Striker: No Prisoners MC Book 1

by Lilly Atlas

  “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. Not much blood running to my brain at the moment. I didn’t even ask how the game went.”

  “It was great! The coach of the opposing team asked if I’d come and educate their athletic staff about my concussion program. Can you believe it? I’m so excited!” Her voice rose with proof of her elation.

  Pride swelled deep within Striker. There were so many things he admired about his woman. Her passion for and dedication to the work she did was high on the list. “Of course I can believe it, Lila. You’ve worked your ass off for this. I won’t be surprised if it spreads throughout the entire state.”

  He loved the bright smile that lit her face. She was proud of herself too, as she should be.

  “Don’t you have a match to prepare for? Jester’s already on my ass about my outfit, if you lose this fight because you were out here instead of warming up, he may ban me from all future fights.”

  Striker nipped at her bottom lip, swollen from their earlier lip lock. “Jester needs to find his own woman to stare at, though it is hard to look away from you in this getup.”

  “You better get moving.” She placed her hands on his chest and gave a little shove, but he wasn’t ready to release her just yet.

  “I need a kiss for good luck, babe. I gotta make this a quick match. The faster I pound this guy, the faster I can see what’s under this skirt,” he said as he bobbed his eyebrows up and down.

  With a grin, Lila leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his. He loved the feel of her lips on him, anywhere on him. He swept his tongue into her mouth to deepen the kiss, but pulled back before he was ready to end it.

  “Okay, maybe that was a bad idea. You’re too fucking sexy babe.” He gave her a quick smack on the ass, which drew a sharp laugh. “Walk me to the locker room.”

  Jester waited just outside the locker room door, a deep frown on his face. He didn’t say anything as Striker pushed through the door, but he growled at Lila when she paused in front of him. Striker heard her laugh, followed by, “Jester, stuff it. I’m not scared of you. Relax! Maybe you need to get laid or something.”

  Striker sunk his teeth into his bottom lip to keep from cracking up at Jester’s scoff. Life was pretty good right now. The threat from the Grimms had been eliminated, which meant he could breathe easier about the club’s future, and Lila’s future. True they’d lost a full-patched member, but he was glad to take care of that problem before it escalated and damaged his family. Now, he had a gorgeous, sexy, smart woman who was as hooked on him as he was her. Shit, all he had to do was beat some ass tonight and life would be damn near perfect.

  The night couldn’t have gone better. Striker won his match in the second round when he sent his opponent crashing to the mat with a killer jab that knocked him out cold. Thankfully, the number of injuries had been minimal through the evening, so Lila was able to view the fights.

  It surprised her how much she enjoyed watching the men fight, Striker especially. She’d never voice this to any of the guys, but it seemed like a well-choreographed dance. The way each boxer moved was fascinating, almost beautiful, as they harnessed the power of their bodies. Most fighters wore only shorts when in the ring, giving her an unobstructed view of their toned physiques at work as they fought. These men were amazing physical specimens, and watching their muscles ripple under their skin as they battled their opponent was no hardship.

  Striker had a few new bruises, but that was the extent of the damage he sustained. After he won, he’d hopped down from the raised ring, and kissed her silly. Lila loved that he had no reservations about showing affection and claiming her in public, and had gone from being embarrassed to reveling in it. Coming from a background where you had to think about how every action would be perceived by society, she wanted to soak up each spontaneous touch and caress he gave her regardless of who was around to witness it.

  The final match had ended about ten minutes ago, and Lila was just finishing up with the winner of that fight. He’d taken a nasty punch to the face that split the skin of his left cheek. Luckily for him it didn’t require more than a few butterfly bandages to keep it together. Unfortunately for him, his cheek had swelled to twice its normal size, and turned a dark shade of purple that would stick around for a while.

  “Okay, Rex, I’m done. It should heal up nicely, but you’ll be a little scary looking for a week or two,” she said with a sympathetic smile for the fighter from a No Prisoners chapter a few hours away in Nevada.

  “Thanks, darlin’. Didn’t hurt a bit. You got some gentle hands. I can think of a few other uses for them if you’re game.” He gave her a molten look that probably worked on most women.

  Lila laughed, and rolled her eyes at him, noticing Striker approach from the corner of her eye. He was freshly showered, and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with his No Prisoners cut. He smelled like the masculine scented soap he preferred, and she took a second to enjoy it before she chuckled at the unamused look on his face. He must have overheard Rex’s flirting.

  Rex raised his hands in surrender as he encountered Striker’s murderous glare. “Hey man, I ain’t trying to poach your woman. Just paying the Doc a compliment is all.”

  “All right, you two. Fights are officially over. Behave.” Lila said with a smile, confident it was all in good fun.

  Striker slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close in a possessive manner. “You ready to head out back? I’m starved, and dying for a beer.”

  “I want to bring all this stuff out to my car first. It’s parked out front,” she replied indicating the box of excess medical supplies.

  “I’ll carry it for you if you walk out with me.”

  “No problem guys,” Rex interjected with a wink. “I’ll tell everyone to avoid your car for the next…what? Should three minutes be enough?”

  Lila snorted out a laugh while Striker flipped Rex off. “Get the fuck out of here before I bust up the rest of your ugly mug.”

  Lila started for the door with Striker as Rex’s laughter followed them. She loved the banter between all the men. Most people would probably find it crass and vulgar, but it created a dynamic between the MC brothers that she found entertaining.

  When she stepped outside, the chill in the air startled Lila. Even after almost a year of living in the desert, the drastic temperature changes from day to night still took her by surprise.

  She hadn’t tired of the wonder of the night sky. Constant activity in Washington DC was a distraction from noticing the splendor of the starry sky, and when you did notice it, the city lights muted its beauty. Out in the desert, one could stare at the vast spread of twinkling orbs for hours, and Lila had a few times while relaxing on Striker’s deck.

  In no time, night riding with Striker had become one of her favorite activities. There wasn’t any experience that matched the feeling of flying down the highway in the dead of night. The combination of the seemingly endless desert surrounding them, with the infinite starry sky above, and the strong man beneath her arms was a recipe for bliss.

  “You coming, babe?” Striker’s voice brought her back to earth. He was about twenty feet ahead of her, just a few steps away from the car.

  She chuckled to herself, and quickened her steps. “Sorry, hon, I got lost in the sky.”

  Striker used the key fob to pop her trunk open, and bent to place the box inside. He rose back up and turned toward her. In the next instant shock and fear slammed into Lila in equal measure as Striker gave a cry of pain, and crashed to the ground, his body convulsing as he fell.

  What the hell? Lila had just enough time for her medically trained brain to wonder if a blow to the head during his fight caused a seizure when she felt a biting pain on the side of her neck, and a terrible surge of electricity traveled through her body.

  Unable to control them, her legs gave out and she rushed toward the ground. She tried with everything she had to reach out her arms and brace the fall, but they wouldn’t respond to her commands. Fiery pain coursed thr
ough Lila’s system, and she thrashed uncontrollably on the way to the asphalt.

  Panic set in, fueled by the realization that both she and Striker where completely helpless against whatever threat had reached them. Was it the Grimm Brothers? They’d given their word that the two clubs were square, but could Snake really be trusted to keep his word? Probably not. The last thing Lila remembered before her head hit the ground, and blackness set in, was two old sneakers in her line of sight.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lila floated through a sea of seemingly endless darkness. Her head ached and her eyes felt like sandbags weighted them down. Trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind, she thought back to the last thing she could recall. Friday Night Fights. It had been a great night, at least the part she remembered. What happened after the fights? Why couldn’t she remember going to the party? She wasn’t usually enough of a drinker to black out and forget half the night. Was that what she did?

  Shivers racked her body, and her brain registered the fact that she was cold. It took a few minutes to sort out the reason, but eventually she figured it out. She was supine on a bed without any blankets, and apparently she was only wearing her underwear. The second that thought ran through her mind the rest of the evening came back to her in an avalanche of fear and horror.

  Holy shit! She and Striker had been tased in the gym parking lot, and now she was on a bed somewhere, practically naked. No longer foggy headed, her eyes flew open and she shot up with a gasp as pain sliced through her head. “Oh my God,” she cried, panic lacing her voice.

  “Baby, hey babe. It’s okay. You’re okay. Look at me.” Striker’s voice was a balm to her out of control nerves.

  Lila turned and focused in the direction she heard Striker’s voice coming from. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed again. She attempted to rush to his side, only to be painfully jerked back to the bed when a metal cuff around her wrist halted her motion. “What the fuck?” Her voice was shrill and thready, and she sounded like she was about to lose her shit. It pretty much mirrored how she felt.

  “Striker, are you okay? You look awful. What’s happening? Where are we?” Lila frantically scanned the room trying to get her bearings.

  They appeared to be in a small bedroom, in a house or apartment she wasn’t sure. A twin size bed with an iron headboard was pushed into one corner, with a nightstand next to it. Lila’s right arm was handcuffed to an iron rung, and allowed her to stand, but not tread more than two steps from the bed. A table lamp on the nightstand provided the only dim lighting in the room. Across from the bed was a tall chest of drawers, and in front of that was a chair that held Striker.

  Her heart squeezed with fear as she took in the sight of him. He was slumped in the chair, bound to it with what had to be yards of duct tape woven around his midsection multiple times. His arms and legs were each secured to the armrests and legs of the chair. His head bobbed to the side as he fought to remain conscious. Jesus, someone had beaten the shit out of him. Blood tracked from his mouth, and his face had extensive bruising, but what worried her were injuries she couldn’t see.

  Lila was trained to work in high stress and crisis situations. She shoved her panic down and drew on that training, with a promise to herself that she could freak out like crazy later on. In a voice that impressed her for its calm sound she said, “Tell me about your injuries, Striker. Did you lose consciousness at all?”

  A small smile graced his bleeding mouth. “That’s my girl. He went at me with that bat over there.” He tilted his head toward the door where a bat rested in the corner. “Mostly bruises I think, maybe a few cracked ribs, but I’m feeling pretty dizzy, like I’m not going to be conscious for very much longer.”

  This was not good. He needed to get to a hospital. “You may be losing blood internally. Are you in pain?”

  He snorted in response to that question. “Yes. It’s hard to isolate because he wailed on me in multiple spots, but most of the pain is on the left side of my torso.”

  “Okay try not to move much. You need to conserve your strength, plus, if you do have broken ribs, you risk puncturing a lung with excess movement. If we can get out of these restraints do you think you could walk?”

  “Not sure, gorgeous. He busted me up pretty good. But I’ll sure as hell try.”

  His calling her gorgeous brought back the shocking fact that she wasn’t wearing her clothes. “What happened to my clothes?” She glanced down at her nakedness, unable to keep her voice from wavering with fear. Did this sick asshole do more to her than just remove her clothes?

  “No, Lila, he didn’t.” She looked up sharply, and met Striker’s serious gaze as he tapped into her thoughts. “I was awake. He made me watch as he undressed you, but I promise he didn’t do more. Though I’m not under the impression that will last, so we have to figure a way out.”

  “God, I’m so sorry you had to watch that.”

  “Don’t worry about me, baby. Listen, when he comes back do not antagonize him. You do whatever the hell you have to do to stay alive and escape. You hear me?”

  Lila nodded at him as she looked around the room for…anything. Trembling from the cold she rattled the chain around her wrist testing its strength. There wasn’t any way she was going to break it. “Who is it? A Grimm Brother?”

  Just as she asked, the door flew open, and Lila’s stomach bottomed out as she recognized their attacker. Earl White stood in the doorway and stared at her. She wished she’d paid more attention to the unease she’d felt during their conversation earlier in the evening.

  Lila’s heart pounded with such fast fury, she almost didn’t hear him speak over the drumming sound.

  “Dr. Emerson, you’re awake.”

  His oily brown hair stuck out in all directions, his clothes hung off his thinner frame, and she thought again that he had the appearance of a chronically ill person.

  What had the hairs on the back of her neck rising was the look in his eye. Lila had experience with mentally ill patients in the hospital. Patients who had gone off medication and were out of control, having psychotic breaks, but she had never seen a look in someone’s eyes quite like the one she encountered now. It was a completely insane look, a look that told her she was in real trouble, because there was no way she could reason with him.

  “Where are my clothes?” she croaked, using all her remaining strength to keep the hysteria out of her voice.

  “You were dressed like a slut.” White’s voice was hard as he scolded her, not at all the mild anxious tone she’d come to expect from him. “I got rid of them only to discover you were wearing something even trashier underneath.” He shook his head as though disappointed in her. “I left these on though because I didn’t want him to see you naked.” He choked out the reference to Striker as though disgusted by the thought of him. “I had planned to cover you back up, but there really isn’t much point since we will be together soon.”

  Oh God. He was totally crazy. Was he planning to rape her in front of Striker? It would kill him. She could not let that happen. She needed to keep him talking while she developed a plan. “Why are we here? Why take both of us if it’s me you want?”

  Striker didn’t look good. His head lolled to one side, and his eyelids repeatedly fluttered closed only to jerk back open as he fought to remain awake. Her question to Earl seemed to put a little fire back in Striker, and he glared at her. He’d asked her not to antagonize Earl, but she had to keep him talking.

  Earl moved farther into the room, close to Lila. Her skin crawled as he reached out a hand and stroked it down her arm. She clenched her jaw until it ached to keep the scream inside her throat. She kept her focus on Striker. He was her touchstone to remain calm. Fury shone in his eyes and he seemed more alert now.

  “I wanted to make sure he couldn’t come after you of course. I don’t know why you’re with him. I tried to warn you, sent you texts, tried to scare you with my car.” He shook his head and his shoulders slumped. “Didn’t work. It just drove you to him.
I’m sorry for that. When it became obvious you would just run to him with any threat, I knew I needed a new approach. I joined your committee to be close to you. My hope was that I could convince you to leave him, but you do nothing but sing his praises.”

  “Wait. What?” she asked in shock. “That was you? All of it? What about the man who attacked me at the hospital?” No wonder there had only been a few texts. They had mistakenly thought the threat left with the Grimms, when in reality Earl had simply changed his tactics.

  Mr. White frowned. “I didn’t attack you! I was trying to save you! To show you how dangerous it was to be a whore for a motorcycle club!”

  “But the man had a Grimm Brothers tattoo.” Lila’s head spun as she looked down at Earl’s hands. They were bare, no tattoos marred the skin.

  “Tattoo parlor in Vegas airbrushed it on for me. They’d never heard of the Grimm Brothers. It scrubbed right off with alcohol. Smart huh?”

  Lila’s head spun as she listened to his explanations. The entire time the threat had been from this man? Because of the timing, they’d never even considered it could be anyone but the Grimms.

  Lila glanced back to Striker. Her head pounded, and she was starting to feel a little woozy, but one look at him kept her going. She needed to figure out a way to get them both out of here. Striker needed medical attention, and fast. He had remained quiet, most likely thinking Earl would get angry if he spoke.

  “Don’t look at him!” Earl’s voice rose, taking on a shrill quality. “What are you even doing with trash like him? I would have given you everything, done anything for you.”

  Suddenly Lila knew what she had to do. Bile rose at the thought of it, but she forced it down. It was the only way they stood a chance of escaping. With a shaky breath she sent Striker a look that she hoped conveyed how sorry she was for what he was about to witness. God, she needed to pull this off.