by Kati Wilde
BURNING IT ALL
KATI WILDE
• • •
As the Hellfire Riders’ warlord, I’m willing to lay down my life to protect the club. But protecting the woman I love might destroy everything…
I’ve never known anything as good as holding Lily Burns in my arms. The only female member of the Hellfire Riders, she’s always fighting—and the last fight she won is bringing hell down on her head. But it’s not the Devil’s Hangmen that worry me. Because there’s power and money moving behind the scenes, and a target on Lily’s back...and I’ll do anything to make sure she’s safe, even if it means standing as her shield.
Even if it means losing her.
THE MOTORCYCLE CLUBS • THE HELLFIRE RIDERS #6
The Motorcycle Clubs Series
His Wild Desire by Ella Goode
Off Limits by Ruby Dixon
Wanting It All by Kati Wilde
Her Secret Pleasure by Ella Goode
Packing Double by Ruby Dixon
Taking It All by Kati Wilde
Their Private Need by Ella Goode
Double Trouble by Ruby Dixon
Having It All by Kati Wilde
Their Fierce Need by Ella Goode
Betting It All by Kati Wilde
Double Down by Ruby Dixon
Their Lasting Claim by Ella Goode
Risking It All by Kati Wilde
Double or Nothing by Ruby Dixon
Burning It All by Kati Wilde
Coming Next
His Mad Passion by Ella Goode
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Chapter One
Jack
Lily texts me about an hour after I supposedly started out on a day ride with the brothers. You kill anyone yet?
I grin and set aside the paint-stripping coffee I bought at the bait shop. Water laps the sides of the boat. It’s quiet up here on the lake. Outboard motors are prohibited so the only options for getting around are oars or paddleboat. That’s partly why I’m meeting Creek here. We’ve both been given the same training: get in quiet, make the kill, and get out quick. But out here there’s no quick getaway, and he sure as hell can’t sneak up on me in the middle of two and a half square miles of water.
The day’s young, I respond, though I don’t expect to do any killing today.
I didn’t choose this location because I thought Creek would try taking me out—although that possibility is always a factor. I chose the lake because it’s October, most of the tourists are gone, and the likelihood of someone seeing us talking is pretty damn small. I’m the Hellfire Riders’ warlord; he’s a federal agent working undercover as a member of the Devil’s Hangmen. There’s no scenario where us being seen together turns out well.
Not even Knucklehead? she asks.
Not yet. Though sometimes the Riders’ road captain is just asking for it. Maybe not for a bullet in the head, though. Just a bullet in the knee.
But I can’t say whether Knucklehead is asking for it today and every response I send to Lily is too damn close to another lie. She thinks I’m out riding with the club. Later I’ll tell her what I’m really doing—she already knows about Creek being undercover—but all at once my chest begins aching, because when shit like this comes up I start thinking about all the ways I could lose her.
I won’t lose her over this lie. She understands I keep quiet about my dealings with Creek to protect the Riders. Hell, I don’t even tell the club’s prez when I’m setting up a meet. The more people who know about it, the more likely things will go wrong.
But I also lie to protect her, and that’s where it gets complicated. Lily doesn’t want any protection. She wants me at her back, not acting as her shield. But this meet is all about making sure a threat isn’t coming for her. If there is, I have every fucking intention of stepping in before it reaches her.
She’s already been hurt enough, risking everything to defend the Riders’ territory. Last week she went up against the president of the Devil’s Hangmen in a one-on-one fight that ended with Lily pounding the motherfucker’s face in, but not before he did some heavy damage with his fists and his boot. I don’t think I can survive seeing her hurt again.
But I know I won’t survive if she’s not breathing. So protecting her saves both of us. Even if it means living with the agony of losing her.
With stiff fingers, I rub at the ache growing in my chest, though nothing makes it go away. In the past week I’ve practically rubbed through my skin.
That hollow ache grows bigger every day. She loves me. Knocked me right on my ass when she told me. So if I lose that… Jesus. I just can’t.
You doing all right? I know she probably is. I still need to be sure.
Peachy.
Only one word, but her frustration bleeds through my phone’s screen. She’s been laid up at home since the fight, her fractured ankle in a cast, her right wrist in a brace, and four of her fingers in splints. Those wouldn’t have slowed her down much. Her ribs did. Three cracked, two broken, and everything bruised to fuck. Beneath the medical tape, her lean torso looks like someone splattered green and purple paint down her sides. She grits her teeth and says it’s nothing, but I’ve been where she is now. I know that despite the painkillers, taking a breath feels like another fist slamming into her chest.
And knowing she’s hurting is like a knife sawing into mine.
On the northwest shore, a kayak slides into the water. A glance through the binoculars confirms it’s Creek. My phone buzzes again.
I’m about to start BSG season three.
Don’t you fucking dare, I text back. Holding Lily against me while we burn through every episode of that show together has been the only upside of her being laid up. Wait for me.
But Starbuck is so damn hot and I’m sooooooo lonely.
Just another reason to wait until I’m there. Your fingers can’t do anything but push buttons on the remote.
You cruel and dirty bastard.
That’s true enough. But I know she’s smiling as she sends the response.
I just hope she’s not laughing, because laughing hurts her. Watch the Avengers again. Don’t forget to pause every time Thor comes onscreen.
I feel like you’re judging me. I also feel like I should invest in a Thor costume to use as soon as we can have sexy times again.
I’ll wear it. Jesus, I’d dress in a tutu and a flashing clown’s nose if it meant she was well enough for me to touch her without bringing more pain. Holding her should be enough, but I need to taste her, bury myself in her. Get so deep beneath her skin that she can’t ever scratch me out.
The costume’s for me. You can be Loki.
I grin and check Creek’s location. Only a few hundred yards out. I’m going quiet in a minute.
Oh, good. Because it’s incredibly stupid to text and ride, Jack fucking Hayden, and I’ve never thought you were stupid.
My stomach tightens, as if there’s a razor pressed up against it. So she’s already worked out that I’m not where I told her I’d be. All because she knows I wouldn’t be texting if I was on my bike.
But fuck it all. If I intended to keep this meet secret from Lily, I wouldn’t have responded. Texting her was careless. I knew it, but I did it anyway. Because this connection with her, this thing we’ve got going—it’s the best thing I’ve ever known. I got by for a long time, just doing what neede
d to be done, and calling that living. But before Lily Burns, I didn’t know how good living could be. Didn’t know how seeing a few words on my phone could make it seem as if the sun’s shining right down on me, warm and bright.
Still, there’s no getting around that she caught me in a lie. You pissed off?
Only because I’m stuck on my couch. Be careful.
Careful. I try to remember the last time anyone said that to me. My mother, maybe. Something like “Careful, you little shit. You’ll wake your dad and we’ll all pay for it.”
I will, I text back. That response isn’t a lie. I’ll be as careful as protecting her allows me to be. I can’t watch her back if I’m dead. You rest up.
I’ll try. But I need to get out soon or I’ll fucking explode.
Clubhouse tonight? A party always follows a ride. If Lily shows, this party will be for her. After the fight last week, we were off to the hospital so fast, she didn’t get even half the back-slapping she deserved. The brothers would make up for that tonight. I’ll take you.
Hard & fast, plz.
Fuck. I need to. Take her hard and fast, then deep and slow. But not tonight. Maybe not another week or two. With Lily’s ribs like they are, fucking her, making her come would just hurt her worse. There’s no goddamn way I’m getting off to that.
In another week or two, though… Christ. I’m going to bury my face between her legs and only come up for air so that I can slide my cock into her cunt and feel all that wet heat squeezing me tight. Then I’ll have her ass, and fuck her until she’s screaming as she comes, her fingernails ripping through my skin. Then, when she’s sweaty and sated, I’ll eat her out again, licking her pussy slow and sweet, because the way she sighs and lifts against my mouth, the way her fingers grip my hair, the way she breathes my name makes my fucking heart feel like it’ll burst out of my chest. Because that feeling is agony and bliss all at once, and I can’t get enough.
Losing that—losing her—is never going to be an option.
I’ll burn the fucking world down first.
• • •
When Creek and I served together, he was called Gavin Taylor. That name probably wasn’t any more real than the ones he’s using now—“Luke Harris” on his driver’s license, “Creek” on his kutte. He’s not wearing his vest today. Neither of us wears our colors during a meet. Anyone who sees our patches might remember them.
As it is, we’re both too damn memorable, physically. Too tall, too big. It’s why Uncle Sam never used us for the subtle covert shit. For those operations, better to send in someone who doesn’t draw attention to himself, someone who can be like a knife tucked away in a boot.
Creek and I were tanks that rolled in when knives weren’t enough. We went in alone, did the job, and got the hell out. No need to lose ourselves in a crowd.
After a handful of years, I got all the way out. Creek didn’t. He signed up with the feds. And for this job, he is the knife hidden in the boot. To anyone who looks, he’s just another big motherfucker on a bike.
All the training we got is still there, though. So as he glides nearer with his kayak, he doesn’t look anything like a biker. Instead he looks like an overdeveloped surfer boy up from California, with his blond hair slicked back and some kind of neon shit plastered all over his wetsuit. That’s what anyone who sees him will remember. And me? I made sure the owner of the bait store got a good look at the fake scar pulling at my upper lip. That’ll be what he remembers. The scar and the rest of what I’m wearing.
“Nice suspenders, bro,” Creek says first thing.
“I’m partial to the hat.” Tan canvas with fish hooks dangling around the rim. I picked it up years ago at a thrift shop on the coast. Junk like this always becomes useful at some point.
Creek glances at it, shakes his head. “Duuuuude. Scarface lumberjack angler just messes with my head. Having too many points of reference freaks me out.”
I grin and he does, too—but we’ve both got our hands where the other can see them. This shit can be fun but it’s also all business. I move too quick, or the wrong way, and I know he’ll have a gun in my face. He knows I’ll do the same.
Then the surfer dude act drops away and although we don’t look alike, it’s like staring into a mirror. Eyes flat, his face a grim mask that hardens with every passing year rather than wearing thin. A man who hides everything going on in his head.
Neither of us reveals anything easily. But there’s one thing I can’t hide, and Creek knows what it is. He knows why I’m here. So he doesn’t tiptoe around.
“Your woman is in trouble,” he says.
In trouble. The boat rocks gently beneath me as I let his words sink in. They don’t have to go far.
Because I knew there’d be something coming back on her. The way she took out Croc? The Devil’s Hangmen aren’t going to let that go. If Lily were a man and thrashed their prez, they’d come after our club, not her alone, because there’d be no shame losing to a man. But she humiliated them, so now they’ll want to break her. It doesn’t matter Croc brought it on himself by making a wager and by assuming that because Lily had tits, she must be weak. He fucked up, but she will pay for his mistake. For not being what he thought she should be.
The remedy is simple, though: I kill them all. Including Creek, if staying undercover means going along with whatever the Hangmen are planning for Lily.
All that matters now is the timeline. “Will Croc come for her himself?”
“Croc’s out,” Creek says, and the news doesn’t surprise me. I figured their prez was done as soon as Lily took him down. The Devil’s Hangmen call each other ‘brother,’ but they’ll put a bullet in each other’s heads for fucking up. “But Sherlock’s eager to prove himself to the higher-ups.”
Sherlock, the baby-faced little shit of a vice-president. His father is the president of the Hangmen’s mother chapter in Vegas. “Trying to make daddy proud?”
“Not him. Higher up.”
Ice splinters through my gut. He’s not talking about a motorcycle club. He’s talking about the cartel paying the bills. “Why would they give a shit about Lily?”
“I don’t know what Sherlock’s told them. He’s playing this one close to the vest. I can tell you he’s been pretty goddamn pleased with himself…and that I’ve seen your woman, so it isn’t hard to guess why.”
No, it isn’t hard. The Hangmen took over the Eighty-Eight’s territory a little over a month ago—not long after the Riders found out the skinheads had been running girls through this area. The Hangmen are just picking up where the Eighty-Eight left off, helping a cartel move guns, meth, and girls through the pipeline.
The truth is, I don’t give a fuck about the guns or the drugs. People make their own choices. The Riders come down hard on anyone trying to push shit onto local kids, but if someone wants to party on his own time? I say have at it.
But the girls, that’s not their choice. And these fuckers treat them like they’re trash. They aren’t grabbed because of their looks or their brains or because of anything special about them; they’re grabbed because they’re young and vulnerable. Most of them probably lived on the street when they were taken, so no one goes looking for them. And when they’ve been used up, they’re thrown out like garbage and replaced by another vulnerable girl.
Lily’s not vulnerable. She’s not as young as most of those girls, either. But motherfuckers who provide disposable sex slaves don’t just cater to one kind of buyer. And Lily? She’s stunning. She’s also a fighter. So some sick, rich fuck would pay a lot of money for the privilege to break her.
But these motherfuckers aren’t ever going to touch her. “Who is Sherlock talking to? Who is paying the bills?”
With a shake of his head, Creek says, “I don’t know—”
“Don’t fuck with me.” Each word falls dark and heavy, like a shovelful of dirt tossed into a grave.
Most men would get real uneasy when I use that tone. Creek just locks his gaze on mine. He’s steady as he
ll, but that doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth. Lying is as easy as breathing to men like us. “If I knew, my job here would be done. But we can’t get a fix on these assholes. We don’t know where the money’s going to or coming from. We don’t even know where the girls end up or where the last leg of the pipeline is.”
“You don’t have a fucking name? A contact?”
“Croc used to talk to someone called Red Eye. I assume Sherlock’s talking to the same. And now you know what I do.”
Bullshit. “No, I don’t.”
He watches me, his posture loose, his expression giving nothing away. But I know he’s waiting. Creek didn’t come here just to give info. He wants an exchange.
Fair enough. “You tell me what you have. I’ll reach out to other clubs, see what they’ve heard.”
“But you don’t act on that info until you’ve shared it with me.”
Fuck that. “Then you best make sure Sherlock doesn’t touch Lily, because if anyone comes after her, I will fucking act.”
Creek nods. Probably he already knew that. It just needed to be laid out clearly between us. “These guys are ghosts online,” he says. “The geeks have been tracing them back to Malaysia, Colombia, Austria—the digital trail goes cold every single damn time. But we think they’re centered in-country and we know they’ve got people on the ground. People like Red Eye.”
Because money is good whether it’s transferred by hand or by a computer. But when taking on a new job, MCs will want a face-to-face.
Someone like Red Eye probably doesn’t have a lot of power in the cartel. He would just be a messenger, a face to make the deals. But he’d know more about the organization behind him than the MCs do. “Why aren’t you finding them?”
“They’re smart. And they keep shifting shit around. We’ll escort cargo and one time we’ll hand it off to the Eighty-Eight. Next time, it’ll be to the Desert Kings. Next time, someone else. Then they’ll hand it off to another club. Never the same order. And tracing the route—backward and forward—is like untangling a fucking five-thousand-mile wad of fishing line.”
“But the girls end up in a shithole somewhere.”
