I swore that he was like the Flash, moving quicker than I could process. He didn’t really slam the door, but there definitely wasn’t care to try and keep it corralled or from making a noise. The sound of my door shutting made me jump.

  I slumped into my chair and let out a very long sigh, both critiquing myself for thinking this would have worked and also wondering just what the hell else I could have done. I had put myself between a rock and a hard place, and all I could do was what I told my patients sometimes when they went through hard things.

  Just ride it out.

  I let myself sit in that chair, wondering how screwed I would be in the long run, for about five minutes. It was a damn good thing I didn’t have another client until 9:30, and this was a new client; it meant I didn’t have to do any prep work for the client. I could just show up, take notes, and go from there.

  After those five minutes, I got up, headed to the lobby, and looked in surprise at a man sitting there. He had on a white undershirt, as if he had just woken up and hadn’t bothered to put on his button-down, jeans, and black boots. He smelled of oil, but he wasn’t anyone that I recognized.

  “Hi, are you the nine-thirty patient?” I asked.

  The man looked up at me with a stern glare, his brown eyes seeming to burrow in me, before he switched up to a smile—albeit one that didn’t do much to put me at ease. I wasn’t uncomfortable with him, but given that this was a stranger in my office and I tended to deal with some of the crazies, it was far too early for me to make any claims about feeling safe with him.

  “I am,” he said.

  “Perfect, and what’s your name?”

  “Oh,” he said, chuckling. “Oliver. The name’s Oliver.”

  “Oliver, can you give me a few minutes?”

  “Of course,” he said, giving an almost exaggerated bow of deference. “Take your time. I’m here until ten thirty, after all.”

  He smirked as if he’d made a great joke. I nodded to him, went back to my office, and tried to collect myself. Why did I feel like I had seen him before? His presence certainly felt familiar.

  In any case, I got my notepad, got some paperwork, and went back out to Oliver, who had crossed his legs.

  “What’s this?” he said as I handed him the paperwork.

  “Just information for payment, it—”

  “Oh, I was hoping to do this one by cash.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. I never had clients who wanted to pay by cash, and while it wasn’t like the therapy business was ever a cover for drug running or anything else illegal, it still struck me as curious—in the negative sense—that he wanted to give me bills instead of a credit card.

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t do it.

  “OK, sure,” I said. “There are some forms there that I need you to sign though. Just saying you understand the procedures of how this will work and what not.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said, flying through the forms and signing them without barely a glance—or a legible signature. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

  “Oh, OK, then. Come on in. We can get started a little early.”

  Oliver followed me in, sat down on the couch, and spread his arms across the back. The display of confidence was not like what most of my patients displayed on their first days, most especially patients who had come here of their own volition. Still, I knew more than a few patients who liked to project to cover insecurities; perhaps this was someone similar.

  “So, Oliver, what brings you into my office? What can I help you with?”

  “Well,” he said, his tone very folksy. “I’m dealing with a lot of trouble, living in this town. You see, there’s a group here called the Savage Kings, and it makes my life a living hell. I’m just
wondering if I can figure out means to cope. Cuz heaven knows I ain’t leaving this town, and they ain’t either.”

  “Right, right,” I said, jotting down notes—though no one had ever started a conversation like this.

  Is this Owen?

  The one who had shot me…

  It was a ludicrous question, especially since he had given me his name as Oliver, and the man who had shot me was… well, it was hard to say what he looked like, seeing as how he had on a helmet and it was dark. And while I never made judgments based upon a person’s personality, I found it a bit unlikely that that Owen would be this Oliver.

  “Have you dealt with any Kings here?”

  I looked up in surprise, gave a warm smile, and chuckled a bit.

  “I’m sorry, but patient confidentiality dictates that I don’t discuss any details about my other patients, including what groups they may or may not be affiliated with.”

  “But surely—”

  “Oliver,” I said, gently reprimanding him. “Anyone living in this town has had to deal with the Kings. We all have our opinions on them, and they are all valid. But I am not going to tell you or anyone else if one of them is my client. Understood?”

  Though Oliver had appeared somewhat perturbed by how I had started what I’d said, by the time I finished, he seemed to accept it.

  “Sure, sure.”

  I was able to steer the rest of our session to other matters, but I was certainly left with the uneasy feeling that Oliver had come here to learn about my connection to the Kings. Why…

  Maybe I should disassociate with Zane. Seems like anyone who gets tangled up with them winds up in a world of trouble.

  After the hour had ended, I asked Oliver if he wanted to come by.

  “Sure,” he said. “Any chance I can get first thing next Friday?”

  “Let me see,” I said, even though I already knew that time was taken by Zane. “The earliest I can do is this.”

  “Then that’ll work,” Oliver said, as if he had heard everything he needed to know. He pulled out two hundred dollars and tossed it to me.