by Jayne Blue
Dark Seduction
A Dark Saints MC Novel
Jayne Blue
Nokay Press LLC
Copyright © 2018 by Jayne Blue/Nokay Press LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
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Chapter 1
Domino
Woody’s Bar matched my mood. Gritty. Dark. Brimming with the need to smash something. It was like that for all of us. Woody himself seemed to know that. He wasn’t a club member, far from it. But he had a sixth sense where me and the boys were concerned. He’d cleared the room in the back and put up a “private party” sign that made me laugh despite the undercurrent of tension running through us.
Axle sat in the corner with his back to the wall. I didn’t need X-ray vision to know he palmed the handle of his Nine under the table and watched the door the whole time. We’d come here to blow off some steam, but Axle stayed vigilant. Hell, we all did.
Deacon sat to my right, sober like always. As far as I knew, he only drank on Sundays and that was church wine. If it were anyone else, we would have given him shit for it. Since it was Deacon, we stayed out of his business. Before hooking up with the Saints, he’d been on the path to becoming a bona fide Catholic priest. Now he was our club chaplain and moral compass.
“Parking lot’s clear, Zig.” Toby, one of our most promising prospects, poked his head around the wall. This wasn’t a formal Church meeting or anything, but Toby knew how things worked well enough to know only patched members were invited to sit at this particular table. Zig gave Toby a nod and waved him off. As club secretary, Zig Wallace was the ranking member here at the bar. I felt bad for Toby and made a mental note to buy him a beer later. He really was in a different league than the rest of the kids we were looking at. Things being what they were, it didn’t look like we’d be voting to patch anyone new in for quite a while.
After Toby left, Zig cleared his throat and looked at Kade sitting at my left. Axle shifted in his seat; the leather of his cut creaked as he spread his shoulders.
“We gotta talk about it,” Kade said, answering the question Zig hadn’t even asked yet. Zig stared dark menace at him. But I knew it wasn’t about Kade at all.
At the end of the table, Kade sat closest to the doorway opening to the main bar. He leaned back and looked at him, making sure Toby and the rest of the prospects were far enough out of earshot.
“Fucking Fitzie,” Zig said, shaking his head.
“Bright side,” Shep chimed in. He sat on Zig’s right fingering the handle of his beer mug. “At least the Hawks have Fitzie, not the Feds.”
As far as bright sides went, that one was still pretty fucking dim. A few months ago, one of our newest prospects, Fitzie, brought down a ton of heat on the club. He’d shot one of our member’s sister and let us think the Devil’s Hawks M.C. had done it. We damn near went to war over it. Since then, he’d gone to ground. He’d crossed over to the other side, took up with the Hawks. God only knew what kind of intel he’d managed to feed them. It wouldn’t be much. As a prospect, we kept the most sensitive club info away from him. Still, he could do damage we didn’t need.
“So he’s just a traitor, not a rat,” Kade said, slamming his beer to the table.
“Yet,” I answered. My stomach turned just thinking about what Fitzie had done. The Hawks were our main rivals. They’d spent the last decade trying to encroach on our territory and bring hard drugs into our backyard, Port Azrael, Texas.
“Anyone lay eyes on him lately?” Deacon asked. I knew he’d taken Fitzie’s betrayal pretty hard. Hell, we all had at first. He’d been this tall, gawky kid with no family and nowhere else to go. That had been the same story of a lot of the guys at this table. Then the club became our family. Our president, Bear Bullock, was a father figure to most of the guys around me, myself included. His wife, Josie, was more a mother to me than my own worthless one. Fitzie hadn’t just betrayed the club, he’d broken Mama Bear’s heart. That alone made me want to kill him.
“He’s apparently not dumb enough to be seen on the street,” Kade said. “The Hawks probably have him still holed up outside Laredo.”
“He could be anywhere,” I said. “If Fitzie’s smart, he’d ask for a one-way ticket to Mexico.”
Axle’s eyes went stone cold. “Won’t be far enough.”
I raised a glass to him. Axle knew if it came to it, I’d have his back. No one, not even a skinny puke like Fitzie, would tear this club apart.
Deacon looked over his shoulder. Toby and Machop, one of the other new prospects, had taken seats by the bar. Machop was twitchy. Short and stocky, the kid was solid as a rock. But he’d come in at the same time as Fitzie. There were some at this table even who wondered whether he was still in contact with him.
“Is it so much to ask that we could just have a little patch of peace and quiet around here?” Shep asked. His eyes started to gloss over. He’d done a few shots at the bar before we settled back here. He’d earned it for sure, but like Axle, I couldn’t quite let my guard down that much.
A raucous cheer went up in the main bar. Axle’s back stiffened as he sat up a little straighter. Shit. At this rate, somebody was going to end up with holes in them before this night ended.
Heavy boots hit the ground as Chase Cutter came around the corner. He held up two fingers as Woody called out to him. As Chase took his seat beside Zig, Woody came around with two fresh pitchers of beer.
“You buying rounds for the kindergartners sitting at my bar?” he asked.
“Fuck, no,” Zig said. “And don’t let Irene overserve them. They’re supposed to stay on their toes tonight.”
Woody nodded, letting his eyes fall on us one by one. I knew what he was worried about. A group of Dark Saints in his bar in this kind of a mood, things tended to get broken.
“Relax,” Zig said, reading him just like I did. “We’re not looking for trouble tonight, Woodman.”
Woody backed up, holding his hands up, palms out. No matter the carnage that sometimes came with us, the Dark Saints M.C. kept him in business. We also kept other elements out he didn’t want. We could smash every window in this place and Woody probably wouldn’t care. Not that we ever would. At least, not on purpose.
“I know, I know, fellas,” he said. “How about you let this round be on the house?”
Zig laughed. “Thanks for the offer, we’re good, man. Just
keep it cold and keep it coming.”
“Bear and the Mrs. coming to join you tonight?” he asked.
Shep and Deacon couldn’t help snickering. I kicked Deacon under the table. Woody had a hell of a crush on Bear’s wife, Mama Bear. It went way back to when they were in high school together. Woody never missed the chance to flirt with her. Bear knew Woody was completely harmless. There was no one else in the world he’d let get away with it.
“Not tonight, Woody,” I said, deflating his balloon of hope. I stopped myself from adding they’d taken a rare weekend together and headed up to their cabin on Lake Corpus Christi. Axle shot me a look across the table in case I said more than I should. We trusted Woody, but with our recent run-in with the Devil’s Hawks, nobody could be too careful.
“Well, you tell him not to be too much of a stranger. Josie likes my bacon burgers and steak fries. She cooks too much for you lot. She deserves to have a nice night out and put her feet up,” Woody said, his eyes twinkling.
Zig couldn’t hold back his laughter this time. “If she needs a nice night out, this would be the last place Bear would take her.”
This earned a round of laughter from the table, including me. Woody shook his head, flipped a middle finger, and lobbed a bar towel at Zig’s head. Zig caught it neatly and laid it on the table. Woody was still swearing up a blue streak as he turned and walked away.
Though the undercurrent of tension still ran through us, Woody had helped ease it along a little with the fresh, cold beer he served. The conversation finally moved away from the Hawks and fucking Fitzie. Even my own head started to swim a little as we downed a couple more pitchers. None of us would let loose enough to get shitfaced. We usually only did that as a group when we were behind the walls of our own clubhouse. Toby and Machop brought the van for anybody who couldn’t ride later.
We settled into an easy rhythm. I loved each and every man at this table. They were more like brothers to me than flesh and blood could be. We were the new generation of Dark Saints, having all come up together from the time we were teenagers. None of us had reached forty, with Shep being one of the youngest at twenty-six. He was Bear and Mama Bear’s only son. Still, he’d earned his patch the hard way, just like the rest of us. The old guard, including my own Pops, were mostly dead. But with the way things were going, I knew Bear worried about the future. Fitzie’s betrayal didn’t help that one bit.
The conversation moved to better things like bikes and women. Chase had just gotten engaged. Maddox was freshly off the market. Zig had kids now. Hell, even Axle got hitched last year. Though I never would have believed it, he was the first of us to do it. I thought that fucker would be alone until the grave. I mean, who would have him? As it turned out, his wife, Maya, was suited perfectly for him. As intense as Axle was, Maya calmed him. He was ... happy. I couldn’t help that a small part of me felt jealous. Not of their happiness. Never that. But finding somebody willing to put up with all the baggage that goes with being a member of this club wasn’t easy.
Zig had his phone out. He passed around a video of his son Zach taking his very first steps. The kid had his mother’s sweet smile but Zig’s eyes. We’d started calling him Zag just to mess with Zig. There was something else brewing too, though Zig wouldn’t come out and say it. His wife, Gina, was pregnant again already. I overheard her talking to Mama Bear the other day. Zig and Gina hadn’t planned it. Well, they hadn’t planned the first one either. Damn, I was happy for him.
“Machop, what the fuck do you want?” Axle, still watching the door more than the rest of us, saw Machop first. The kid peeked around the corner, shaking like a damn leaf.
“Sorry, man,” Machop said. Toby stood behind him, pushing Machop forward. Whatever was going on, Machop sure as hell didn’t want to be standing there. That was obvious.
Machop let out a sigh and took a full step into the room. Toby stayed behind him. “S-sorry, guys.”
“Spit it out,” Zig said, sliding his phone into his back pocket.
“It’s probably nothing,” Machop said. “But that guy over there in the corner. Something’s up with him.”
“Well, shit, man,” Axle said. “Say it a little louder. Not sure the waitresses in the kitchen heard you.” But Axle was already on his feet. The legs of his chair scraped hard against the floor as he slid it aside and walked around the table. I got to my feet with Deacon and Kade. If there was trouble tonight, we’d take point.
“At the end of the bar,” Machop said. “Guy in the white polo shirt. Something’s up with him.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Wearing a fucking polo shirt into a place like Woody’s, for one thing.” But as soon as I got a look at the guy Machop pointed out, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. A muscle bulged in Axle’s right arm as he unsnapped his hip holster.
The guy at the end of the bar had slicked-back brown hair and bushy eyebrows. He sat alone although the stool next to him was empty. There was a red purse sitting on it. Unless it belonged to polo shirt, his companion was probably in the john. None of that would have caught my attention alone. But the guy had a cell phone in his hand, tilted at an angle. Though he tried to cover by looking in the opposite direction, the fucker was snapping pictures in our direction.
“He’s been doing that for about ten minutes,” Machop said, finally dropping his voice to a whisper. “He got Chase when he walked over with the empty pitchers a minute ago. He came in with a chick but she went to the ladies’ room a few minutes ago.”
“What the fuck?” Axle asked. “You ask Woody about him?”
Machop shook his head. “He just came in. Woody’s been in the back. You think he’s somebody?”
“Somebody stupid as shit,” Chase muttered. “He doesn’t have the look though, you know?”
I did know. The Feds were a lot stealthier about surveillance than this douche. They were rarely bold enough to come by Woody’s let alone sit at the fucking bar taking cellphone pictures.
The asshole got even bolder. He turned in his seat, and held his camera out as he scanned out across the bar. He was taking a damn video of the whole place. As we stood watching, he brought it around until he had it pointed at us. It took a second for him to realize we were staring straight at him. When he did, his eyes got wide and he quickly dropped the phone. Coughing into his arm, he slid the phone into his pocket and hopped off the stool. He threw a glance at the ladies’ room and ran a nervous hand through his hair. Deciding not to wait, he downed the last of his beer and headed for the front door.
“Fuck this shit,” Axle said. “Let’s go see who the hell this guy is.”
As Axle moved, so did the rest of us. We formed a wall of leather and muscle as we made our way out the front of Woody’s Bar.
The guy didn’t get far. Pitch dark out now save for one blinking street light, he made the mistake of crossing the street, putting him right in front of the alley behind Digby’s bar. That’s when Axle made his move.
“Hey!” he called out. When polo shirt decided to run, Axle grabbed him by the collar and pushed him against the brick wall.
“It’s not nice to stare,” Axle said through gritted teeth. In a full fury, Axle Hart was one scary mother fucker. Like me, he had Comanche blood running through his veins. He had a hard stare and a jagged scar cut through one brow. He had the kind of face that looked lethal all by itself. I think polo shirt might have pissed himself if Axle hadn’t let him go just as fast and shoved him hard.
“You’ve got the wrong idea,” the guy said. “I’m just minding my own business. I’ve got no beef with you.”
Zig went to Axle’s side. “Who the hell are you?” he asked. “Better yet, who the hell sent you here? Whoever it was, they gave you bad advice, brother.”
The guy trembled as he ran a hand through his hair again. He had a wild cowlick that made it stand up in front. On closer inspection, he looked fresh out of college with gleaming white teeth and a clean shave. Hell, I wondered if he could even grow a full beard. Whoev
er he was, Zig was spot on. If he came here to do surveillance for somebody else, they fucked him over. If he was here on his own ... well ... he might just be the dumbest son of a bitch on the planet.
“Nobody sent me,” he said. “I’m just a tourist. Swear to God.”
Axle went stone still. Only a tiny twitch in his temple told me how hard he was trying not to laugh.
“Yeah?” he finally said. “And Woody’s just happened to be on the top of your bucket list?”
“The pictures,” Zig said. “You want to explain what the hell you were doing?”
The guy let out a nervous laugh. “I told you. I’m just interested in the local scene around here. That’s all. I take pictures of everything. It’s for my Snapchat story. I swear to God, that’s all.”
“Careful,” Deacon said. “He doesn’t like when you do that unless you really, really mean it.”
Now we were just fucking with him. Though the corded veins in Axle’s forearm told me he was planning to work the kid over just a little to send a message. Probably a good idea, just to be safe. When Axle caught my eye, I made a little gesture with my chin toward Toby and Machop. This was the kind of thing tailor-made for the two of them. Let them get their hands a little dirty without really doing anything too rough just yet.
Axle caught my meaning and let the kid go with a hard jerk. He slumped against the brick and put his hands up. Axle jerked his head toward Toby and stepped aside. “Maybe we need to give you a little something extra for your ... story,” he said.
Toby made a big show out of cracking his knuckles as he stepped forward.
