Savage Kings MC Box Set 1

by Lane Hart

  “Good man,” I tell him instead.

  “Huh?” he asks when he looks up at me in surprise.

  “You had three chances to betray your fellow prospect and you didn’t,” I explain. “Keep doing what you’ve been doing, and you’ll earn that top rocker for your cut in no time.”

  “Seriously?” Maddox asks. “I’ll still get my patch even though I lied?”

  “You may want to start kissing some serious ass over the next few months,” I tell him.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” he mutters in relief.

  “Let him go,” I tell Reece, who nods and comes around to unhook all the devices from Maddox’s body.

  “Send Holden in here. Don’t you dare think of saying a fucking word to him about what we’re doing or what we may ask him,” Chase warns him. “That’s a direct order.”

  “Yes, sir,” Maddox replies before he walks out the door.

  “He’s a good kid,” Chase says to me when he leaves.

  “Yeah, I think so too,” I agree. “But War is a little overprotective and wants to hold off on patching him in until he’s old enough to drink.”

  “I came in young without any problems, but I can see his point too,” Chase agrees with a nod.

  Holden appears in the doorway a second later, and it takes every ounce of restraint in my body not to throttle him on sight after Lexi called him out.

  “You wanted to see me?” he asks while looking around at the machine and cords on the table.

  “Sit down, shut the fuck up, and look only at Torin and me,” Chase shouts at him. Okay, so clearly my brother wasn’t able to reel in all of his temper. But then again, he’s supposed to be playing bad cop.

  “Am I in trouble?” Holden asks when he takes a seat. The fact that his first thought was that he’s in trouble is telling when Maddox came in here grinning like an idiot with nothing to hide.

  “No. We’re just giving you the traditional prospect polygraph,” I lie to him, since this is the first time we’ve ever needed to use one of the damned devices.

  “Those things don’t really work, do they?” Holden asks as Reece comes over and starts hooking him up to the finger probes, blood pressure cuffs and tubes around his upper body.

  “Guess we’re about to find out,” I say. “So don’t lie to us or you’ll regret it. Just ask Maddox,” I add.

  “Maddox lied?” Holden asks, his brown eyes widening in surprise.

  “Yep,” Chase answers.

  “All set?” I ask Reece once he sits back down behind the laptop.

  “We’re good to go,” he says. “Start with the baseline questions.”

  “Is your name Holden Yates?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he answers, but then I catch Reece’s brow furrow with a perplexed look on his face. He motions with his hand for me to keep going.

  “Are you a woman?” I ask.

  “What the fuck?” he scoffs. “No.”

  “Are you a prospect for the Savage Kings MC?” I ask.

  Holden looks at me in confusion before he answers. “Yes.”

  “Ask him his name again,” Reece says.

  “Is your name Holden Yates?” Chase snaps.

  “Yes.”

  Reece shakes his head and gives the thumbs-down. Motherfucker. He’s lied to us this whole time. No wonder Reece couldn’t find anything in his background. And someone must have paid big bucks for this new identity to be good enough to fool all of us.

  “Have you been loyal to the Savage Kings?” I ask.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Liar!” Chase yells before Reece gives the thumbs-down.

  “What? I-I have,” Holden stammers. “Polygraphs don’t work.”

  “Are you associated with the Ace of Spades MC?” I ask.

  “No.”

  Another lie, according to our polygraph operator.

  “Are you working for Hector fucking Cruz?” Chase growls at him.

  “Nope. No way,” Holden answers which Reece confirms is also another big, fat lie.

  Lexi was right.

  “Light ‘em up,” I tell Chase. “I believe that makes four.”

  “Gladly,” Chase agrees before he unleashes the Taser on the lying son of a bitch over and over again, a total of five times not four.

  I give the little shit a chance to recover from the stinging before I lurch forward and wrap my hand around his throat.

  “Did you drug me the night of my bachelor party?” I growl in his deceitful face.

  “I’m s-s-sorry,” he chokes out, which only makes me squeeze harder.

  “Did you set up the camera in the Kings' room at Avalon?” I grit out from between clenched teeth.

  “Yes,” he answers in a whisper. “Please…please don’t…”

  “Please don’t what?” I yell at him. “Please don’t kill you? What the fuck did you think was gonna happen when you betrayed me and this club?”

  Unable to stay in control of my anger for another second, I release his neck and haul my right fist back to slam it into the side of his face. Then another, then another, until his bloody head hangs limply.

  Goddammit, I want to make him hurt and bleed the exact same way that Kennedy suffered, and get revenge for those men in our Charlotte charter who died protecting our club the night Hector attacked us thanks no doubt to Holden’s intel.

  But I fucking can’t, and it’s all Lexi’s fault. She’s in my head; and for some reason, I can’t help but think that she’s telling me the same thing Kennedy would’ve said. My wife was kind and caring. She wouldn’t have wanted me to kill Hector or his men for her, but they all deserved to die. Betrayal is one of the worst things a member can do in a club, but Holden wasn’t a member. If I want to blame someone, I should blame myself for not vetting him better before we let him prospect for the Kings.

  Turning to face the wall while I try and calm myself down, I eventually tell Chase and Reece, “Unhook him, then take him to the front parking lot and call everyone in.”

  “We can’t kill him in broad daylight,” Chase says softly.

  “We’re not…we’re not gonna kill him,” I grumble. “He’s getting a group beatdown instead. Everyone gets a lick, including Maddox since he had to lie for the fucker. You can handle all the proxies,” I tell him. “When that’s done, cut two fingers off his clutch-hand. He’s not going to ride anymore after this. Then call Jade to haul his broken ass to jail or the hospital. Tell her he was trespassing on our property, already beat half to death.”

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” Chase asks. “Shouldn’t we vote it first?”

  “It’s what I want,” I answer. “He wronged me. The table doesn’t get a say in my decision on retribution.”

  Not that I’m sure that I’m making the right fucking decision; but Lexi begged me not to kill him, and she’s right. I don’t need any more blood on my hands. So, I’ll let the kid live, because killing him won’t bring back my Kennedy or our son.

  Chapter Twenty

  Torin

  “I’m all packed up, prez,” Abe says when he comes into the chapel with a box under one of his giant arms after the business with Holden has been handled. “Here are the keys to my apartment.” He tosses the set on the table in front of me.

  “Thanks, Abe. Hate to see you go, but we’re happy for you,” I tell him. “Congrats.”

  “Appreciate it,” he says. “And congrats to you too, you know, on the kid and all.”

  “The kid and all?” I ask. “What’s the all?”

  “You know, Lexi or whatever,” Abe answers with a shrug.

  “She’s just the mother of my son. She did the club and me a solid by helping us out our rat, nothing else.”

  “You sure about that?” he asks. “I mean, it’s none of my business, but if it’s more, you may wanna throw another title on her so that everyone’s clear that she’s not up for grabs.”

  Frowning, I ask, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Well, Lexi’s hot,
and she’s a stripper. The other guys may not have all warmed up to her yet, but they sure as hell notice her. You obviously know what she looks like since you two…” he trails off.

  “Since we what?” I ask.

  “Nothing. Sorry, I just got the feeling you didn’t want the guys talking to her or whatever.”

  “She said no one talks to her, so that’s not a problem,” I mutter with a shrug of my shoulders, even though I feel a little guilty because Lexi complained that she was lonely here with everyone avoiding her.

  “Well, she lives here now, temporary or not, so you can’t really expect her not to hang out with the guys,” Abe responds.

  Brow furrowing, I question, “Why would she hang out with the guys?”

  “No reason,” Abe mutters in a rush. “I’m out of here,” he says, turning toward the door.

  “Wait. Who has she been spending time with?” I ask quickly.

  “Ah, I don’t know. Maybe you should go ask her.”

  “I will,” I agree, getting up to follow him down the hall to her room…that’s empty. “Where the hell is she?”

  When I’m standing in the hallway, I hear her feminine laughter coming from…Dalton’s room? Oh, hell fucking no.

  I burst through the open doorway like a bulldozer. “What the hell are you doing in here?” I bark at Lexi, who is sitting cross-legged on Dalton’s bed. Her back is against the headboard, ass on his pillows, wearing nothing but a too tight shirt and some damn shorts that are no more than three inches long.

  “I’m just playing a few games of cards,” she answers while the room goes silent other than the music coming out of someone’s iPhone.

  “Where’s the baby?” I ask as I look around the room.

  “He’s sleeping.”

  “What if he fucking wakes up?” I shout.

  Wincing at my volume and tone of voice, Lexi says, “I’m sure I’ll hear him, just like he probably heard you yelling at me for no reason. Jeez, Torin, he’s only two doors down the hall, not halfway across town.”

  “This game is over,” I say. I don’t have a reason to stay since, with Dalton, Reece, Coop and Sax in here, they have five players. I guess after they all heard about her giving us intel on the club’s traitor they warmed right up to her.

  “No, it’s not. We just started,” Lexi replies as she looks at the cards in front of her face and fans them out.

  My brothers look to me and then to her as if trying to decide who gets the final say. I’m their fucking president! I always get the final say.

  “You can, ah, you can take my spot, boss,” Reece says. He tosses his cards down on the foot of the mattress and then stands up from the four-legged chair he had been sitting in backwards.

  Since the other three men don’t seem to be throwing in the towel any time soon, I reluctantly decide to sit my ass down and play. It’s better than the alternative, walking out and leaving Lexi in our sluttiest brother’s bed.

  I straddle the chair Reece vacated and then pick up his cards to see how his hand looks. It’s not bad, so I stay in the game.

  Tonight, they’re playing for big winnings – old Easy Rider magazines. I thumb through Reece’s stack and see he’s either doing pretty well, or they just started since he has about ten magazines.

  “We’re playing until we go broke,” Coop says.

  “Don’t lose my stash,” Reece warns me before he leaves the room.

  “Whose are those?” I ask, tipping my chin in Lexi’s direction.

  “We all threw in two each for her to play,” Sax says from his chair on my right. “Now are you calling one mag or folding this hand?”

  Wow. Before, these guys would never talk to me like that. But now… I look down at the empty spot on the right side of my cut. I need to sew my president’s flash back on tonight. It’s not like I’ll be sleeping.

  “Torin?” Coop says to get my attention.

  “I fold,” I finally decide, tossing my cards face down in the center of the empty bed.

  Sax throws one magazine into the pile, and then it’s Coop’s turn because he’s in the chair next to him. Lexi and Dalton are the only ones on the bed, which I don’t like at all. I refuse to dwell on why right now as I watch Coop fold, Lexi call and then Dalton shows his hand – a pair of Jacks.

  “Beat that, suckers,” Dalton brags.

  “Fuck you,” Coop says when he slings his cards across the bed at Dalton.

  I look to Lexi to see if she can beat Dalton’s hand, and she grins right before she lays her cards down in front of her. “Two pairs are better than one, right?” she jokes since she’s clearly familiar with the game. I guess when you grow up with a father like Hector it’s a given that she would know how to play poker.

  That reminds me that I need to call my parents and tell them the news. I’m not sure how they’ll take it either. Will they be happy and welcome their grandson as easily as they would have the one they lost? And what will they think of Lexi? Because I have to introduce her too since she’s Liam’s mother.

  “Your turn to deal,” Dalton says when he places the deck of red playing cards in front of me.

  “Right,” I mutter. Picking the stack up, I shuffle them a few times and then deal them out to each person one at a time while everyone antes up.

  Before I pick up my cards I throw in one of Reece’s magazines.

  I have a pretty good hand with two eights, but I figure that’s not much to win on. So, once everyone asks for a draw, I take three and get one more eight to make it three of a kind. With this I may be able to actually pull off a win. I toss in another magazine to call with Coop and Dalton. They don’t have anything but a pair each, so I take the winnings.

  And I have to say that it feels good to be doing something…fun for the first time in so long I can’t even remember. That’s one of the downsides of sewing the patch back on. There won’t be much time for anything once I take over all of the responsibilities of being the president again.

  This time, I’m going to make sure to take a break for this sort of foolishness every once in a while. God knows I wish I would’ve spent more time with Kennedy…

  …

  Lexi

  Our poker game ends abruptly, as all fun activities do for new moms, when I hear Liam fussing. “That’s it for me,” I tell the guys as I throw in my hand and pick up the pile of magazines I’ve collected. With an impish grin, I place my winnings over on Torin’s dwindling pile. “Make sure you tell Reece where those came from,” I tease him, before I head back down the hall to my room to feed our son.

  After Liam finishes his bottle, I’m so tired that I doze off for a while, until he wakes a few hours later, hungry again. His diaper has leaked through to his onesie, so once I clean him and change him, I get his bottle ready.

  I try to sit and rock him to sleep after he drains his bottle, but now I’m so restless after my late nap that I get up and walk with him. The motion of being carried up and down the hallway seems to soothe him but he stays awake looking up at me and around at everything we pass.

  It’s gotten late, probably past midnight, but I can see a light shining from a room down at the end of the hall. I wander down to take a peek and find Torin sitting by himself at the head of the Savage Kings' long, intricately carved wooden table.

  “Hey, why aren’t you asleep?” I ask Torin as I take him in wearing nothing but jeans and a white cotton tank top, the bulging muscles in his biceps and forearms flexing as he…sews. He appears to be running a needle and thread through his cut.

  “Can’t sleep,” he answers while barely sparing me a glance. Then, he does a double take and his eyes lower to Liam. “He’s hungry again?”

  “Yeah. And now he’s wide awake in the middle of the night. He likes to make things difficult. He must have gotten that from his father.”

  “Sorry,” Torin says with a small smile before he goes back to his stitching. He jerks on the needle but the thread snags and doesn’t pull through. “Shit,” he mutters.
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  “Do you need some help with that?” I ask.

  “No,” he grunts.

  “Okay then,” I say as I continue to bounce Liam and watch him work.

  After Torin gets the thread clear, he runs the needle back through and then mutters, “Fuck,” before sticking his index finger in his mouth because I’m guessing he just poked himself.

  “Maybe you better do this,” he tells me when he eventually looks back up at me.

  I hold Liam out in front of me, telling Torin, “I’ll trade you. The baby for the needle.”

  “I-I dunno,” he stammers. “That’s, ah, I don’t know how to hold him, and I might drop him.”

  “You’re a big, strong man; you won’t drop him. And I’ll show you how to hold him,” I assure him. While Torin hasn’t had much time to digest the DNA results, now is as good a time as any for him to finally hold his son.

  I haven’t been able to figure out if he’s disappointed he has to be a father and share a child with me or if he’s happy about it. Of course I know that it couldn’t have been easy for him to handle the loss of his son with Kennedy too, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe he’s also feeling guilty or angry at me for trying to replace what he lost. That wasn’t my intention, and I don’t think I would have even told Torin the truth once the video came out and I found out he was married.

  But now…well, now he knows, and I guess it’s his decision to decide whether or not he wants to be an actual father to Liam. I can’t believe I hadn’t considered the fact that maybe he changed his mind after our conversation the other night and has decided that he simply doesn’t want to be a father.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I shouldn’t have assumed…” I start.

  “Assumed what?” Torin asks.

  “That you would want to hold him. That you would want to be his father.”

  “I am his father,” he states loudly, making Liam start to fuss.

  “Yes, biologically,” I reply as I search the ceiling for words and keep rocking the crying baby in my arms. It’s hard to think when I’m sleep deprived and now he’s cranky. Both of them. “What I meant was you know you don’t have to be in our life, his life, if you don’t want to be. You can change your mind…”