Demon's Greed: An MC Romance (Savage Kings MC Book 17)

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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  Demon’s Greed

  Carter Steele

  Contents

  1. Zane

  2. Renee

  3. Zane

  4. Renee

  5. Zane

  6. Renee

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  1

  Zane

  I just wanted to sleep.

  I didn’t have any windows, so I couldn’t see how early it was. But judging by how tired I felt as I heard my name being shouted by Sheriff Jones, I had to imagine it was well before noon.

  “Zane Williams!” the sheriff said, running his baton along the prison bars, the better to wake me up. “You still drunk, son?”

  I groaned as I rolled over on my tiny, single-blanket “bed” in the holding cell. The sheriff stood there with his arms crossed, the baton hanging by his side. I smirked weakly as I tried to sit up without pain.

  It wasn’t exactly what I would call a successful endeavor.

  “Can’t a young gentleman have his fun?” I said.

  “Sure, in the confines of his private residence or his bar,” Sheriff Jones said. “Not out in the streets on a weeknight when other residents of Romara are winding down and trying to sleep for the evening.”

  “Nah,” I said, shaking my head with a smile.

  That smile was like my secret weapon. It worked wonders in so many ways. It could seduce women. It could ease the tension in a serious club meeting. It could troll those who were trying to be condescending to me.

  I didn’t really smile any special way. I just smiled with more enthusiasm than most; instead of trying to hide or subdue my smile, I just let it glow as brightly as possible. Sure, a few people accused me of being disingenuous, but for the most part, it just brought good cheer.

  “Nah, man, it wasn’t like that. You just pick on me because the sheriff needs someone in the club to arrest. Can’t have the big bad Savage Kings running around town without consequences, am I right? I mean, I know I’m not your favorite—”

  “I can’t wait for the day Brock teaches you to be quiet in front of authority,” he said. “Someday, you’ll grow up.”

  My smile turned into a cocky grin, my response whenever people mocked me for my age. I had only turned twenty-one in the last six months, but being in the club had given me a maturity that other thirty year olds, let alone other people my age, could not match. Hearing that I would be fine “when I grew up” was about the funniest thing I could hear from others.

  Unfortunately, age wasn’t like weight in that I couldn’t dramatically alter it in a short window of time. It moved at the same pace for me as it did for everyone else.

  “In any case, Zane, you are aware that this is now your fifth arrest since you turned eighteen, right?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And you realize that at some point, we can’t just have you pay fines, there’s going to be actual consequences, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you recognize that as good as my relationship is with you boys, if I keep having to arrest you, the Kings aren’t going to be very happy with me, right?”

  “Naturally.”

  “So with all that said then, Zane, you need to recognize that while I’m not going to put you in jail—”

  “Beyond tonight, you mean,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

  The sheriff paused, sighed, and continued.

  “While I’m not going to put you in jail beyond tonight, I am going to make you start facing some consequences. I’m trying like hell not to put your ass behind bars, but if it comes to that, I think even Brock is going to be on my side.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You’re not even listening to what I’m saying, are you?”

  “Uh huh,” I said, punctuated by a laugh.

  “Goddamnit, fucking kids,” the sheriff said as I continued to laugh. This genuinely was funny—I wasn’t forcing the laugh. How could I not laugh at the sheriff trying to act all serious when he had already told me I wasn’t going to jail? “Anyways, Zane, what this means is that I’m going to make you see a therapist for your anger and drinking issues.”

  “Oh, a shrink, that should be fun! Tell me, am I going to get a British guy that I need to talk about my feelings with? Or maybe an old lady with a scratchy throat? Or—”

  “Goddamnit, Zane,” the sheriff said with an eye roll. “You can meet her yourself. This is Renee Falcone.”

  Renee came into view.

  And holy shit.

  She was young and hot.

  By my best guess, she was in her late 20’s, certainly no older than thirty. She had wavy brown hair, light white skin, green, soft eyes, and a gentle smile that seemed to bely the fact that she had probably heard everything that I had said moments before. Though she wore professional attire in jeans, it didn’t take a young man’s imagination to know that she looked great naked.

  Whatever I had thought before about the prospect of seeing a therapist, I took back immediately. This wasn’t going to suck. This wasn’t going to be a waste of my time. This was going to be a fun challenge.

  I’d broken some pretty impressive taboos in my time as a gentleman. I’d slept with one of my high school teachers the day after I graduated high school. I’d slept with one of my mother’s younger friends—it wasn’t as weird as it sounded, since my mom had me at sixteen years old as a single parent, but it was still definitely an accomplishment. I’d slept with a police officer before, though certainly not Parker’s girl—that was the one rule I had. I never went for old ladies tied up with other members of the club.

  But a therapist?

  I’d been with hundreds of girls, and I could pretty safely say that I had never slept with a therapist before, let alone my therapist. I knew that they, perhaps more than any other client-provider relationship, needed to maintain distance and neutrality.

  That just meant it was going to be so much more enjoyable to try and bed this Renee Falcone. It was time to go bird hunting.

  “Hello, Zane,” she said.

  Goddamn, her voice is sexy too! Sultry. The best kind to hear in the bedroom.

  “Well, hello there,” I said, standing up and approaching the bars. “I didn’t know that my therapist could also pass for Ms. Romara.”

  “Save it, Zane,” she said. “I am not here to be a target of your affections. Such moves may work on the dumb bimbos that go to your frat-like parties in your vile club, but they will not work on an educated woman like myself.”

  Oh, snap! She’s a fighter! This is going to be really fun!

  “Oh, you don’t have anything to worry about, Ms. Falcone,” I said, putting both hands on the bars and putting my face between them. “I just like to admire beauty when I see it. And when I admire beauty, I really—”
>
  “As I said, Zane, I am not here to be flirted with. You and I are to enter into a serious, professional relationship entailing treatment for your drinking and anger issues, especially in a public context. You and your club have caused enough trouble in our once-peaceful small town, and so help me if I’m going to let a petulant manchild like yourself get away from my grasp.”

  “Oh ho ho!” I said, turning to the sheriff. “Where did you get her? She’s a wild one, I say! This is going to be great! Hahahaha!”

  Renee deliberately took a few steps back and stared at me. I stared back at her, my eyes going wide, as I folded my arms and let her have this stare down. It might have worked on other patients who knew they needed to fix their act, but what did I have to fix about mine?

  I got laid with at least two new women a week, sometimes three. I had my brothers in the club. We’d eliminated—with one exception—the greatest threat to our club. Aside from the lone wolf that was still out there, there was literally nothing in my life that needed to be fixed.

  “Just remember, Ms. Falcone,” I finally said, more out of boredom of the silence than cowering to her. “Without the Savage Kings, this town would become a true anarchy. You need us. And soon, you might be saying that you’ll need me.”

  “That’s very flattering to yourself and to your club, but also very false,” she said. “I have been in this town my entire life, save for a few years of school. There is nothing that your club has done except encourage copycats, leading to brawls between you all that spill into the streets. The sooner we can handle you all and get you to stop your ways, the better.”

  “Well, goddamn, Renee, goddamn,” I said. This was going to be two rams butting horns for the few months. “I suppose if you’re so eager to change me, then we should just get right to it. When is our first session?”

  “Friday at eight in the morning.”

  “What?”

  Few things in life could kill my smile. The prospect of being up for an eight a.m. appointment was most certainly one of them. Really, anything done in the early hours of the morning was a horrible prospect.

  “You know, being on a motorcycle all the time has a negative affect on your hearing, I suggest you get yourself a car you can drive instead. Friday. Eight in the morning. Sheriff Jones will give you my card when he frees you. I will see you then, Zane.”

  I smiled and raised my chin at her. She did it back, and though I think she did it to mock me, there was a part of me that liked her even more. She wasn’t going to be some monotone, boring lady in the corner asking me what I thought my feelings meant. She was going to be a verbal sparring partner, someone I could go head to head with.

  Like I said, this would be fun.

  Before we could exchange another word, she departed, the sound of her high heels echoing through the hallway. I whistled and raised my voice as I spoke to the sheriff, hoping she would hear some of what I had to say.

  “She’s a killer,” I said. “A killer! Where did you get her?”

  “That’s not your concern, Zane,” he said. “We’ll set you free at noon. I’ll give you her information then.”

  “Eight a.m., though, really?” I said. “You brought her in, can’t you—”

  “That’s when she’s free, Zane. You have to work with her, not me.”

  “How many people in Romara are getting therapy? Goddamn!”

  But the sheriff had already left by then. It was just me in the cell.

  Me, my thoughts, and my smile at what was to come.

  2

  Renee

  I’d handled my fair share of head cases through the years.

  Criminals. Delinquent teenagers. Adults on the verge of divorce. Awkward adults. Everything in between.

  Zane Williams, though, had a special place in my brain. Not my heart—I didn’t let my patients get to that part of my life. But Zane was the kind of intellectual challenge that I had yearned for since I returned to Romara.

  I wanted someone that not only pushed back on what I suggested, but would actively try and get me to conform to their wishes. I embraced the idea that this would become less me pinning him and telling him what to do and more a fight. It was more rewarding and, frankly, more fun that way.

  So many patients just came in and took what I said as gospel. In some respects, that was great, but in others, well, I missed the days of my graduate program, when the patients we pretended to be proved much harder than the ones we actually god.

  And so it was, shortly before eight in the morning on Friday, that I sat in my private room, waiting to hear the door to the lobby open so that I could walk outside and get Zane. I shuffled through the notes that Sheriff Jones had given me, warning me that Zane womanized and chased after anything that was female—in some cases, that was an exaggeration, but Sheriff Jones’ notes were so ominous that it seemed as close to literal as possible—and also had a tendency to get drunk and aggressive.

  In other words, I thought as I read the notes, he’s the frat bro that never had to grow up.

  This should be fun.

  I checked my watch. It was now eight o’clock. Zane was late.

  It took him another two minutes before I heard the door open. I walked outside, poked my head into the lobby, and saw him trying to sleep on the couch.

  He had on a sleeveless shirt, covered by a black cut with the Savage Kings logo, and gym shorts. It was as if he was trying to show off his muscles, trying to show off to me how nice of a body he had so that I would feel some sort of odd temptation to fall for him. Objectively, of course I could admit he had large muscles and many veins showing.

  But if Zane thought that that was going to alter my perception of him, then he was gravely mistaken. That, and he probably spent time with too many dumb girls who thought muscles equaled value.

  “Zane,” I said.

  He pretended to be asleep.

  “I will make this simple,” I said. “You are under sheriff’s orders to be here. You can show up late and pretend to be asleep, and I will make sure that the sheriff doesn’t just ride your ass, but all of the club’s asses. Or, you can come in here for your mandated hour, handle it like an adult, and then you can go home and sleep in as much as you want. The choice is yours.”

  Zane didn’t do anything at first. I heard him make an exaggerated snoring sound, but I decided to let him wear himself out. With guys like this, you just had to let them act out their part and get it out of their system before they’d come around.

  Sure enough, after about half a minute of this, Zane turned over to me. I hadn’t moved in the slightest. With a sigh, he jumped to his feet with the energy of someone who could not possibly have been sleeping and meandered over to me.

  “Not many sights I’d like to see this early in the morning,” he said. “But you, my dear, are very much one of them.”

  “Come with me,” I said, determined not to let him affect me in any way.

  I led him to my private office. Zane started to look around, staring at the books and the diplomas scattered across. I had a rule that I let patients take it in when they first came, primarily so that they could begin to feel comfortable in this new setting.

  In Zane’s case, though, I felt an awfully strong desire to override that and tell him that he needed to sit down and behave, as if he was a dog that needed to be taught manners.

  Fortunately, aside from a few remarks about how smart was sexy and some other nonsense that I easily ignored, he eventually took a seat on the couch across from me. I had a sliver of hope that Zane was like a wild dog—once it exhausted its energy and realized it could not win, it would eventually just meekly submit and give in to me.

  “Now then,” I said. “Allow me to explain how this will go. I am here to help you with your issues in public, but as far as I am concerned, you are my representation of the Savage Kings, and I am determined to help all of you become better men. You, Zane, will serve as the example for them, and—”

  “Oh, that’s good!” he
said, bursting out laughing. “You think that we can be controlled! Or that I would be an example any of them would follow!”

  “And why do you say that?” I said, crossing my legs as I pulled out my notepad. “Why do you think that you aren’t an example they would follow?”

  “Well, why the hell would they?” he said with a chortle. “I’m a brash, young dude in his twenties. Practically all the other officers are wifed up or might as well be. If anything, you should be suggesting I follow in their lead, but you may come to realize that I’m not very good at following orders except in the most serious of situations.”

  “Hmm,” I murmured.

  “And serious? Ms. Falcone, serious is when your brother’s life is on the line. This, this is just fun for me to see what I can get away with. Such as calling you sex—”

  “Enough, Zane,” I said firmly but in control. “Now listen. I want you to tell me a little bit about yourself.”

  “Ahh, now the therapy part of it begins,” he said. “Should I lean back on the couch? Should I tell you about how it all started in my childhood? Or maybe it would be better if we shared stories? It could be like kindergarten just before nap time!”

  “However you want to do it,” I said. “Whatever makes you comfortable opening up.”

  “Oh, good grief,” he said with another boisterous laugh.

  It was too bad he was so arrogant and frat-tastic. He had a nice laugh that, in the right contexts, would put a lot of smiles on a lot of faces. But right now, it was just serving as a defense mechanism from saying more.