Lost Soul: An MC Romance (Savage Kings MC Book 13)

by Carter Steele

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  Savage Redemption

  “My life was all about revenge until I met her.”

  I want them destroyed.

  The Anarchists killed my father, haunt me and my brother, and seek to destroy my club, the Savage Kings.

  For years, I have stopped at nothing to annihilate them.

  But for years, I also never forgot her.

  She was everything to me.

  She brought joy to my life.

  And I had to leave her without explanation.

  But a chance encounter has brought her back to me.

  And now, everything has changed.

  My life is now all about having her—and nothing can stop me.

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  Lost Soul

  Carter Steele

  Contents

  1. Landon

  2. Caroline

  3. Landon

  4. Caroline

  5. Landon

  6. Caroline

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  1

  Landon

  It was a Friday night, and not a single motorcycle rode through the night in Romara.

  Out on Main Street, restaurants remained open without fear of violence or vandalism. Couples and families walked along the streets, laughing and looking at each other, not behind their backs. Cars drove casually down the road, and the presence of Sheriff Jones was cause for a wave, not for a mad dash for the car.

  Over at the clubhouse, the Savage Kings had their typical Friday night party in full swing. Everyone except Petey, Parker, and my brother, Brock, was probably a half-dozen drinks in at minimum, already in the company of a woman, or making jokes about the fallen enemy, the Anarchists, to each other. It was the kind of town and scene that my father had envisioned when he created the Savage Kings.

  And right now, I was witness to none of it.

  Instead of being in the middle of Main Street or in the clubhouse with drinks in my hand, I was, instead, on the balcony of my apartment, gazing in the distance toward Main Street and at the general direction of the clubhouse. Officially, I had the flu and didn’t want to spread it to anyone in the club. In reality, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to spread anything to the club anymore—I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be in the club anymore.

  My father’s murder was avenged. Our enemy had fallen. We merely needed at this point to enjoy our lives and deal with the occasional teenage vandal who thought he was scoring points with the ladies by standing up to the big, bad bikers. Annoying, but far from the threat that the Anarchists had provided.

  But what if enjoying my life meant going on my own path?

  I’d always wanted to do so much more with my life. But for the past ten years, I’d felt a moral obligation to stick with my brother and get revenge for my father. The family name defined my actions and my philosophy for the better part of a decade, and Vulture’s death was the culmination of that.

  While I certainly felt relief and satisfaction that that asshole was no longer around these parts, all I now felt was emptiness. If all went well, I had about six more decades on this planet before I joined my father in the grave. Did I really want to spend that tied down in Romara?

  Unlike the rest of the clubs, I had dreams of traveling. I dreamed of having a family and taking my wife and kids to places as far flung as Tokyo and Buenos Aires. I certainly did not have the desire to remain in this small town for the rest of my life.

  I certainly did not want the status quo to remain the status quo.

  I stood on that balcony for a good hour, just sipping a beer, letting my mind wander to wherever it wanted to go. I hadn’t had a night like this since, well, ever, a night where I could just let the mind decide what it wanted to think about. No runs; no parties; no danger. Just thought.

  No answers came, but I sure as hell started to feel pretty hungry after an hour.

  I headed back inside and checked my fridge. I had cleaned myself out of everything. The only place open for food was Porter Ridge Brewing, and they didn’t do delivery.

  “Well, fuck,” I muttered.

  Guess I would be going to Main Street tonight. At least that didn’t also entail going to the clubhouse. I called in an order for their pub burger with an order of sweet potato fries and made my way for my motorcycle as soon as I hung up. That was one thing I didn’t think I would ever give up for good—the bike.

  But even that, I was starting to think, was something I needed a respite from. Maybe taking some time to not be on the bike would allow me to better appreciate it when I did finally come back to it.

  I drove over to Porter Ridge, went up to the bartender, and said my name.

  “Yeah, sorry, we’re a little backed up tonight. It’ll be ready in another ten minutes.”

  “Alright,” I said, nodding.

  The news didn’t fluster me. It was hard to get flustered by things when you’d gotten shot at, cursed at, and lost your father to murder.

  But it did mean I had to spend time out that I didn’t want to.

  I went out a bench outside, stretched out, yawned, and looked up at the stars. That was something else I hadn’t done in ages. I didn’t know the first thing about constellations, but I liked to think that I at least knew the Big and Little Dipper. I thought I spotted those and decided, inspired by my belief that I’d found them, to create my own constellations. One looked like an arrow. One looked like a cat. One—

  “Landon King?”

  It was not the voice of the bartender. It might have been the voice of a waitress looking for me. But it definitely was a voice that I recognized, that I could have placed somewhere.

  I tore my view from the heavens and looked down at someone I had only seen in passing, but someone I hadn’t talked to since… well, over ten years ago.

  Caroline O’Hara. My middle and high school crush.

  Well, at least up to the point when my father died. After that, it got really hard to have any mental space for romantic interests, let alone an actual romantic relationship. But now, seeing her here…

  I wouldn’t say it was like love at first sight. But it definitely gave me a shot in the gut that I hadn’t felt with a lot of other women. Certainly none of the ones at the club, who only wanted us for our cuts and not for the world.

  She had long brown hair, pale white skin, and green eyes that seemed to captivate anyone that looked at them. She almost always wore skirts—almost always—and had nice red shoes. Her clothing and accessories really stood out against her very white skin, but to me, that just made her more colorful.

  “Caroline,” I said, smiling. “I don’t think I’ve talked to you since high school. How have you been?”

  “Has it really been that long?” she said with a gentle smile.

  I think that’s why I was initially attracted to Caroline—her gentle, sweet nature. Even in high school, I didn’t think like most people. I didn’t want the girl that would suck my dick the fastest or make for the greatest stories. I wanted the one that I could sit on a bench with and talk for hours. Sort of like…

  Well, there you go.

  “It seems that way, doesn’t it?” I said, patting the bench and inviting her to sit next to me. I was a little surprised that she blushed a bit when I did so. I had only made the gesture as a friend would—I wasn’t in the mindset of flirting right now. But things sure changed pretty quickly. “What have you been up to?”

  “Not much,” she said, which I knew was the understatement of the year. I didn’t use
social media all that much, but what I did know of Caroline was that she took a lot of trips with her parents and had all the opportunities in the world. “I just came back here to open my own CPA firm. Turns out most of the accountants here just recently retired. My Dad did say there was an opportunity, so, yeah, that’s why I’m here.”

  “Huh,” I said, trying not to make it obvious that her success and qualifications made me feel like I’d putted around, having done nothing.

  “And you?” she said.

  I did my best not to look like a mopey loser in comparison. Caroline knew about the Savage Kings and knew that my father ran it; by extension, she could probably have guessed that Landon and I had taken over the club when we got older. But that didn’t mean I wanted to spill everything.

  “Just working as a mechanic at the shop and helping my brother with the club, the usual,” I said. “Certainly not smart enough to open my own firm.”

  “Oh, stop,” Caroline said. “You certainly have the intelligence to do it if you want.”

  That’s cute and sweet. And maybe compared to the rest of the boys in the club, I’d have the best chance, but that’s a world away from being as good as you.

  “And besides, there’s something to be said for being a mechanic,” she said. “You get to keep your brain’s energy for things outside of work. You always seemed like an interesting guy, you know.”

  Oh boy. Is she… she’s flirting with me, isn’t she?

  After everything that’s happened in the past few weeks… to go along with everything that’s going on in my head…

  “Landon King. Order for Landon King.”

  “That’s my food,” I said, using the call as an excuse to get up and grab my food.

  I paused on the way back out. Caroline was still seated at the bench, as if she expected me to just come right back to where I was.

  “I, uh, just got my food to go,” I said. “But it was great catching up with you, and stuff.”

  “Landon?” she said.

  “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  “Is everything OK?”

  Is it that obvious?

  No, everything is not OK. I’m confused about my role with my family and this town. I don’t know what I want to do with the future, much less with you. I don’t want to have to do anything, and yet a part of me wants to do everything.

  So…

  “You would think so,” I said with a weary smile.

  I turned and quickly got back on my bike before Caroline could ask another word. Admittedly, it wasn’t the smoothest exit I had ever made, never mind the fact that I was thinking of it in terms of smooth and not smooth. I could have treated her better and said some things to make her reassured that I wasn’t just bailing as quickly as I could.

  But if being around the club and trying to figure out my future put a lot of pressure on me, then it was immeasurable what it was like to realize that the girl I’d crushed on in my formative years now suddenly had an interest back in me.

  Or, even better, she’d always had a crush on me, and I’d never realized it until now.

  2

  Caroline

  I wonder what ever happened to that man.

  As I crossed my legs and sipped on my half-drank beer, my reward for a week well done at the new firm, I thought about the boy that I had once had a crush on in my youth.

  As girl in the midst of puberty, Landon was the first boy that my eyes fell upon. I liked that he seemed to have such a global and intellectually curious mind. When the teachers said something, it wasn’t enough for them to just give the answer. He needed to know why. At the risk of sounding elitist, I always had a feeling I would do well in school, but I also had the feeling that Landon would be just as good, if not better, than me.

  Then, out of the blue, his father was murdered.

  And because of that, Landon went from being the open and bright child to the kid that struggled to care about anything in school. His grades suffered, even though his intellectual prowess remained. Whenever he participated in class, his answers would blow us all away. But the spirit that infected him seemed to disappear.

  It just seemed like he wanted to get away from it all.

  It was hard to say if he’d changed in the brief moment that I’d seen him. I’d been in and out of Romara since high school and had seen him passing by here and there, but we’d never actually gotten the chance to sit down until now. Even that was a bit impromptu; I had seen him walk into Porter Ridge Brewing and decided to take the risk of approaching him.

  On the one hand, he certainly was more open than he had been before. But that wasn’t saying much. He still was reserved, rather flight, and seemingly afraid to say anything more to me than the bare bones.

  I hoped that I would get the chance to see the old Landon at some point. I hoped that he got the help he needed.

  Because while middle-school and high-school Caroline liked Landon, the adult Caroline would have a lot more feelings for Landon—if he just proved that he was willing to be receptive to them.

  Again, not to sound elitist, but who else was going to attract my interest in Romara? I loved coming back here so I could be closer to my family and to be in my hometown, but I knew there would be the trade-off of not being surrounded by as many eligible men as before.

  I finished my beer and closed out my tab. As was custom on Friday nights, before I went home for the night, I made a pit stop at my parents’ house. I knocked four times slowly, my signal to let them know it wasn’t a stranger coming in, and then opened the door. My father had ESPN on the screen and was drinking a glass of water. My mother sat next to him, her eyes on an iPad. The two of them didn’t share many of the same interests, but they were nevertheless very close and had had as close to the perfect relationship as I had ever seen.

  “Guess who just finished her first month at O’Hara CPA!” I said as I shut the door behind me.

  “Oh, Caroline, that’s wonderful!” my mother said as she stood and met me halfway for an embrace.

  “We always knew that you could do it,” my father said as I hugged him before sitting on the love seat to their left. “Good timing, too.”

  “Thanks to you,” I said.

  “So,” Mom said. “How has the week been? Anything of interest happen? It’s certainly been a lot more peaceful recently.”

  “I know, right?” I said, though this wasn’t a topic I wanted to get into, especially since I’d just seen Landon. “Business is going well. Your referrals have brought in a lot of new business, so thank you for helping me out with that. I just came back from Porter Ridge—”

  “Were you with a boy?”

  “Martha!”

  I chuckled. Well, in a way, yes.

  “I didn’t meet up with a boy, no, I just wanted to have a drink to celebrate a good night. However…”

  Well, now I definitely had to tell them what had happened.

  “I saw Landon King.”

  “One of the King boys?”

  My father’s voice had lost all of the warmth and humor from the moments before. My mother didn’t seem as concerned, but she had always had a more optimistic view about people than my father did. That was not to say that my father was a pessimist, but he was certainly more grounded in his opinions and beliefs about people.

  “Well, yes, his last name is King, dear,” my mother said.

  “I know, Martha. I just wanted to make one hundred percent certain.”

  My father turned down the volume on the game. Whenever he did that, I knew it was serious.

  “You best be careful around that family,” he warned. “Those boys are nothing but trouble. Their actions have brought so much violence to this city.”

  “Now, Don, you know that there are many factors to that—”

  “Literally the week before Caroline came back, there was a massive vandal strike on Main Street! And I know you heard all of the bikes up and down.”

  This was something I hadn’t heard about. When
I was out of Romara, my parents usually told me a lot of news about themselves, but not much about the city. I liked to think that was a function of the fact that not much happened in Romara, but unfortunately, from the sounds of it, maybe a little too much had happened in Romara.

  “Look, you’re a grown woman, dear, and we trust your judgment. We just want to make sure that you don’t get into anything bad.”

  I knew that my parents meant that. My parents had never tried to control me, even though I took their advice as pretty much gospel. But it also wasn’t like I was about to go get married with Landon. Even if I wanted to, there seemed to be a bit much going on in his head for me to say anything.

  “You have nothing to worry about, Mom,” I said.

  I spent about another hour with them catching up on more mundane information, ranging from my father’s hiking plans for the weekend to my mother’s desire to go to France soon. I told her that after six months, I wanted to go traveling with her, but not before. My parents suggested I go sooner, but we weren’t always in perfect agreement on everything.

  Eventually, feeling like I’d gone as long as I could with them, I wished them goodbye and headed back home. As soon as I opened the front door to my home, I felt immediate relief.

  I only lived in a one-floor home—I was notoriously thrifty with my money—but everything about the home made me feel safe. There were banners from UC-Santa Cruz, the college I had attended; there were photos of friends everywhere; there were pictures of me with my parents all around; and there were artifacts from the places I had traveled. It was by no means ornate or exquisite, but it centered me. It was organized, clean, and perfect. I sometimes laughed at the idea of a man moving in with me, knowing that it would take him forever to adapt to a place to clean and well-put together.