Ash (Dragon Riders MC #3)
Savannah Rylan
Copyright © 2020 by Savannah Rylan
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.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Ash
2. Hannah
3. Ash
4. Hannah
5. Ash
6. Hannah
7. Ash
8. Hannah
9. Ash
10. Hannah
11. Ash
12. Hannah
13. Ash
14. Hannah
15. Ash
16. Hannah
17. Ash
18. Hannah
19. Ash
20. Hannah
Sneak Peak at Knuckles
More Books by Savannah Rylan
About the Author
1
Ash
Eject the magazine. Check the bullets. Reload.
I made sure all of our handguns had clean magazines in them as well as two spares to pick up.
Break down the gun. Clean the bore. Wipe down the muzzle. Fix the trigger.
I picked up a few of our non-working handguns in our weapons arsenal and started fidgeting with them.
Replace the bulletproof gear. Find new cushion pads. Burn clothes with holes.
I went outside and started a small in-ground fire in order to toss our clothes before burying it altogether.
Now, check on the new shipments.
I walked over to the computer in our arsenal—which was really an outfitted storage building—and started dicking around. I needed to figure out when our next shipment of ammunition and bulletproof tactical gear was coming in. The Dragon Riders had some extra money, so we were amping up our game. Especially after the loss and bullshit we weathered with The Red Pythons. We needed to be ready at all costs. Because now that we knew the Pythons were working with the Golden Shitballs, we needed to make sure we could protect ourselves even when we weren’t on the prowl.
Which meant bulletproof gear underneath our clothes at times.
“Come on,” I murmured.
The sound of thunder boomed in the distance and I paused. Today was supposed to be bright and sunny. The weatherman told me that while I chugged back my coffee this morning. So, what the fuck was a storm doing off in the distance?
BOOM!
The walls of the metal storage building shivered with the resounding clap. I pushed myself away from the computer and stood up, making my way for the latched door. I saw light flashing beneath the door before another hearty boom ricocheted over my head. And the second I flipped the lock, I heard rain pouring down onto the metal roof by the gallons.
“What the fuck?” I whispered.
Wind howled so heartily that I had to shove the door to get it open. And when it flew open, banging against the outside of the storage shed, I shielded myself from the pelting rain. Great. Just fucking grand. My bike was out in the middle of the goddamn rain and I had nowhere else to put it. And I wasn’t even done with my assignment in our weapons arsenal in the first place.
Guess I’ll do it tomorrow.
My phone vibrated against my leg and I groaned. I reached for the metal door and grunted, pulling it back until it closed altogether. The sound of the rain alone against the metal structure damn near drowned out the thunder shaking the ground beneath my feet. But when I saw Sly calling me, the hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end.
“What?” I asked.
“Church, Ash. It’s an emergency. Get to the Iron Horse now.”
I hung up the phone and jammed it back into my pocket. I walked over to the computer and quickly shut it down, staying to make sure it turned completely off. Then, I disconnected the internet so no one could hop onto the network and hack our technology I had in this place. This weapons’ cache was my pride and joy. A personal project I took on for the crew a few years back. Took me a while to scout out the proper place, but this storage shed off in the corner of the lot had done us well over the years.
Plus, with a bit of money under the table, the owner of the place didn’t ask questions. Which meant we could all come and go at all hours of the night with no cameras hooked up anywhere near the private building.
After pulling out the keys to my bike, I charged out into the storm. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked as I threw my leg over the soaked vehicle. I cursed beneath my breath as I slid my helmet on, shivering as I cranked up the engine. I pulled away from the storage building while the wind whipped around me, as if it were preventing me from trying to leave.
But the horsepower behind my bike was stronger than any storm that wanted to keep me grounded.
That didn’t mean the trip was easy, though.
Riding a bike in the rain was like trying to do anything while also having to pee: it was a bitch. Everything I tried to do made me feel unsteady on the road. Every time I tried to turn a corner, I had to squeeze my thighs just a bit tighter to keep a grip on the damn thing. And just when I thought the issue would resolve itself, the sensations would come back harder and more fervent for another round of torture.
Needless to say, I was thrilled to get to the bar.
I shoved my way into the bar, my jacket dripping wet with rain. I knew I’d have to take it back to the dry cleaners to treat and salvage it after getting it so damn wet. But I was here, and that was all that mattered.
“Hey! Ash!”
Link’s voice yelled for me and I whipped around.
“Yep?” I asked.
He motioned with his hand. “Back here. Come on. We need to start.”
There was an urgency in his voice that put me on edge. Link had never been one to panic. But ever since that little lawyer girl of his had come into the picture, he’d gone soft. I mean, most women and children made men go soft. Good men, at least. However, this wasn’t a time in the life of our crew when we needed to be soft. Or paranoid. Or anything else that had cropped up that put us in this fucking position in the first damn place.
“All right, we all here?” Link asked.
I took a head count before I gave our president a thumbs up.
“Wonderful. Okay. We need to talk about what happened in Hillridge Springs.”
Sly nodded. “We got fucked is what happened.”
Link paused. “Maybe in a bit more descriptive tone, yes?”
Bowser sighed. “How the hell did our recon not tell us that the Pythons were working with the Golden Jags?”
Knuckles raised his hand. “I want to know how the fuck those women could work with them in the first place.”
Link nodded. “Do we believe there’s a chance they don’t fully understand what they’re wrapped up in?”
Sly shook his head. “Not a fucking chance in hell. Not after what Bowser and I ended up seeing. They were fighting. I mean, full-on guns kind of fighting in that damn abandoned campground. And with the way they were all friendly with one another, it gave me the feeling that they’ve been working together for a while.”
I licked my lips. “Drugs and trafficking.”
Everyone slowly looked my way as my voice boomed over their heads even though I tried to keep it softer than usual.
“Do you know something?” Link asked.
I shrugged. “Been doing some research.”
Sly furrowed his brow. “What kind of research?”
I leaned against the wall. “The kind I do in the morning with my coffee.”
Knuckles blinked. �
�You find anything during this research of yours that we know nothing about?”
“I mean, some things. Not a lot, though.”
Link turned to face me. “Fill us in on what you’ve found, then.”
I cleared my throat. “I mean, just blogs and shit. You know how everyone’s got a blog now, online. People write about anything and everything just to get a few clicks on their Google ads.”
“What’s he talking about?” Bowser murmured.
“What I’m talking about, old man, is that I’ve found a few things buried deep in some weird-ass blogs that talk about the Pythons and the Golden Jags.”
Link nodded. “How weird are we talking?”
I shrugged. “Less ‘weird’ and more ‘they stopped posting two years ago probably because they’re dead.’”
Knuckles snickered. “We don’t actually believe what he’s saying, right?”
Sly sighed. “For shits and giggles, what did the blog say?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “That the Golden Jags have a drug side and a trafficking side.”
Link shook his head. “We already knew that. They also launder money.”
I nodded. “Yep. But the blog also says the Pythons are helping the Golden Jags with their trafficking efforts. Taking a cut off the top.”
Bowser stared at me. “Oh, come on now. Some stupid ass blog somewhere can’t possibly know all that shit.”
Link walked toward me. “You said they stopped posting a couple of years ago?”
“April 8th, 2018 was their last post on the blog.”
“Why does that date sound so familiar?”
The room fell silent before Sly put it together.
“Shit,” he murmured.
I nodded. “Yep.”
“What?” Bowser asked.
Knuckles pushed himself off the wall. “What are we missing?”
Link rolled his eyes. “Can you send me the link to that blog? Those posts, specifically?”
Sly held out his arms. “Anyone gonna fill us in!?”
I looked over at him. “April 8th of 2018 was around the time the Golden Jags came into town and shacked up in that shitty motel of theirs.”
Sly shook his head. “It could just be a coincidence.”
“Yeah, well, us thinking shit was nothing but coincidences put us in this position in the first place. So, I think we should run with it.”
Knuckles held up his finger. “Coincidences didn’t get us here. Bad recon did.”
I nodded. “Because we made assumptions we shouldn't have. We deemed things coincidences when we shouldn't have assumed causation. That’s why we’re in this situation.”
The room of guys stared at me with confused looks on their faces, and it reminded me why I never talked to them unless I had to.
“Yeah. That shit,” I said.
Link nodded. “He’s right. We’re in this position because we didn’t dig deep enough, and we assumed things we shouldn't have. Ash, I want you to send me that blog as well as those posts.”
“Consider it done.”
Bowser piped up. “That doesn’t negate us from the responsibility we have to them.”
Sly hunched his shoulders. “Responsibility? To them? They double-crossed us, Bowser!”
He nodded. “I know. But that doesn't mean we don’t fulfill our end of the bargain. Even if the blogs are true, those girls work in the trafficking department. Not the drug one. And remember? Those guys we were tailing were distributing drugs.”
Knuckles stepped up to the plate. “They would’ve recognized the girls, though. Right? I mean, the two crews are working together.”
Bowser shrugged. “All I’m saying is that I didn’t recognize any of the guys from the Jags driving that van. For all we know, they outsource some of their work.”
Link sighed. “Which means there’s a chance we’ve left those girls with drugged-up assholes who don’t know who they’re looking at.”
All of us looked around the room at one another before Bowser’s head fell back.
“Fuck, we’ll have to go back,” he groaned.
Sly scoffed. “It’s already been four days, guys! For all we know, they’re—”
Link held up his hand. “Don’t say it. We had no right to leave before that job was completed. We’ve mucked this up enough as it is. But if we find the girls that weren’t involved with this plan and tell them we know exactly what’s going on, we’ve got leverage over them. We help them get the other girls back—if they need to be saved at all—then we have two things to hang over their head. There’s a possibility we can still salvage this and take down Skeleton, which was the real goal in the first place.”
I licked my lips. “All in favor?”
Sly shook his head. “Wait a second. We’re working off yet more assumptions here. Why don’t we—”
“Me,” Knuckles said.
“Me,” Bowser said.
“Me,” I said.
“Wait a goddamn second!” Sly exclaimed.
Link sighed. “You’ve already been outnumbered.”
Sly glared at him. “Then shut up and listen because you don’t have anything to lose: look, I get it. This crew takes care of women. But these aren’t just any women, guys. It’s an all-female motorcycle crew. And they stabbed us in the fucking back. They’ve been working with the Jags this whole time, and you know damn good and well Hope, Ash, and Knuckles got into the situations they did because of their intel. They betrayed us! And now you want to go after them because they’ve got tits and pussies?”
Bowser drew in a deep breath. “He’s got a point.”
Link stared us all down. “When this crew stops operating by its own morals, it’s a slippery slope from there. If we start making exceptions now, who’s to say we won’t end up just like the Golden Jags along down the line?”
Sly chuckled. “That’s a bit of a stretch, dude.”
I nodded. “And it’s a bit of a stretch to say that these girls don’t need our help. There was a shoot-out, for crying out loud. Even if those drug-running dickheads work for the Jags, there was clearly an altercation.”
“Then, they’ve already bled out on the ground. What the fuck’s the point in going back? We all got out alive. Couldn’t we at least celebrate that?”
I shook my head. “We stick to our morals or we turn in our cuts. That’s how it goes around here.”
Link pointed at me. “Ash is right. So, either get on board and let’s go see if these girls need help before we pin them to the ground ourselves or turn in your cut.”
Sly chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Fine. But if the choice is my life or theirs? They’re the ones getting it. Got it?”
We all looked over at Link and watched him nod.
“Got it,” he said.
2
Hannah
“I’m sorry, Hannah. I didn’t know things would go so sideways. If I had known—”
I looked over at my cousin Slash. “Isn’t it your job to know these things?”
She sighed. “Look, I know you’re upset—”
“Upset? Upset!”
She shushed me. “Keep it down. If they hear you, they’re going to come in here. And who knows what the hell they’re going to do after that.”
I curled my legs closer to my chest. “I hate you, that’s what this is. You told me this would be an easy job that would pay off the rest of my school debt. The fuck’s wrong with you?”
She rubbed my back. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I really am. But I promise you, once I get us out of here, I’ll pay it off myself. How much do you owe?”
“Twelve grand.”
“Psh. Not a problem.”
“I also need to pay off my credit card. I can’t get it below five hundred.”
“Done. Just be patient with me and I’ll solve all your debt problems.”
I shook my head. “You better.”
As I gazed around the tiny room these drugged-up dickweeds had us shoved into, I saw the rest of
the girls with me. While I was dressed in a skimpy cropped top with overalls and sneakers, a couple of them were in dresses with heels. My cousin was in some sort of bosom-boasting shirt with cut-off jean shorts and boots that came up much too high on her thighs. She looked like a regular ten-cent hooker.
Then again, that was my cousin. Always dressing in clothes that were two sizes too small underneath that leather jacket of hers.
“I can’t believe you got me into this,” I murmured.
“And I’m telling you, I’ll get you out of it. Just be patient. Think you can do that?”
I looked over at her. “Has patience ever been my strong suit?”
She cast me a look. “Stay patient or you’ll get us all killed. Got it?”
I rolled my eyes before I rested my chin against my knees. After graduating college two years late, the last thing I expected after getting my Business degree was to be stuck in some dingy cabin room with a bunch of girls dressed like everything from hookers to married housewives. I should’ve been applying for part-time jobs while researching Master’s programs. I should’ve been coming up with plans for my own business one day: my own publishing company. I wanted nothing more than to publish the books of others or own a store that sold books. Anything to do with my number one passion. My first love.
“Skeleton,” Slash whispered.
I shook my head. “No. Reading is my first love.”
Slash furrowed her brow. “What? Girl, no. Skeleton’s coming. Shut up and sit up straight.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ah, the man you tried to throw off with my presence. Think he got the message?”
“I’m going to kill you myself if you don’t—”
The doorknob started to rattle, and I rolled my lips over my teeth. Yeah, yeah, I knew what my cousin was up to. Duping this dope and shit like that. The only reason why I didn’t ask for more money off the top of this entire thing was because she was honest from the get-go. She told me about throwing off Skeleton. About the job some guys in some crew wanted them to do. About the double-cross and how we were supposed to work with Skeleton and these incompetent idiots to—I don’t know—do something. I wasn’t part of that part of the plan. I was hired to throw off Skeleton, and that was all I knew for sure.
Ash (Dragon Riders MC Book 3) Page 1
