Sentinel

by Brook Wilder

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Sentinel copyright @ 2019 by Brook Wilder and Scholae Palatina Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

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  BOOKS IN THE SOUTHERN BIKERS SERIES

  WRECKED

  SHATTERED

  DEFILED

  PROTECTOR

  GUARDIAN

  SENTINEL

  MONSTER

  SAVAGE

  HELLION

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  SENTINEL

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  PREVIEW – MONSTER

  A Word from Brook Wilder

  Books in the SOUTHERN BIKERS Series

  OTHER BOOKS BY BROOK WILDER

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  BOOKS IN THE SOUTHERN BIKERS SERIES

  WRECKED

  SHATTERED

  DEFILED

  PROTECTOR

  GUARDIAN

  SENTINEL

  MONSTER

  SAVAGE

  HELLION

  SENTINEL

  Prologue

  Three Weeks Earlier

  “Why have you called us here?”

  Jack Carry looked at the room, a grim look on his face. “Our families are being targeted. I need you all to go to an assignment and stay there until I tell you otherwise. The Cazadores have put everything on the table, and I’m not taking any chances this time.”

  “Stay there?” Derrek McMurray said, leaning against the doorway, as if he were too scared to fully step into the room.

  The rumors were rampant around the clubhouse at who Derrek McMurray really was, and though I hadn’t met him in person, I felt like I knew him and his business.

  “You’re joking, right? Who’s gonna run the bar?”

  “That is for me to figure out, boy,” Jack answered angrily, pulling out a list. “I don’t have time to make all the arrangements, but I can’t have innocent people die while I sit around on my ass and make them. You’re going to tail Alice Gray.”

  “Well, shit!” McMurray swore, running a hand through his hair. “Who the hell is that?”

  “And you will work in pairs,” Jack continued, shooting the man a look. “Take Andrew. That should make you happy at least.”

  I shifted in my seat. I didn’t know who the hell Alice Gray was and why Jack thought McMurray needed to be part of this. Hell, he wasn’t even a Legion member, yet he was getting mixed into club business. I had yet to understand why they catered to him the way they did, but it was none of my business.

  And Andrew…? He wasn’t a Legion member either, his shifty eyes reminding me of a man who was always plotting for something. Everyone knew he was a druggie, and McMurray catered to him like he owed him something. I didn’t understand what he saw in the man and had stayed away as much as I could.

  Andrew was up to something, something that I didn’t want a hand in.

  “Kid.”

  I sat up straighter, not the only one startled to hear my name out of the mouth of the president. I was barely out of my initiation, not even wearing a damn vest yet, but he was going to give me an assignment. This had to be a test, a test of epic proportions.

  “Yes sir.”

  “You get the strip club.”

  “What the fuck?” Andrew said, as I swallowed. “Why does he get the good places? He’s just a kid.”

  “Shut up,” McMurray shoved his friend in the shoulder.

  Jack ignored them, his eyes on me.

  “Becky is your primary focus. She is not to go anywhere by herself, you hear me? Take Fulton. He knows his way around the place.”

  “Hell, half of us do,” someone called out, causing the room to break out into laughter.

  I didn’t. I spent my time trying to learn the ins and outs of the club, rather than in the strip club.

  But I had heard rumors, lots of rumors.

  “We got it,” Fulton said beside me.

  I was glad that he was going to be my partner. As my sponsor, he knew I was still struggling to find my way, and the last thing I wanted to do was blow this assignment. This was my chance to make a splash in the Legion and earn that vest.

  “Good,” Jack said, giving me the eye before moving on.

  I quit listening, attempting to think about what I knew about Becky White and the Gallery, the strip joint that the Legion owned. I didn’t know anything about her other than she was a redhead.

  And redheads were all sorts of trouble.

  Rubbing a hand over my face, I knew this was it. Jack was testing me, waiting for me to screw up so he could throw my ass out of the club. I didn’t belong here, or so the members liked to remind me, every single fucking day.

  Well, I was going to protect her so well that no one would question my loyalty or my ability. I was going to be there, every step of the way, and if I had to pull my gun to get the job done, I would.

  The meeting ended shortly after, and I walked out, Fulton at my heels.

  “Becky ain’t the easiest one to be assigned to,” he said, as we walked outside into the warm night. “Hell, sometimes she scares me.”

  I rolled my shoulders.

  “She can’t be that hard.”

  Fulton laughed, gripping my shoulder lightly.

  “Dude, you have no idea how hard she can be. Trust me. You will never meet a woman like Becky White.”

  I shrugged off his warning. I could handle this. They might call me the ‘kid’, but it didn’t mean that I couldn’t handle an adult situation. She was just a woman for God’s sake. Surely, she would enjoy having someone watch her back while this shit blew over.

  “When do we start?”

  Fulton sighed.

  “I got to settle some things, but give me an hour or two; then we will make it happen, alright?”

  I nodded, and he walked away, already pulling out his cell.

  I didn’t really have any business to handle.

  I was ready to prove my worth in this club and become a member once and for all.

  It was time to show them what the Kid could really do, given the chance.

  Chapter One

  Gary

  I drummed my fingers along the scarred table, not really paying much attention to anything going on around me. The place was crowded tonight, with both men and women, partly due to the buy one get one half off dr
ink specials they were running.

  That and there was nothing else to do in this shithole on a Tuesday evening.

  “Man, it’s packed,” Jared Fulton remarked as he picked up his beer. “I hate the damn crowds.”

  “Yeah me, too,” I answered, tipping the beer bottle to my lips. I wondered why the heck we were here, but it wasn’t my place to question orders.

  All we got was to case the place, ensure no damage was done, and report back. I didn’t know what we were looking for, but I could almost bet that it was gonna be bad when we found it.

  Clearing my throat, I leaned back in the chair, watching as a rail thin blonde finished her set on the stage before us. The Gallery was a strip joint owned by the Legion, a biker gang that resided in Greenwood, Nevada. The vest on my person might say prospect at the moment, but in another few months, I was hoping to move up in the ranks. Thanks to Jared, or Fulton as I called him, I was learning everything there was to know about the Legion and what my role could be once he deemed me ready to join the brotherhood.

  In my younger years, I was just another nerdy kid with a video game controller in my hands, skinny enough for the damn wind to blow me over. Not once had it crossed my mind that I might have a shot at joining a gang like the Legion before Jack Carry stepped into my life.

  I chalked it up to a chance encounter. I was eighteen, fresh out of school and heading to a life in some shit cubicle job. I had mad computer skills, but that was about it. My coke bottle glasses held the girls at bay. Well that, and my lack of muscles. Which my big brain couldn’t begin to make up for.

  Girls didn’t go for brains. That was a lie to make the nerdy guys think they could score one day.

  But that night, in the diner, my entire life had changed. I was sweeping up, earning a shit paycheck to fuel my video game habit when some Crusaders came in the door two seconds after a group of Legion had sat down in their booth. Looking back on it, I remember thinking it was stupid a bunch of grown men would fight over something as little and insignificant as booth territory, but I didn’t know better back then.

  I found myself in the middle of a turf war. I wasn’t a chick, not the normal person you would a bunch of guys would take hostage, but I had been at the right place at the right time apparently. I went from sweeping the floors to having a knife at my throat, watching my pathetic life flash before my eyes.

  But that hadn’t been the most profound moment of that night. No, that had been Jack Carry taking control of the situation, convincing the Crusaders to leave, and the Legion were left to enjoy their meal.

  I had been left standing in the corner, literally shaking and still feeling the knife pressed against my throat. Jack had noticed me and on his way out, given me a card with his number on it. “Call me tomorrow,” he’d said.

  At the time, I didn’t know why he wanted me to call him, but I was glad I had. Four years later, I was on the threshold of becoming someone in this club and not just ‘Kid’ as the other members liked to call me. I didn’t really care about the name so much anymore, knowing that any one of them would protect my ass at a moment’s notice.

  But I did want their respect. I wanted to be seen on the same level as them, to truly be a part of the group of men that had become my second family. I was different than most. I had a good family, no broken home or negligent parents.

  My parents were still alive, still together, and living on the fringes of town. I went to their house every Sunday for dinner, and though I knew they didn’t approve of my choice of profession, they never voiced it.

  We just didn’t talk about the tattoos I was accumulating, or the vest I wore nearly every day.

  “God, how much longer?” Fulton said, breaking my thoughts.

  I grinned. “Missing your wife?”

  “Hell yes,” he grinned back, his gaze softening. “I know she’s sitting at the house in that little black number.”

  I held up my hand, interrupting him. “I really don’t need to know anything else.”

  Fulton chuckled, shaking a finger at me. “You’ll know this feeling one day man and it will hit you like a shit ton of bricks. You won’t even know what happened.”

  I didn’t answer, seeing the look in his eyes. Hell, I hoped so. I wanted a wife, a family one day. I wanted to know what my parents had found after all these years, to have someone to go home to after a long day and just chill with. Unlike most men my age, I was looking for that forever, not a one-night stand.

  “Can I get you something else, honey?”

  I looked up at the pretty brunette standing next to me, her lips pursed in an inviting smile. “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked again, her hand on her hip. “You know I get off around midnight. I’d love to unwind with a bottle of wine.”

  My face grew hot. I ignored Fulton’s snicker as I tried to find the right words to let her down easy. “As much as I would like to, darling, I’ll be working.”

  Her lips formed a pretty pout and she pulled a slip of paper out of her waitress apron, sliding it across the table to me. “Well then, if you change your mind.”

  I picked it up and gave her a nod, watching as she sauntered off, her tantalizing hips swinging back and forth.

  “You kill me, man. She was all about sucking your cock tonight and all you could come up with was that you had to work?”

  I slipped the number into my pocket to destroy later, picking up my beer. “I’m not interested in a fling.”

  Fulton shook his head. “Of course not. Why would I expect anything different from you?”

  I eyed him. “Are you saying you’d hit that now?”

  “What? No of course not,” Fulton replied, waving me off. “I’m married now. There’s only one woman for me and she’s currently warming my bed.”

  “There you go,” I answered. “I want that, man. You don’t know how lucky you are.” I had experienced my fair share of flings in my younger years, right after the guys learned I hadn’t ‘popped my cherry’ yet. I mean, no one wanted to bed a nerd in the first place.

  So, they had taken it upon themselves to set me up with such a tsunami of willing women that I had to finally tell them to stop sending them. I didn’t want mindless sex anymore. I wanted something meaningful; I wanted a future.

  Hell, I sounded like a woman most days inside my head.

  “Aw shit,” Fulton suddenly said, motioning toward the stage. “We are in for a real treat tonight.”

  I turned my attention back to the stage, my mouth going dry at the woman who was making her way out to the pole, a wide smile on her face. She was wearing some sort of gauzy coverup, her long, red hair draped over one shoulder in a handful of curls. Her creamy skin glowed under the lights and the entire club went silent, as if they were collectively holding their breath in anticipation of a heart-stopping show.

  To be fair, their expectations were about to be realized. Becky White was a woman that everyone knew, but no one wanted to cross. I hadn’t heard a bad word uttered amongst her staff here at the Gallery, and most appreciated how she had taken her father’s business and turned it into something classy.

  Even if it was a strip joint.

  I shifted in my chair as she finally reached the pole. She nodded to the DJ who filled the place with a slow, sultry song that made Becky grin and shake her head. From my vantage point, I could see the pink polish on her toe nails, the silver bra and matching thong barely covered by the cover up. She had a body that was meant to be held, full of curves that any man would enjoy grabbing onto.

  She was gorgeous.

  Chapter Two

  Becky

  I let the music flow through my bones before I took my first swing around the pole, blocking out the cat calls and whistles from the audience. I didn’t dance anymore, but my best girl had called out just minutes before she was due on stage, and with a packed house tonight, I couldn’t very well let the boys twiddle their thumbs between dancers. That would mean less drinking and people leaving, an
d that wouldn’t do well for our bottom line.

  If there was one thing my father had taught me that stuck with me all these years, it was that a happy house meant a full pocket. Besides, the rent on the building was due and I still had to pay the Legion their cut. I needed a great night.

  “Take it off!”

  I ignored the drunk patron as I slid down the pole, caressing it with my hands. He was going to be sorely disappointed. While I danced naked in my earlier years, I didn’t do it now. There was something about getting older that made me keep my shit on. I wasn’t self-conscious, just, well… I didn’t know why.

  I did, however, remove the cover-up I was wearing, sliding the pole through the space between my breasts before throwing my body back against it. I never had formal training, resorting to watching a few videos on the internet and taking some lessons from one of my dad’s many stripper girlfriends in my teens. It was then I learned that pole dancing was not something to be ashamed of. Those women sure weren’t. They taught me how the tips paid their bills, fed their kids, and for some of them, helped them find their future husbands.