CONTROL: A Dark Bad Boy Baby Romance (Blackened Souls MC)

by Naomi West

  When he turned into the alley, three guys looked up at him. He stopped his bike and shut it off, then strutted over to them like he knew exactly what he was there for. The guys moved into a defensive formation, one at the front and the other two just behind and to each side. They watched him and Saxton nodded.

  When he was close enough, he said, “Darien around?”

  “Who wants to know?” the guy at the front asked.

  “Saxton.” He turned his arm so that his smaller Jagged Souls patch stitched near his shoulder could be seen. Right next to the patch that showed he was the leader.

  “Not here.” The guy spit on the ground. “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for a specific knife.”

  “What makes you think I have something like that?”

  Saxton gave him a hard stare. “Because everyone knows this is where you go for weapons. I have a picture of what I’m looking for.” He reached slowing into his front pocket for his phone and brought up the pic. Then he held it out for the man to see.

  “You don’t want a knife like that,” the guy said.

  “I said I was looking for it, not that I wanted it. What do you know about it?”

  “You don’t want to go looking for a knife like that, either. Too much trouble.”

  “Why is that?” Saxton asked, putting his phone back. So this guy clearly knew something. “Does Darien have a knife like that?”

  The guy huffed. “No.”

  “Do you know someone who does?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “I need to find the owner of this knife.”

  “Why is that?” The guy crossed his arms.

  “It’s important. And private.”

  “Well, if you want to keep your neck, I suggest you let it go.”

  Saxton shook his head. “Afraid I can’t. But if you need some compensation for directing me in the right path—”

  “No, no.” The guy held up his hands and backed away. “I told you nothing, I’m not leading you anywhere. You mention my name, I’ll kill you.”

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Even better. Time you left.”

  There was no way this guy was giving up any info. Even though it seemed like the knife didn’t belong to Darien, he still thought maybe he would know something. “Just tell me where Darien is.”

  “Probably headquarters.” The three men resumed theirs defensive stances and glared at Saxton, clearly waiting for him to leave.

  He nodded to them and got back on his bike. Weird how that guy had reacted. Seemed like whoever the knife belonged to was no good. Well, no shit. He was a cold-blooded killer. He’d said to let it go or it might bring trouble. That was all Saxton needed to hear to convince him that this eagle crest wasn’t just a decoration. It meant something. He just had to find out what, and then who it was connected to.

  Saxton drove toward the headquarters of Darien’s MC. He didn’t think he’d be let inside, but maybe he could get a minute with Darien. He pulled up and the guy watching over the bikes out front grunted at him.

  “You ain’t going in there with a patch like that.”

  “Don’t need to,” Saxton said. “But I do need to see Darien.”

  “What for?”

  “That’s between me and him.”

  “He expecting you?”

  “If he’s smart, he is.”

  The guy studied him for a moment, then went to the metal door in the front of the building. What a dump. The Jagged Souls headquarters was nothing like this place. They had a decent building, painted and fixed up nice. Pool tables, TVs, all that crap his guys loved. But this place looked like a hole. Crumbling brick, tiny building, broken windows. Didn’t they put anything into their headquarters at all?

  The guy opened the door, but didn’t go in. He hollered to someone inside, then closed the door and watched Saxton. A minute later, Darien strutted out. He walked right up to Saxton.

  “You. Hope she was a good fuck, you asshole.”

  Saxton pulled his mouth into a half smile. “She’s not why I’m here.”

  “This better be good then. You’re not exactly one of my favorite people right now. Never have been.”

  “Looking for a knife.” He took out his phone and showed him the pic.

  Darien narrowed his eyes. “What is this?”

  “It’s a knife.”

  “No, fuckhead, why are you asking about it?”

  “Looking for the person who owns it. Yours?”

  Darien grunted. “You think I run like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “You don’t have any idea what that knife is, do you?”

  Saxton shook his head. “I figured you might know something, being the knife guy you are.”

  “I know enough to stay away from anyone with that knife. I’m not getting anywhere near that shit.”

  “What is the crest?”

  Darien shook his head. “Nope. But good luck finding out.” He laughed. “Hopefully it’ll get you killed and I can take over your MC and your little slut.”

  Saxton clenched his jaw. He really wished Darien hadn’t brought Sara into this. His fist ached to be put through Darien’s face. But outside Darien’s headquarters was not the place to throw down. Saxton would have ten guys on him in an instant. He swallowed the words he wanted to spit at him.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You’ve been such a help.” He gave him a phony smile.

  Darien responded with his middle finger. “Get the hell off my property.”

  Saxton threw his leg over his bike’s seat and sped off.

  Well, Darien must not be the killer after all. He wouldn’t have responded like that if it had been his knife, Saxton was sure of it. He seemed leery, almost afraid of whatever that knife meant, whoever it represented. And that made Saxton all the more anxious to find out.

  He drove around the city for a while, thinking. He knew lots of little corners and alleys where business took place, done by people who might have info. But that kind of thing took care. If the knife lead somewhere dangerous, he couldn’t ask the wrong guys.

  He settled on a few spots and drove to the first one. This encounter was much like his first of the day. Wary guys not wanting to talk. This had to be bad, then. He drove to the next spot and, after talking to two guys in a cigar shop, walked back to his bike.

  He turned the corner to walk down the alley his bike sat in. From a dark doorway, a man hissed at him, “Hey.”

  Saxton turned his head and saw the guy.

  He stepped out of the doorway, looking up and down the vacant alley like he was tweaked out and paranoid. He kept twisting his fingers together and switching from foot to foot, shaking each one as he took his weight off it. His head flipped back and forth, watching.

  “You been asking bout that knife, right?” The guy’s teeth were yellow and rotted.

  “Maybe. You know something about it?”

  The guy scratched at his face. “How much?”

  “Depends what you know.”

  “Hundred and I’ll tell you what the crest is.”

  This was the closest Saxton had gotten to any sort of information all day. If he had to pay some crack head a hundred dollars, he’d do it. He pulled out a hundred and held it out.

  The guy reached for it, but Saxton flicked it back from his grasp. “After you tell me.”

  “It’s a gang symbol, that crest. The Cruel Crows.”

  “The Cruel Crows? Who are they? Where are they located?”

  The man let out a small squeal, grabbed the hundred dollar bill and took off running.

  Saxton spun around to see where the man ran to and when he turned, two men were approaching him. His hands balled into fists. He went to reach for his gun, but before he could close his fingers on it, one of the men held up his gun, pointed at Saxton’s face.

  “Freeze.”

  Saxton put his hands up and assessed the situation the best he could. These guys didn’t
look like bikers. They had no patches and any guy who’d worked hard enough to join an MC didn’t go anywhere without wearing his patches as a symbol of status. These guys wore plain black jackets, black shirts, black pants. Like living shadows, ready to strike their pray.

  “I’m going to tell you this once.” The man with the gun stood a few feet from Saxton, the other guy right at his side.

  Saxton had no room to run. They blocked most of the alley and if he tried, they only had to step to the side to block his way. His bike was behind them, his gun was at his back, where he’d surely be shot if he reached. The knife at his ankle wouldn’t help him, either. Best to see where this was going and talk his way out of it.

  The man with the gun spat his words. “Stop asking about that knife if you want to live.”

  Saxton glared back. He wanted so badly to jump these guys for info. But two on one weren’t the best odds. He nodded like he would do what they said.

  They stared at each other for several seconds. Then, in an almost imperceptible movement, the man with the gun jerked his head. Saxton barely saw it and only had time to wonder what it meant before the other guy stepped forward and sunk a blade into Saxton’s gut.

  The shock was the worst part. He hadn’t seen it coming. He felt the sucking of his skin as the blade was pulled back out. The men turned and ran as Saxton fell to his knees.

  He put his hand to the wound and felt the blood pouring from his stomach. His head spun and his vision went black.

  Chapter Nine

  That afternoon, as Sara was leaving her first job to go home and change for her second job, she decided to call Carter. Even if she didn’t need money from him now, she was pissed that he might be involved with something like that auction, and even more so that he might be the one to be running it and creating such an event. She had also decided that she needed some way to thank Saxton. Even if it was just to bake him a pie or send him a card, she had to do something. And Carter might be the only person she had access to that might know where to find him.

  She had called him earlier, on her lunch break, and left a message. He hadn’t called back. She dialed his cell phone again and it went to voicemail again. Where was he? He always picked up, and on the rare occasion he didn’t, he either called back immediately or quickly. Carter was the type of guy who would answer his phone in the middle of a movie theater or while you were mid conversation.

  She waited a few minutes, then called him again. No answer. What in the world was going on? She tried his girlfriend next.

  “Hey Sara,” she answered.

  “Hey Jess. I’m trying to get ahold of Carter. Do you know where he is?”

  She made a huffing noise and said angrily, “No. I’ve been trying to find him all day. No idea where the hell he is. He won’t answer his phone, and he always answers that damn thing, especially if it’s me.”

  “Right, I know.”

  “Wait, you tried calling him?”

  “A few times.”

  Jess let out a long sigh. “Even if he was pissed at me, he’d take your call. He better not be sitting in jail somewhere.”

  “I hope not. If you see him, ask him to call me?”

  “Yeah. Same.”

  Jess ended the call and Sara set her phone down.

  What in the world had Carter gotten himself into? Was he in trouble? It seemed like that might be the best explanation for why he wasn’t answering any calls. Even his girlfriend was worried. And pissed. So it’s not like he’d been unreachable for five minutes. Hours probably.

  What if he was in jail, like Jess had said? She had been calling him partially to see if the club did keep some sort of records of their patrons, but now that idea terrified her. What if they did have records of the auctions, and what if somehow she was on there? Had he seen her there? And what would that mean? Could she get in trouble? Could Saxton get in trouble? What in the world had Carter done now?

  Not that she wasn’t used to him being in trouble. He’d been arrested more times than she could count for possession of drugs, for soliciting a prostitute, for having guns with no registration, that sort of thing. But she had thought now that things were serous with Jess, he would stop that. He seemed like he wanted to settle down and start a family. But maybe she’d just been deluding herself. Carter wouldn’t change. He was how he was, and she would just have to be prepared to visit her brother in jail for the rest of her life. Seemed like sooner or later, he’d do something serious enough to land him there permanently.

  She thought of Saxton and worried, too. He was probably used to the same sort of life. In and out of jail, spending time on probation, that sort of thing. She hoped she was wrong, but he’d all but said his MC did illegal things, so she had to assume that meant he’d get caught sooner or later. Still, she didn’t want him to get caught because of her brother. She felt like she owed Saxton enough as it was, she couldn’t have his freedom in her debt, too.

  If Carter was unavailable, that also meant her chances of finding Saxton had just vanished. Maybe she’d hear from him eventually, but if he had been to jail, he might destroy those records if they existed. As much as she hoped they didn’t exist so that no one would get in trouble, she hoped they did because she wanted to find Saxton. And now that it seemed impossible, she needed to more than ever.

  As she drove home, she saw motorcycles everywhere. It seemed like more than normal, but maybe that was only because she was paying more attention that usual. Each time she saw one, she gave it a careful look. Saxton’s bike was black with big silver pipes. She remembered that because she had been very careful not to let her leg touch them. There was a blue design on the side at the front, like some sort of smokey wisp or a ghost. He’d been wearing a big patch that said Jagged Souls. Maybe the ghost thing was meant to be a phantom? Whatever it was, it made it easy to know that every bike she passed wasn’t Saxton’s.

  She turned the corner to drive through some back streets, avoiding the major traffic holdups in the city. She’d lived here long enough and taken this route enough times to know all the little tricks of where to go when in order to avoid sitting at lights three or four times at this hour. She turned the corner and saw a black bike sitting at the edge of an alley.

  Again, she went through each part of the bike, waiting for the moment when she knew it wasn’t Saxton’s. But when her eyes reached the front of the bike and she saw the blue wispy thing, her heart jumped. It was Saxton’s bike. He had to be nearby then. She parked her car in the first spot she could find on the edge of the road, and jumped out. She ran over to the empty bike like it would give her some information.

  Where could he be? There was a bar on one side of the alley. Maybe. That place looked really shady, though, and she didn’t want to just wander in there. On the other side of the alley was a boarded up building. She’d stay far away from that. Just as she decided that maybe waiting for him by his bike was the best option, she heard a scraping sound nearby.

  She looked down and saw a hand. Covered in blood. She gasped and jumped back. She was ready to turn and run and wait for him in her car, but then a sick thought settled in her stomach. If someone injured was so close to his bike, there was a good chance…

  She gulped and took a step to the side to see around the bike. Lying on the ground behind the bike, in a pool of shadow and blood, was Saxton.

  “Saxton!” She rushed over to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

  He made a murmuring sound, but didn’t open his eyes.

  “Oh, my God, Saxton, what happened?” She looked him over and saw the huge blood spot on his shirt. He must’ve been stabbed or shot. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

  He didn’t move. He was breathing, she could see that. Her first instinct was to call an ambulance. But she knew, again because of her criminal brother, that that could mean trouble. An ambulance would come to the area, would know where he’d been when he was hurt. And she didn’t know if he had weapons or drugs or wads of cash on him. And besides, i
f he had no real job, he probably had no insurance, and that could mean a huge bill. He might not care about that, but she didn’t want to do anything that would cause him to lose more money.

  She knelt down and wedged herself under his shoulder. She straightened her legs, and with great effort, managed to raise him to his feet. He grunted and tried to straighten his legs. She took a few steps, grateful that in this part of the city, no one would think it was strange that she was carrying a bloody man to her car.