“You asked me what’s going to happen now,” Shawn went on, like he could just turn off the switch inside himself and forget about what happened.
Maybe for him, he could. Maybe she was just another warm body, another willing cunt… Kayla gave herself a mental shake. For one, that thought was just terrible. Apparently she didn’t like rejection. No, apparently her body didn’t like rejection when she’d been on the verge of its most explosive, transcendental, mind-blowing sex of her lifetime. It had been a while since she’d had good sex with anyone. Okay, it had been a really long time. She was just pissed because Shawn gave her a taste before they were interrupted and her body didn’t know what to do with that when it wanted a four course meal.
“Marcello drew first blood,” Shawn went on.
Kayla forced herself to snap out of her tortured thoughts. Getting on another wave-length needed to fucking happen. She’d never been so pathetic in her life. Except… that orgasm. The first and the second. They’d been… like nothing she’d ever experienced before. She’d never actually felt connected to another person where it was more than their bodies. Like- like she was in this parallel universe and it was just her and Shawn.
He’d taken her somewhere, somewhere inside of herself, that she didn’t even know existed. She was probably just in an extremely low, vulnerable, shitty spot. Like he’d said before they’d done anything at all. That’s what was wrong. It was just her mind playing tricks on her. She was getting all sappy and sentimental because he’d made her come. Twice.
The most amazing kind of twice. Like… like she didn’t even know she could come that hard kind of twice. Like her ovaries might actually have exploded kind of twice. Holy shit, I really need to stop this.
“Marcello might have drawn first blood, but now it’s our turn. Kill, our prez, is going to be as hungry for blood as the rest of us. You don’t fuck with the Servants and live to tell the tale. Marcello might be well connected, but he bleeds just like everyone else. We’re lucky that he doesn’t have any club or gang affiliations. He has his men who are loyal and the rest are just paid, as you heard. Most of those have already been weeded out.”
“Is he- mafia?” Kayla couldn’t even believe she’d actually just said that word. She closed her eyes and waited for Shawn to answer.
“I don’t really know,” Shawn admitted. “I know that Drake Cannelli’s brother Nico was into some bad shit before he got put down.”
“Did the guy you- you basically work for- did he really kill his own brother?”
“Yup. I was there the day it went down. Er- in the aftermath of it, at any rate. I owed a friend. A guy from an old club. He needed help. He fell in love with Nico Cannelli’s sister. She was having a hard time of it and she was promised to Marcello. He’s a real pig, in case you haven’t gathered that.”
“Oh, I gathered it,” Kayla interrupted rudely.
“Yeah- well- we got there too late. We had a plan and it went sideways and Ryder and I thought we’d fucked it all up, but it turned out, Drake had our backs. He hated his big bro more than any of us could have imagined. He did the guy down and let his sister go with Ryder. He made him promise to take her far away from there and not come back. To the best of my knowledge they did just that. I think they’re probably down south somewhere. Real south. As in, not in this country anymore. They could have gone to Europe though, but I don’t think so. Ryder sometimes talked about Mexico or further down… anyway… mafia. That’s what you asked me about. The Cannelli’s are an old family. Before Nico could be a little shit, his dad was running the party and his dad before him. I guess being a cocksucker is passed down in their blood. I haven’t done much research into Marcello, but he has connections too. I would say that if they’re not full of mafia shit then he has some underworld stuff going on.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Kayla groaned. She opened her eyes and found Shawn studying her. A shiver of pleasure traced its way up her spine no matter how much she didn’t want it to. She should be shivering in fear, not sitting there like a dumb ass with a stupid crush.
“It means, you don’t have to worry about any of this.” Shawn grinned and god… he was so ruggedly handsome it hurt to look at him. Kayla dropped her eyes down to her hands, since they were much, much safer ground. “Kill is going to have a plan. Drake is going to have a plan. Your dad is safe. You’ll be safe. There will probably be one hell of a fight, but after that, Marcello is either going to be in the ground or chased out of town.”
Kayla glanced up in horror. “How- how can you be so sure?” The thought of anyone getting hurt- okay, the thought of something happening to Shawn- oddly enough tied her insides up in knots. She should be worrying about herself and her dad, not a guy she barely knew. A guy who did bad things like this for a living. And clearly thrived on it.
“I’m sure because I have to be. It’s either them or us and I’m not going down without kicking some ass. The rest of my brothers feel the same and you don’t want to know the kind of shit those guys can do. I’m not a patched in member of the club yet so I haven’t been asked to participate but…” Shawn trailed off and Kayla swore there was almost something- haunted in his eyes. He blinked hard and it was gone. “Anyway, let’s just say they’re good at kicking ass. They like kicking ass. We will win. Everything will go back to normal. It’s just going to take a bit of time.”
“How much time?”
“After what Marcello did… probably not long at all. Drake is going to be on the offensive and so are we. Marcello might have his family and his men, but I doubt he’s going to get a lot of help from people outside the State. They likely don’t want to have anything to do with squabbles involving biker clubs and other- er- well… other powerful families. Even if they did want to help, they won’t arrive on time. That van will be here right away and once you’re safe, I’m sure Kill will be ready to hold church and we’ll be rolling out soon after.”
“Church?”
“It’s just what we call our meeting where we discuss the serious shit. I’m not usually allowed at it, but this time I’m sure they’ll make an exception. They’re likely going to need all hands on deck, even their prospects.”
“I don’t know what any of that means. I don’t know anything about any of this. I don’t want to know.” Tears gathered in Kayla’s eyes. Her throat closed up and she couldn’t blink fast enough to clear them.
A day ago, her life had been so simple and sweet and put together. She was finally realizing her dreams of owning her own restaurant. She had a building and the plans for renovation were coming together. Her financing was in place. It was all going to work out just like she’d dreamed. After so many years in school, working her ass off, dreaming and planning… it was finally going to be a reality.
Now it might never be real. Who would come eat at an establishment owned by the daughter of a known criminal? What was her father’s life, and hers, going to look like after all of this was over? How many men were going to have to die so other men could keep getting rich doing illegal thing? Horrible things.
The bed dipped and Kayla couldn’t contain a little gasp as Shawn sat down beside her. She was shocked when he set his heavy hand on her shoulder. He squeezed gently- and it was gentle, given that he could have crushed her bones beneath his massive hands if he wanted to. The heat from his touch spread through her veins, warming her, comforting her, churning up all those crazy emotions she hadn’t really ever experienced. She wasn’t used to feeling. She was used to shutting that down, because feeling hurt and feeling drained left a person empty and Kayla couldn’t afford to have any more of her life stolen by grief.
“It’s going to be okay,” Shawn said softly. Far too softly. That voice was like velvet and it flooded through her veins. “The Servants aren’t going to lose, so you’re not going to lose either.” He stood just as quickly as he’d sat beside her and walked confidently out of the room.
Kayla stayed where she was, her trembling hands tucked between
her legs.
She wished she could believe Shawn, but she was too smart for all that. He was right. She didn’t know her father at all. Her entire world had imploded around her. After her mother died, it had taken her years to pick up the pieces. She thought she’d finally moved on, but then she’d had that dream and the whole thing had blown wide open again and she was just as vulnerable as she was before.
She’d been vulnerable enough to let Shawn in. To let him close.
She should regret it. All of it. It should have been a monumental fuck up and nothing more.
Except it wasn’t.
Her life was never going to be same. Not after any of this. She was never going to be the same.
She’d already lost more than she could imagine.
Chapter 11
SHAWN
In just over the year he’d been with the Servants, he’d never been allowed in church. It might have been sacrilegious as shit to call it that, considering when the club met, anything but good was plotted behind those closed doors. It was a space that was off-limits to prospects and outsiders. Maybe the word church made sense, since it was the inner sanctum of the club.
Since he’d come from another club, he knew what went on. It suited him just fine to be left out of it.
Until he wasn’t.
After he’d loaded Kayla into the van and stowed her safely in one of the club’s rooms- also a first, since civilians weren’t allowed in the place and club whores sure as hell didn’t count- he’d been shocked as hell when Kill called church and he’d actually been informed that prospects were attending.
Sitting in the darkened, windowless room, which looked like a trashy version of a lounge, with black leather couches and flat screen TV’s on the walls, Shawn pretty much thought he knew how shit was going to go down. And then another first happened.
Drake Cannelli, not a civilian, but sure as hell no member of the club, hell, he was barely even a friend, walked in behind Kill himself.
Shawn’s eyes slowly tracked to Toad, the club’s other prospect. The kid was huge. Where he’d got his name, Shawn wasn’t sure. He didn’t have a club name yet. The guy bore no resemblance to a toad at all. He was a big fucker with a permanently stupid look on his face, but behind those ugly features, he had a brain that was as smart as any fucking scientist’s. Except instead of figuring out experiments and shit that would actually help mankind, he plotted how to be better at crime. The guy had spent more years in juvie and prison than he had out. Like most of the men there, he’d found a home in the tightly ordered lawlessness of the club.
Kill rubbed his hands together. He slowly surveyed the room before his eyes landed back on Drake. “I know this isn’t how we do shit here. We don’t let anyone in this room who ain’t a patched in member, but this is different. We’re facing an enemy that we’ve never faced before. This ain’t some turf war or some rival club or gang bullshit. This is bigger.”
Shawn waited, tense. His shoulders hunched in on themselves. He’d chosen, as usual, to pick a corner and fill it up. He liked having the wall at his back. Toad stood off to the side in the opposite corner. Neither of them figured that just because they’d been allowed to sit in on church, that they actually mattered. As always, it was better to blend into the damn wall than it was to sit in the thick of things.
“First, before we start, I want to remind you all that we fucking took a vote on this shit. Working with Drake Cannelli. Our connection with him has allowed us to expand into territory we would have had to bleed and sacrifice to take over. We’ve made more money in the past year than the last ten combined. Others might have feared the Servants before, but not our rivals, even in other cities, in other states, fuck, in other countries, know that we are a force that won’t be easily uprooted.”
Behind Kill, Drake had the nerve to cock a brow. “Reminding your men that it’s to their advantage to keep me alive?” he asked sardonically.
The guy was good looking. He had strong features, dark hair and the olive undertone that made his skin look darker than it was. Short cropped hair and intense dark eyes gave the guy a shrewd look. He couldn’t quite be called dangerous, given that he was young and some of those natural baby features hadn’t been erased. He was tall and jacked, hard muscle hidden beneath an immaculately tailored black suit.
Cannelli’s boyish charm, the almost innocent look that youth gave him, could be used to his advantage. He looked almost… innocent, like he couldn’t really be capable of anything underhanded or shady. Shawn was reminded of the year before, when he and Ryder busted into the Cannelli place and found the whole thing silent, dead bodies everywhere. They’d been on a mission to rescue Laura, and they’d found her. They’d also found Drake, covered in the blood of his older brother and the guy’s men.
Shawn shivered at the memory. Drake was definitely a dangerous motherfucker. He’d filled his brother’s shoes well. On the other hand, he had a reputation to live up to. The Cannelli’s were generally fucking assholes. He had a business to run and a legacy to keep up with. Shawn almost pitied the poor bastard. At least he was nothing like his brother. Nico Cannelli had been a real piece of work and the Servants hated him.
Kill let out a low growl. He looked like he wanted to wrap his hands around Drake’s neck himself, but instead he stalked to the front of the room. “They don’t need a reminder,” he said roughly. “We took a vote. Servants don’t go back on their word. If we wanted you dead, you would have been dead already.”
Drake shrugged, like threats didn’t bother him at all. “I figured.” He rubbed his hands together, like a kid on Christmas fucking morning about to unwrap a stack of gifts. “So. Marcello showed his hand. He’s obviously pissed. I say we hit him back hard. Have a little fun. Sink his ships. He wouldn’t like it at all if his shipment of cocaine didn’t reach the dock tomorrow night.”
There was a stirring in the room, but no one actually spoke. Just creaks of leather as men shifted and cleared their throats.
Kill glanced around the room and Shawn carefully dropped his eyes down to his boots. “This isn’t a fucking playground,” he said, low and menacing. “If you want Marcello’s shipments sunk, we’ll sink them. Burn his ships right at the fucking dock. Take his men, but we don’t operate like a small time batch of fucking idiots. You want Marcello gone, we’ll take him out, but we’re not trading insults or punches. We either ruin him or we put him to ground. End of story. I’m not risking my men’s lives in some fucking grudge match or pissing contest.”
Drake inclined his head. His dark eyes glistened with the kind of intelligence that was borderline scary. He never lost that fucking smirk of his and Shawn knew, without looking, that Kill’s fist was balled up at his side. He was probably barely hanging back from smashing Drake right in the face. None of them would have fared half as well if they dared challenge their prez like Drake did.
“Yes, well, that’s great.” Drake clapped his hands.
Shawn actually started. He leaned away from the wall for just a second before he eased himself back against it. The guy was weird shit. And by weird, he meant fucked up in that kind of way that sends an icy dagger straight your spine so that your nuts clench up into your damn throat.
“A good funeral is always good for business. At least it is when it’s Marcello in the box. I could expand my territory after he’s gone, which means that you’ll have more opportunity yourselves. I’ll cut you in on the deal for your trouble. Money, guns, blow. Whatever you want. Marcello controls half the ports in this city. Commerce would only improve with him gone.”
“Until someone else came up to take his place,” Kill argued darkly.
Shawn looked up in time to see Drake shrug. “The thing about guys like Marcello is that they like being at the helm. He’s eliminated or outlived anyone who might actually be a threat. We take him down, there is no one else to step up and fill his shoes. If we take him out and make it clear that there is no opportunity to wipe us out, no one is going to come up here and tr
y and start a war. They’ll either be gunning for me, and if it’s clear that I’m not going to wind up on the other side of the turf anytime soon, they’ll get in fucking line. They’ll come around, want to do business with me, since it’s either become an associate or end up fucking dead.” Drake paused for emphasis. “The same can be said of the Servants. Either other clubs do business with you, or they end up extinct. What do you say?”
Shawn nearly let out a strangled noise. He couldn’t actually believe the balls on the kid. Drake was nearly a decade younger than him, and he was one of the youngest guys in the room. The guy hadn’t had a hard life. He looked like he’d sooner belong to some college frat than any kind of club or underworld, yet he stood there, with balls the size of a fucking elephant, commanding the entire club’s attention in their own clubhouse, in front of their own prez.
That wasn’t how shit was done.
Shawn’s eyes tracked to Kill, who stood at the front of the room. The walls had long ago been painted a dark black. The floor had been replaced sometime before Shawn ever arrived there. The dark hardwood, unlike the rest of the place, was in good condition. Guys wiped their boots before they came in kind of a deal. The room was sacred to them. Church wasn’t something to be taken lightly. Guys actually got a vote there and what they said counted. Of course, you didn’t go against the grain if you valued your fucking head, but ideas could generally be expressed if they had any kind of backing behind them. It wasn’t exactly a democracy, but it was a brotherhood of sorts.
And Drake fucking Cannelli wasn’t a part of that brotherhood. He had no fucking leather or patch. The guy wore a suit. Only underhanded, shady bastards wore suits. It didn’t matter that Drake wore it well. He still didn’t belong.
To Shawn’s surprise, Kill slowly nodded.
Like he was actually considering Drake’s proposal.
Lonely Rider - The Box Set: A Motorcycle Club Romance - The Complete Series Page 83
