Payback: A Vigilante Justice Novel

by Kristin Harte

  Camden sat silent, his shoulders stiff, back straight, and face hard. While those around him curled in on themselves in pain and grief, Cam seemed to practically vibrate with maleficence. Filled with a rage just waiting to break through. I couldn’t blame him. If Shye had been killed in the fire at her trailer, I’d probably have worn the asphalt off the roads tracking down whoever had lit the match. And once I’d found them? I’d have shown them how many ways a Green Beret could kill a man…and bring him back to get information. Yet I only had three years of wanting Shye, one damn good moment of any sort of intimacy, and a few minutes of hand-holding to get me to that point. Camden had close to twenty years of first kisses and first times, two damn decades of loving his woman and being loved in return. He’d lost his wife. The man would be a force of nature if he ever got his hands on the person who’d killed Leah.

  But Camden wasn’t alone. Finn sat on one side, Elijah—who’d driven in from Denver—on the other. Even as the casket began to slip below the ground—as my brothers stepped up to support Camden in his grief—I couldn’t help but catalog the differences between the two youngest male Kennards.

  Finn had always been smart and driven, much more serious than his identical twin brother. Elijah had been the jokester, the smiling child with the loud laugh and a love for life you felt whenever he walked in the room. Our mom used to say God gave us Elijah to keep Finn from becoming too serious. My dad said God gave us Finn to keep Elijah in line. But drugs and Sheriff Baker had only come calling for Finn, which sent both twins spiraling in different directions.

  When Finn went to prison, Elijah’d done everything he could think of to help him. Hell, we all had. The drugs had been hard enough to deal with, but the arrest…the incarceration. Those altered the family forever. Bishop and I’d both been overseas at the time, but we’d managed to make it home a few times to try to help Finn. Elijah’d been right by his side through the trial, watching as his brother went down for a crime he hadn’t committed and being unable to do one damn thing about it. Elijah’d grown harder, more serious and focused. Had switched majors and entered into law school, claiming no one would ever fuck with one of his brothers again. So while Finn had sat in prison, Elijah had become a lawyer. He’d worked for the district attorney, learning the inside secrets of prosecution, then headed out on his own to become one of the most sought-after defense attorneys in the state.

  And while Elijah had lost his fun-loving nature, Finn had lost every bit of his ambition. I often wished Finn would find some of Elijah’s drive and do something with his life, but he was content working behind the bar at Deacon’s and helping out at the mill when we needed him. The man was an artist when it came to woodworking, but he didn’t want to make that a career. Always said it would take the joy out of it. He needed more joy in his life…both boys did.

  “Alder?”

  I startled at Shye’s soft voice saying my name, and blood rushed to my cock when I looked up at her. My god, she was so fucking pretty. She stood next to me, her brow furrowed as if concerned about me, her hand reaching for mine. Everyone around us had left, the casket having been lowered while I’d stared at my brothers. Who had both also walked away at some point. But she’d waited for me. A fact that hit me like a punch to the chest. Whether because I’d been reminiscing about my youngest brothers or feeling the grief of Leah’s murder, my emotions were high. And Shye seemed to know that somehow.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, looking so damn worried. I couldn’t have that.

  “Yeah. Sorry.” I grabbed her hand and rose to my feet. “We should probably find Camden.”

  Shye nodded, still looking at me as if concerned. But she let me lead her through the crowd, let me cling to her hand like a drowning man. People smiled my way and did a double take when they noticed Shye’s hand in mine, but no one commented. I couldn’t hope they would stay silent for long. We’d be the hottest news on the gossip lines tonight, which was probably a bigger issue for Shye than for me. I’d tell them all she was finally mine if I didn’t think she’d run the other way. Or slap me for it. She certainly hadn’t been happy with me the last few days.

  We found Camden surrounded by my brothers and a few Kennard Mills men under a tree away from the crowd. Shye slowed down as we approached, but I simply kept her hand in mine and dragged her with me.

  “Cam.” I pulled the smaller man into a hug, having to let go of Shye to do so. “How are you holding up?”

  His face stayed blank, his eyes dead but hard. “I’ll be better once I know everyone involved in her death is gone.”

  Finn nodded, and even Elijah seemed to understand the need for retaliation as he asked, “What do we need to get this done?”

  “We need intel,” I replied. “We need to know everything there is to know about the Soul Suckers—their setup, leaders, business involvement, both legal and illegal. All of it.”

  Elijah nodded. “I can check with state authorities to see what they know, maybe even move to some Feds I’ve worked with since they’re a national club.”

  “Yeah, Shye mentioned that.” I caught Gage’s frown. “What?”

  “How’d she know about them?” he asked. “She’s not your usual biker bitch.”

  My stomach tightened, anger flaring at the thought of her being involved with those fuckers. Men like that would eat someone as quiet and soft as her for breakfast. I sought out Shye in the crowd, but she’d moved away from us, heading for my truck, it seemed. “I don’t know, but I’ll ask her.”

  “We need more than official records.” Bishop paced, passing Gage on each round. “We need the stuff officials don’t know about. We need someone on the inside.”

  “Never going to happen,” Gage said. “These clubs are tight—they’re all about loyalty and brotherhood. You’re not going to turn one member against another without some serious capital on them.”

  “Unless there’s already a fox in the henhouse, or there’s a man inside whose loyalty to the club doesn’t eclipse loyalties outside of it.” I nodded toward Gage. “Your loyalty to Bishop outranks just about everything, I’d guess.”

  Gage nodded once and held up a fist for Bishop to meet with his own. “Brothers in destruction.”

  “Damn straight,” Bishop said. “So what…we need to find a Soul Sucker who was a SEAL? That might be a little tough. We’re motherfucking special.”

  “Army, Special Forces, SEALs, or a Marine. We’ve got a ton of brotherhood to lean on in this group.” I ran a hand through my hair, still keeping an eye on Shye. If I’d needed someone to watch her while I couldn’t, I knew who the first person I’d call would be. And it wouldn’t be a man with the same last name as mine. It would be a fellow Green Beret I’d served with. One who already looked out for us in every way he could. The only man outside my family or my crew I’d trust with my life. “We need to talk to Deacon.”

  Chapter Seven

  Alder

  Deacon Manns had been a skinny, immature kid the first time we’d met. Fresh out of boot camp, he’d jumped into my life with a quiet doggedness and simply never left. We’d gone through the Special Operations Training Program together, earned our green berets together, caused a fuckton of sabotage together, and killed a lot of fucking marks together. Well, he’d killed them. I’d gotten him to his station, given him every bit of information I could dig up, and watched his back. He’d been the man with the gun. The sniper in the air. The patient little fuck who could lie in the sand in a desert for three solid days to take a single shot if needed.

  When I’d decided to move home after leaving active duty, I’d called Deacon and told him there was a job for him in my mill. He’d told me to fuck off, that I was too bossy for him, and promptly bought the broken-down bar at the county line with the trashy motel attached to it. Five years later and the bar still carried an air of dump to it, but the food was good, the beer was cold, and the place was about as safe as any I could imagine. All because of a man I saw as another brother.

 
; One with a big fucking mouth. “You look like shit. What the fuck crawled on your face and died?”

  Though, honestly, I’d been greeted with worse from him. “One of these days, you’re going to accept the fact that I’m simply more rugged and manly than you, Deacon.”

  We bumped shoulders and clasped hands in greeting.

  “You bring any friends?” The bar sat empty, as had the parking lot. Not what I’d hoped for after calling in an emergency favor that morning.

  “He’ll be here soon enough.” Deacon poured my favorite bourbon into a rocks glass and slid it across the bar top. “You sure you want to do this?”

  “You got any other ideas?”

  “Nope.” He grabbed his towel and started wiping down bottles. “I’m not sure what you’ll get out of it, but it’s what I’d do if I had a girl to worry about.”

  My girl, my friends, my family. I had no idea who the next target would be, so I needed to put these fuckers in the ground. For that, I needed intel, and I was willing to do just about anything to get it.

  As I took a sip of my bourbon, the door swung open, and a tall man walked through. I kept my seat, taking him in, waiting. Forming my own judgments about him. Dirty jeans, heavy boots, and the leather vest he wore over a plain black T-shirt screamed motorcycle club rider. His high and tight haircut, forearm American flag tattoo, and Semper Fidelis patch told me the rest.

  A Marine…I breathed a little easier at that.

  Deacon stayed behind the bar, pulling a beer from the cooler at his knees. When the other man settled onto the stool beside me, he slid the bottle across the bar and nodded. “Alder Kennard, meet Parris.”

  I held out a hand, shaking his when he returned the offer. “Parris. As in island?”

  “The one and only.”

  Of course his road name was Parris, not Paris. Island…not city. I could work with this. “My buddy Camden says Paradise City wasn’t so much a paradise as—”

  “A swampy fucking sauna?” Parris chuckled. “I have to admit, I was happy to get the fuck out of there.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” I took another sip, thinking over what I wanted to ask. I needn’t have bothered.

  Parris set his beer down, focusing in on me. “Deacon said a fellow Marine ran into some trouble with an MC, and that there was a Green Beret around who needed insight on club life to help him get out of it. I assume that’s you.”

  “Yeah, and I definitely need some intel.”

  “What’s the issue?”

  If I knew exactly, things would be a little easier. “We’ve got a club making trouble in town.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  I made a split-second decision not to tell him about Shye—at least not about her being mine. That would make her a liability, and I didn’t trust him enough to open myself up like that.

  “They burned down a friend’s place first, then my site manager’s.” I downed the rest of my bourbon, ignoring the way Deacon shot me a glare for treating it like some cheap shot, then tipped my glass for another. “He’s the Marine…and his wife died in that fire.”

  Pariss clenched his fist, the only sign anything I’d said had gotten to him. “You’re sure this club set it?”

  “Yup.” I finished off my bourbon before turning to face him. “They nailed her bedroom window shut, barricaded her door from the outside, and tagged the wall with a road name and club logo. It’s them, and her death was intentional.”

  Deacon slid another full glass of bourbon my way before heading down to the end of the bar. Me? I sat and I stewed and I tried to wrap my head around what the fuck was going on. Tried and failed. Which was why I needed a guy like Parris.

  “You guys kill one of theirs? Arrest one?” At my head shake, Parris frowned. “You had to have done something. No club would get into shit like murdering civilians without a reason for it. It’s too noticeable, you know? Too easy to get picked up for.”

  “Nothing, especially not like killing someone. My site manager had a run-in with a couple of club members at a job, but it was over in minutes. No cops called, either. Nothing major happened. Just a dispute over who had a right to be on the land in question.”

  “Where’s the job site?”

  “Up on the eastern slope of Widow’s Ridge. We’re harvesting lumber there.”

  Parris nodded, looking as if his mind was putting together puzzle pieces I still hadn’t even seen. “Is it secluded? Far off the main roads?”

  I couldn’t help but think about Shye up there all the time, how alone that trailer always seemed out on a stretch of road with no neighbors. And right next to where all the trouble had started. “Yeah. Real secluded.”

  Parris tapped the counter twice before taking a sip of his beer. When he set it down again, he simply said, “Soul Suckers.”

  Not a question…a statement. “Yeah.”

  “This property? This job site you got started? You’re too close to their kitchen.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Their kitchen. They cook and sell meth. That’s the Soul Suckers’ main income source—high-quality, decent volume. My guess is they’ve got a kitchen set up off the beaten track. Someplace well off the road where they’d have plenty of notice if anyone got too close.” He took another gulp of his beer before setting it down again. “You got too close.”

  Rage unlike any I’d felt burned inside of me. We’d had our share of drug issues in Justice, including my own brother—hell, the whole damn country seemed to be turning to meth or opiates or some shit to get through the day. But while I’d discovered users in our citizens and did my best to help them get clean, I’d never found anyone selling. I’d certainly never expected anyone to be cooking that shit in our town.

  And the fact that this had been going on right under my nose pissed me the fuck off. “So this—the fires, the murder—is all about drugs?”

  Parris didn’t appear as pissed as I felt. “It’s about hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs, yeah.”

  “Fuck.” I hopped off the barstool, pacing the length of the room as my mind spun. Shye had lived up there, close enough to be noticed, for sure. And she’d lived alone. Hell, Miss Hansen, the old lady we’d contracted with to harvest the lumber on that slope, lived alone as well and was in her eighties. I couldn’t let anything happen to either of them. I also couldn’t let some group of bikers cook meth in my town.

  “How do I get rid of them?”

  “You’re not going to be able to do it in any official way,” Parris said.

  As if that was an option. “Yeah, well. Considering who our sheriff is, that’s pretty much impossible. We take care of our own up here.”

  Parris gave me an appraising look, nodding as if in approval. Like I’d passed some sort of test.

  “Then you gotta go full biker.” He set his beer down and shifted to face me fully. “If you want to fight an MC, you gotta think like an MC. These guys won’t settle for coming after you, fucking up you and your men. They’ll come after your businesses, your families. They’ll manipulate every weak spot they find. The Soul Suckers are the worst of the worst—the ones even some of the baddest one-percenters leave alone. If you’re going to go up against them, you’d better get ready for that unconventional warfare you Green Berets are so famous for. And when it comes to wives and kids, make sure you have your shit together because they won’t be left out of the line of fire.”

  Leah had been the only wife in our main group, and she was already dead because of them. “We don’t have wives or kids.”

  He chuckled. “No? But you’ve got a girl. Or at least, you’ve got your eye on a girl. Cute little thing—works over at the truck stop waiting tables.”

  I tried not to react, not to give anything away, but the other man smirked.

  “Took me all of five minutes to figure that out when I was checking on you and the town of Justice this afternoon. And yeah, I looked into you when Deacon called. Just because you’re a soldier doesn’t mean you’re someone
to do business with. You’ve got a sweet setup with that lumber mill, good money coming in, and a tight circle of friends and family. I’m pretty sure you could kill a man in the middle of town, and no one would turn you in. But you’ve got a couple of glaring weak spots—an ex-addict brother and the girl.”

  He wasn’t wrong on any of it, and I hated him for that. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is you called me here to help, and I’m giving you advice, so don’t shit all over it. You telling me your house is in order? Trying to make like you don’t have a weakness? It’s bullshit. If you want your crew safe, you’d better up your game.” He stood, bumping fists with Deacon before heading for the door. But not without throwing out one final warning. “Handle your shit before you take on the Soul Suckers, or you’ll regret it. They won’t give you a warning, son. They’ll come in to kill. Make sure whoever’s in the line of fire knows how to handle themselves.”

  As soon as Parris left, I turned to Deacon, my mind completely overridden with plans and situations and possibilities. But my friend knew me better than anyone else. He didn’t say a word, simply reached under the bar, brought out a large, metal box, and unlocked it.

  “Silencer?” he asked, leaving me flat-footed for a whole five seconds before sighing and raising his eyebrows at me. “Do you need a silencer for your gun?”

  I blinked, stepping closer. “Yeah. Shye’s living with me—that might be best.”

  He nodded and slid on a pair of plastic gloves. Once covered, he reached into the box, pulling out a Beretta 9mm before screwing the sound-killing cylinder on the end. “This is clean as fuck. You need to go for a kill, try to use this one then get rid of it. No one will trace it to you or me.”

  I took the gun, being careful not to palm it. Not to leave behind too many fingerprints. “Do I want to know why you have this?”

  “You already do.” He leveled me with a stare, one I’d seen before. The look he’d worn before every mission we’d ever pulled. Flat, dark, and ready. Yeah, I knew why he had a clean gun that couldn’t be traced back to him. For the same reason I’d hang on to it and keep it handy.