TANK
Lords of Carnage MC
Daphne Loveling
Copyright 2020 Daphne Loveling
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Contents
Credits
Mailing List
Dedication
1. Tank
2. Cady
3. Tank
4. Cady
5. Tank
6. Cady
7. Tank
8. Tank
9. Cady
10. Tank
11. Tank
12. Cady
13. Tank
14. Cady
15. Cady
16. Tank
17. Cady
18. Tank
19. Tank
20. Cady
21. Tank
22. Tank
23. Cady
24. Tank
25. Cady
26. Tank
27. Tank
Epilogue
Daphne Talks Out Her Ass About Tank
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About Daphne Loveling
Books by Daphne Loveling
Cover photography by Wander Aguiar Photography LLC
Cover design by Coverlüv
One of my favorite things about writing is the relationships I build with readers. I occasionally send newsletters with details on new releases, special offerings, and exclusive bonus material to readers who subscribe to my mailing list.
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Usually in my dedications, I thank my family, or my friends, or my awesome readers and fans, without whom I literally would not have this wonderful writing career.
This time, I’m dedicating this book to my fantastic world of fellow indie authors, especially in the MC romance community.
Amid all the drama and craziness of the book world, there are some really fantastic, generous, kind, and loving people out there. And I’m privileged to know so many of you.
Thank you.
1
Tank
I never bother to turn my lights off on Halloween night.
I don’t like kids, and Halloween is a stupid holiday, anyway. It’s an intrusion, and I fuckin’ hate intrusions. People expect you to open your door a million times in the course of a single night, make goo-goo eyes at some pint-sized ghost or princess, and shell out a bunch of candy that will just rot their stupid teeth. It’s a racket and a half. The candy industry, the costume industry — not to mention the dentists — all havin’ a goddamn field day, while everyone else just hands them money.
Lucky for me, no one in my neighborhood ever comes to my house for that shit. When you’re the resident Big Scary Biker on the block, no parents are gonna let their kids get anywhere near your place. Not in broad daylight, and especially not at night. Ever since I moved in here three years ago, the word’s gotten out that my house and property are not to be fucked with. As a result, I don’t bother to buy candy for trick or treaters — not that I would anyway — and I don’t bother to pretend I’m not home. The rest of the neighborhood pretends for me.
And that suits me just fine.
So when the doorbell rings about eight o’clock on Halloween night, I’m halfway into my second beer, sitting on the couch watching Ohio State play Alabama. I cut an irritated glance at the front door, mumble something profane, then go back to watching the game. I don’t bother getting up. Whoever’s dumb enough to want to trick or treat here will get the message soon enough.
About thirty seconds later, the doorbell rings again — not just once, but over and over. Five times, then six, then seven.
Fuck me. Whoever these idiots are, they clearly have a death wish. They’re from this goddamn neighborhood, that’s for sure. I guess there’s a chance that it could be one of the Lords, here to piss me off. But they’d call or text first before just showin’ up like this. Plus, a lot of those fuckers have rug rats of their own, so they’re out doing the trick or treat thing with the rest of the goddamn town.
The doorbell rings again. Swearing a blue streak, I haul myself to my feet.
“This person better be able to run fuckin’ fast,” I mutter as I slam my bottle of beer down on a side table. I cross the room in a couple of strides, suck in a big lungful of air, and get ready to shout the motherfucker into next week as I yank open the door.
But what I see on the other side stops the words in my throat.
It’s a tiny little kid. A single, pint-sized little girl, with curly-frizzy brown hair.
She’s maybe four? Five? I dunno, I don’t know anything about that shit. She’s not wearing a costume, except she’s got a light-blue tutu thing on over some striped leggings. Even in the dim light, I can see the tutu is shabby, ripped on one side. She’s got on a worn jean jacket that’s not really warm enough for this fall night. On her back is a sagging backpack that’s almost as big as she is. And she’s carrying one of those little orange plastic pumpkin deals with the black handles for collecting candy.
I can’t exactly shout at this little girl. She looks scared enough as it is. I glance around, left and right, trying to see where her parent is, but there’s no one else in sight.
“I don’t have any candy, kid,” I say, trying not to sound too gruff. “Sorry.”
The little girl looks down at her feet and shrugs. She digs the toe of her scuffed pink Crocs into the cement of my front porch. But she just stands there, waiting, anyway.
I look up and down the street again. There’s some groups of older kids, but no other people out within half a block, and no parents. “You with those kids?” I ask, pointing.
The little girl shakes her head once, refusing to look up at me. Her brown curls swish around her face. What the fuck?
“You live around here?”
Nothing.
“Where’s your folks?”
Still nothing. The kid just keeps looking down at the ground. I realize she hasn’t said a single damn word since I opened the door.
“Are you out here by yourself?” I ask, starting to get a little concerned. “You’re a little young for that, ain’t ya?”
I take a step outside my door, thinking there has to be someone with her. The little girl startles, scurries back about a foot. Shit, I’m scaring her. Of course I am.
Furrowing my brow, I make myself move slowly and crouch down low, until I’m as close to her eye level as I can get.
“Come on,” I say as gently as I can. “Can you tell me where your mom and dad are? A brother or a sister, maybe? Are they out here trick or treating with you?”
She dips her chin shyly, but for the first time, she looks at my face. A pair of wide, solemn eyes meet mine.
Down the block, in a car I don’t recognize, the driver flicks on its headlights on and pulls away from the curb. The little girl’s head swivels toward the sound of the engine. She makes a single, high-pitched sound deep in her throat — like a sob, or a keen.
“Kid.”
I say the word more sharply than I mean to. Her head snaps back toward me. Those wide eyes meet mine again. The dark pools are glistening now. Her lower lip trembles.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bark at you.” I let out a breath. “But
look, you gotta talk to me. Who are you? Who are you with? Can you tell me where they are?”
For a second, she doesn’t do anything. Then, raising her little arm, she holds out the orange plastic pumpkin. For the first time, I notice there’s a folded sheet of paper sticking out of it.
I stare at it, then at her. She lifts the pumpkin up another couple of inches.
Confused, I take the piece of paper out and unfold it, then hold it up to catch the light coming from the living room behind me.
Written in a scrawl, with cheap blue ball-point ink, are four sentences that are about to change my life.
Her name is Wren. She’s yours.
You can protect her. I can’t.
- Jess
2
Cady
Of all the jobs I’ve ever had — and I’ve had a few — being a waitress is by far the hardest.
It’s only three hours into my shift, and the lunch rush isn’t even over yet, but I’m dead on my feet. I was hoping this gig would get easier physically with time, but at this point, I’m not optimistic.
Looking over at Penny, the head waitress, I honestly don’t know how she does it. She cruises around the diner like everyone’s best friend, laughing and joking with young and old alike. You’d never know whether she was tired or not, and she’s probably at least twice my age. God, I feel like such a weakling, especially on days when the Downtown Diner is really busy. When I get home at the end of my shift, sometimes I’m too tired to even take a shower to wash the grease and fried onion smell off of my skin and hair.
“Hal, you want to cut down on those desserts.” Behind the counter, Penny chides a long-time regular with a prominent gut who’s sitting by himself.
“More of me to love, as my sainted mother would say,” Hal grunts with a twinkle in his eye.
Penny gives him a smile that softens her critique. “I’ll serve you today, seeing as how this lemon ice box pie is a slice of heaven. But you know Doctor Hennings comes in here, too. And I’ll never hear the end of it if he thinks I’m contributing to your insulin problems.”
“Ah,” Hal scoffs, waving a mottled, dimpled hand. “If all of us was healthy, Hennings would go broke. Bet he ain’t complaining about how much dessert I eat when he’s on one of his fancy vacations I help pay for, is he?”
Down the counter, a bark of laughter erupts from Fred Sorkin. He’s in here on his lunch break from his job at the hardware store a couple blocks down — the same hardware store I live above. “You got that right!” he crows.
Penny lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. Eat yourself into an early grave. See if I care.”
“You can just keep them thoughts to yourself,” Hal tosses back mock-irritably. “I don’t come in here for advice. Be more like Cady over there,” he says, indicating me. “She doesn’t try to tell me what to eat.”
“Cady’s got more sense than I do, I guess,” Penny mutters. “She knows an old fool when she sees one.”
She gives me a wink as she swivels to go grab Hal his pie. I can’t help but chuckle.
“Hey, waitress!”
My shoulders tense as I instantly recognize the voice. I stop my face muscles from contorting into a grimace, then slowly turn toward the obnoxious customer sitting in one of my booths over by the window.
“I’ve been waiting on my check for five minutes!” he complains in a loud voice. “Can I get some service here? Some of us have jobs to get back to!”
I hurry over, willing myself to maintain my composure. The customer’s name is Rob Warner. His slightly puffy face, with its prominent dimpled chin and receding hairline, is easily recognizable as the same one on the business card he’s pinned in the center of the cork board at the front of the diner.
Warner’s a Realtor here in town. Though you’d think he was the freakin’ Emperor of Tanner Springs, the way he acts and carries himself. Every single conversation I’ve ever heard him have, he manages to slip this “I’m a successful and important businessman” routine into practically every sentence. He’s always “just stopping in for a quick bite between appointments,” and always “in a rush.” Whenever he’s in the diner, he takes every single opportunity to comment on the length of time it takes to get his meal, how long he had to wait for a refill on his Diet Coke, or how he “was hoping to grab dessert, but now he won’t have time since the service was so slow.”
I hate this guy.
Giving Warner my best, widest smile — even though I know from experience he’s a lousy tipper — I pull his check from the stack I have in my apron pocket. He’s already got his flashy gold credit card out, holding it between his index and middle fingers. As I take it, he does a studied flick of his wrist and checks his Apple Watch with a sigh.
I get it. We all get it. Jesus, I fume silently.
I pass Penny on my way to the register to run his card. She meets my gaze and snorts, rolling her eyes. Instantly, the tension in my shoulders relaxes. She always knows how to make me feel better when a customer starts to get me worked up. Penny has had a lot longer to learn to let that stuff roll off her back, I guess. To watch her, you’d never think she got ruffled by anything.
I suppose I’ll eventually learn that, too, if I end up being a server as long as she has.
I don’t know exactly how long Penny has been at this job, though I know it’s been many years. When I asked her once how long she’s worked at the Diner, she just laughed and told me it was longer than Methuselah was alive.
“I’ve been working here since it opened,” she told me, flipping her hand to wave away the years. “I was a waitress at the Downtown Diner when Dick Dawson bought the place from the original owner.” Penny’s pink-lipsticked mouth curled a little at the mention of our boss. “The only reason I didn’t quit right when the business changed hands was that I’d got used to the place, and the customers. Dawson has the personality of a bloated cockroach, and the business sense to match. He doesn’t know how lucky he is I stuck around. His business would have dried up and blown away if I hadn’t.”
I had to admit the description of my boss’s personality was accurate. Thankfully, he doesn’t actually spend very much time here at the diner, or I might not have stuck it out for the few months I’ve been here. When I came in that first day for my interview, he had leered at me the whole time, and all but stuck his hand up my shirt to check whether my boobs were real.
Even then, Penny was already fixing things behind the scenes. She managed to catch my attention that day as I sat across from him in the booth, rolling her eyes and making funny faces. It made me feel better about accepting the job. Like if she was working here — even with a gross perv of a boss like this — it couldn’t be too bad. That was a damn good thing, because I really needed employment, and the Downtown Diner was pretty much my only prospect. Even though the hours I get plus tips barely keep a roof over my head, it’s kept me out of the poor house so far.
I can’t help but chuckle at the memory as I hustle back to Rob Warner’s table. I slap down the plastic sleeve containing his card and receipt, with a cheery, “There you go, sir! Have a great day.” Kill ‘em with kindness is my motto with jerk customers. It’s not quite as satisfying as letting them have it, but I can’t afford to get fired. And I can’t seem to get away with open mockery, the way Penny does.
Before Warner can reply, I’m off again, racing back to the kitchen to grab a patty melt and hash browns for another customer. Well, that’s him gone for the day. I take a moment to send up a little prayer that next time, Rob Warner will sit in someone else’s section.
The rest of the lunch rush passes pretty normally, and things eventually start to quiet down for the afternoon. Between Penny, me, and Max — the dishwasher who also buses tables — we get the front cleaned up. Carl, the short-order cook, finally has a couple of minutes to go out back for a smoke break. I grab a bin of clean silverware from Max and set to work rolling them in napkins. As I work, I press my shoulder blades back to ease some of the tension, and
roll my neck a few times. I start to fantasize about a long, hot bath when I get home. Maybe even a glass of wine and a good book while I soak.
While I’m reveling in my little fantasy, the familiar clink-clank of the bells sounds at the front door, announcing a customer. I lift my eyes from my work to see who it is.
The afternoon sun is shining behind the figure. So at first, I only see the silhouette. A large man, tall and muscled. His dark shadow fills the doorway.
As he steps through to the inside, the light gives me a better look at him.
Wow.
He’s massive, wide-shouldered and well built. He’s incredibly handsome, in a rough-hewn way, with a body that looks like it was sculpted from dark marble. His longish brown hair is worn loose, and falls almost to his shoulders. He wears his beard close-cropped, and I notice it’s nuanced with flecks of red. His piercing eyes are sharp and alert. Sensuous, sculpted lips part as he scans the room, and I actually sink down in the booth a little because I’m suddenly nervous he’ll catch me staring.
The thing is, it’s incredibly hard not to stare at him, he’s that good looking. He’s got kind of a Jason Momoa vibe going — except unlike Momoa, this guy looks like he doesn’t smile much. I bend my head down and continue sneaking looks at him through my lashes. My thirsty eyes take in the worn jeans that fit him like a caress, the utilitarian motorcycle boots…
TANK: Lords of Carnage MC Page 1