Heart of a Rebel: Rebel Aces MC Part 1

by K. D. Latronico

  "Cameras have already been replaced and hidden in new spots, boss," chimed in Jekyll, one of our two Enforcers, without having been asked. Jekyll and his twin brother Hyde were Joker's protegees, the two prospects he had brought in and whipped into shape from the beginning. Which was pretty fucking hilarious, thinking of Joker getting anyone else's act together, but the twins were given their nicknames for a reason. Still wild, and fucking weird at times, the duo was doing a great job with their new positions.

  "Great. Good work. I want security beefed up this weekend at Velvet in case they decide to hit it again while the girls are there. How are we doing with recruiting?"

  This time Hyde spoke up. "I've got three pretty solid apps, we're meeting with them tomorrow morning and if we like what we see, you'll be the first to know, Pres."

  I nodded, glancing over at Hawkeye as he jotted everything down in his notebook. Old school, as always. No matter how many times we suggested him converting to a laptop he would wave us off, going on about how writing things out was better. As long as it got done.

  "Alright, good. Jekyll, Hyde, let me know about the security once you know anything. Joke, make those stops to all of our businesses again to check everything out. Kang, get the charity run details as soon as possible so we make up a schedule for it. Anything else?"

  I looked around the room at my men as they all shook their heads, and I nodded finally. "Right." The gavel cracked against the table once again. "Dismissed. Let's try and not get too shitty tonight for Hawk's birthday, alright?"

  Chatter and jeers erupted as the chairs scraped back against the concrete floor and the larger than life beasts in leather left the table to spill out into the lounge. I just chuckled, knowing full well that my warnings had fallen on deaf ears and I'd likely be shoving more than a few brothers into their beds well before the night was over.

  CHAPTER 3

  LEAH

  "OKAY. HOLD ON. WAIT, SO… you're telling me that HULK FUCKING HOGAN was bad for the wrestling business. That's what you're telling me? The greatest sports entertainer of all time, the most well-known ICON to come from wrestling, damaged it?!"

  As I stood there with a glass in hand, I tried my best to stifle the laughter threatening to spill over. DT was so angry he was almost red in the face.

  "In the long run, yes! I already explained this to you. He created the stereotype of big, sweaty, orange dudes in little tights that only knew two or three moves and overacted their asses off that people still think about when they hear the term professional wrestling.”

  "That doesn’t make any sense--"

  "Yes it does!" Lana shouts, throwing up her hands, "I'm just saying!" She turned her head to the bar, waving her hand at Teddy, the prospect slinging drinks for the night, without even skipping a beat. "Now, Stone Cold--"

  "He wasn't even on top for a decade!"

  "All the more reason that he was more important than fucking Hogan! He was the ultimate anti-hero, he was completely relatable, and he led arguably the most popular era in wrestling history. Wrestlers continue to get compared to him, but no one gets compared to Hogan anymore. Because it wouldn't be a good thing, you meathead!"

  "Okay, that's horseshit--"

  At that point, I had to turn around. "This is gonna go on forever," I offered to Moose as he stood next to me, the voices from behind already rising from talking heatedly to shouting.

  The giant laughed, lifting a hand to drag through his long brown hair. "Don't I fucking know it. They'll be at this for hours."

  Knowing full well that my sister would never back down from an argument, I moved over to the bar to get myself a drink. Hawkeye's birthday party had been going on for a good hour or so, and I was feeling alright. Not buzzed, but relaxed and enjoying myself. Before the two hotheads had started in on their debate we had all been standing around and talking, shooting the shit as we drank, catching up with people I hadn't seen in a while. It was a nice break from my usual schedule. With it being a Thursday, I wasn't needed at the club. Camilla, the third partner at Hello, Darling, the burlesque club and lounge that Lana and I had started, was running the place tonight. She was one of our best friends and happened to live with us; in many ways, she was our triplet.

  I trusted her with my life, which allowed me to take it easy and enjoy myself. Especially with the weekend I had ahead of us.

  "Hey beautiful, drinking alone?"

  My head snapped to my left and immediately was thrilled to see who had just spoken. "Kim! I didn't think you were coming!" My arms wrapped around the slender frame of the taller brunette in a tight hug, which she returned happily, rocking me back and forth a few times.

  "I ended up getting a babysitter last minute. Ronnie would have killed me if I didn't show up."

  I snorted a laugh. "Makes sense. She did a shit-ton of work for tonight."

  "That's Ronnie. I swear, if that man didn't treat her like gold, I'd say he didn't deserve her."

  Smiling, I glanced halfway across the room and caught sight of the couple in question. Ronda and her husband, Hawkeye, had been a couple for as long as I had been around. They had been married for nearly fifteen years now and had three kids together. To me, they were the ideal couple. You could see how much they loved one another when they were together and as an Old Lady, Ronda was one of the best.

  Frankly, I was almost a little jealous of them, especially watching as they fed each other shots and made out like drunken teenagers. I guessed they had gotten an overnight sitter and wouldn't be leaving the clubhouse that night.

  "So, how've you been?" Kim's voice pulled me from almost going into a brief internal pity party, now holding a beer in her hand. "I feel like I haven't seen you in a while."

  "I know! You're the busy lady of the law," I teased with a grin. "I've been good, you know." Shrug. "Just doing my thing. How are the boys?"

  Kim sighed, shaking her head, but there was a smile on her face. "Great and also driving me insane. Luckily, they're with their dad this weekend and I get a break. Though I don't even know why I pretend I want it so bad, I'm gonna end up missing them a day in." She rolled her blue eyes. "Motherhood."

  I wouldn't know, obviously, but I played along. "You probably need a day or so away to really appreciate them at this age though, right?" I offered.

  Kim laughed. "Right!" I envied Kim, too. She always seemed so sure of herself, so confident in her own skin, and not afraid to take what she wanted, almost at any cost. Her ways hadn't always been completely conventional but she was smart, strong, and kind of a badass. As a defense attorney, she had her own practice with a partner and helped out the club with any and all of their issues with the law. Kim was a single mom, though she was on the lucky side of women after divorce that worked well with her ex husband. And being Ward’s older sister, she had always been like family to me.

  Just as I was about to say something else, I looked over at Kim and saw her staring across the room. Her face was mostly blank, but I could tell she was thinking about something. Turning my head, I followed her gaze and wasn't surprised when I saw she was staring at the Vice President of the Aces. I quickly looked away, an awkward expression falling over my face as I leaned over the bar to get Teddy's attention. Before I knew it, Kim had excused herself and moved away from the bar in the opposite direction of where Tank had stood. Clearly, that was still a thing. From what I knew, Kim and Tank had dated all throughout high school and broke up when she went away to college, and things had been rough.

  Ending up taking two shots once Moose, Lana, and the others had rejoined me at the bar, I was now definitely feeling buzzed. I got a refill of my vodka soda and started sipping, moving away as things started getting crowded where I had been standing. There were a lot of people at the party - pretty much every current member, some of the older members, all the Sweeties, and a bunch of hangarounds. Normally I was fine in crowds, but there was always a limit. Apparently, I had reached that for now.

  Pushing through the crowd of leather, smoke, and
sweaty bodies, my legs took me towards the back right of the old warehouse building that now housed the Aces clubhouse towards a hallway that led to various offices and the bathrooms. It was quieter in there, plus it eventually ended in a door that would take you outside. If I needed air, I could always slip outside for a few minutes.

  As I walked down the darkened hallway, still sipping at my drink, I let my eyes wander along the memorabilia that donned the walls, as if I had never seen it before. As kids, we used to run around the place looking at every photo, every old cut, and every license plate that showed the history of the club. It had always been fascinating to me, and it all still was.

  Coming across a photo that was older, but not nearly as old as some of the others on display, I stopped to admire the occupants inside the frame. It was Ward, barely twenty-two and just out of the military, flanked by Joker, Crow, and older members of the club. They had just received their cuts and prospect patches. He looked so young, so different. Looked like a time before all of this, before his body was covered in tattoos, before his beard and hair had grown long. A time when I had been too optimistic, too hopeful for something with him.

  It was the greatest moment of my life.

  All alone in the house with only Ward, locked away in his room, absolutely nothing separating us, I was giving myself over to him. I never expected this to happen; only in my dreams had I imagined Ward and I tangled between the sheets of a bed, him taking my virginity and being my first.

  He was so attentive, so gentle with me. Like I was the most precious thing in the world to him. Like I might disappear if he let me go. I keep reminding him that I’m real, whispering softly to him, reassuring him while I’m the one experiencing the pain. And though it stings - actually, it kind of hurts a lot - my mind can’t focus on that. All I see is him, above me, feel his touch, his weight, reminding him that this is all real.

  He’s real. I’m real. Together, he and I are incredibly, irrevocably real.

  I don’t orgasm, but there is this feeling of fullness, at my core, in my stomach, and in my chest. My skin is tingling all over and I do feel pleasure mixed with the pain. But this was Ward. The man of my dreams, taking the most precious thing I have to offer. I couldn’t imagine it being with anyone else.

  To me, it was magical. And then it all came crashing down around me. After falling asleep curled against him in his bed, I woke up in my bed, alone, with Ward nowhere to be found.

  He wouldn’t talk about it. All he would say was that it couldn’t happen again. It broke my heart. Shattered my poor eighteen-year-old soul.

  But, despite how young and naive I was, I knew what I felt that night. Knew that he felt it, too. I wasn’t going to let him take this away from us.

  I’d just have to bide my time. I was patient, I could wait.

  He was worth it.

  "I wouldn't keep walking down here if I were you."

  That voice was impossible to miss, and I snapped me right out of my memory. My head nearly flew off my neck as it swiveled to find Ward standing just a few yards from me. He was leaning against the doorframe of his office, muscular arms crossed against his chest, watching me with an amused look on his face. In the darkness, he was slightly shadowed, but I could still make out his blue eyes taking me in, assessing me like they always did.

  I swallowed hard, realizing my face had started to heat up. If only he knew what I had just been thinking about. "Uh, why?" was all I managed to get out. I still didn't understand that now, after all of these years, he still affected me as he did, but it was just one of those things I couldn't explain. The man had a hold on me I couldn't shake.

  And some days, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

  "Well," he started, glancing across the hall from where he stood, craning his neck to look back to where another doorway was. "There are things happening in that room you probably don't want to see."

  I raised my eyebrow, straightening my stance to face him completely, my hand on my hip. "It's a party, Ward. Since when am I surprised to see someone in a compromising position out in the open?"

  Ward's lips quirked in a semi-smirk. "It's not what they're doing. It's who it is."

  My eyes widened. Oh God. "Don't tell me it's Lana and Joker again."

  This time Ward laughed, shaking his head. "No. She's been ignoring him all night and he hasn't been hiding how pissed off he is. I think he might clock DT just for the fact he's spending time with her arguing."

  I laughed then, rolling my eyes. The Lana/Joker saga had been going on for too fucking long, that was for sure. "They're never gonna get their shit together, are they?"

  "Probably not."

  Which was ironic, coming from the two of us. With a big enough distance between us to fit a giant SUV, the tension still filling that gap, we were the last two people to be talking about anyone else getting their shit together.

  But that wasn't my doing, was it?

  "So, if it's not Lana then..." I trailed off as I realized who he had to be talking about. "Eddie?"

  Ward nodded.

  "Oh, gross!" My expression turned to one of disgust and I immediately started to turn away. "He has a room upstairs! Can't he just take the Sweeties there and spare us from having to see his big, naked ass doing things I never, ever want to imagine him doing?!" My brother had some set of balls on him.

  Oh. God. Now I'm thinking about my brother's balls.

  As I gagged dramatically at the thought, I hadn't noticed that Ward had closed the distance between us and was right beside me until I felt his large hand on the small of my back. "Come on," he said low into my ear, "I know someplace quieter we can go."

  CHAPTER 4

  WARD

  AS SOON AS SHE had walked into the party tonight, I hadn't been able to keep my eyes off of her.

  Leah was, easily, hands down, the most beautiful woman I had ever set my eyes on. To me, she was perfect. Even with all of the things she had added to her body - the ink, the makeup, the hair dye - that I hadn't thought she ever needed, it only made her that much more attractive to me. Because now her outside reflected her inside. Vibrant, bright, colorful, different - unique. Like the sun was shining out of her skin and forming this gorgeous, perfect glow around her, a glow that could light up any room she walked into.

  She has me so fucked up that I'm thinking like a goddamn poet.

  As I always did at the beginning of any gathering I was at when she was around, I tried my best to avoid her other than going over to say hi, see how she was doing, and get her a drink. That was what I limited myself to. Tried to limit myself to. I don't know why I even thought lying to myself would work. Even I knew it would only be a matter of time before we ended up finding each other and ended up doing exactly what we were doing right now.

  Walking off, together, to find somewhere quiet to talk.

  I thought maybe holing myself up in my office as everyone else drank and partied outside would do the trick, which was kind of a pussy move. But it was almost like her body was a homing device for my attention. Like I knew she was outside in the hallway before I heard her. Eventually, I heard her heels clicking against the concrete floor, but I'd known she was there before that.

  Fuck. I was a mess.

  I couldn't help but spend a few minutes watching her from my office doorway as she walked slowly, staring up at the photos I knew for a fact she had spent hours studying before. If I wasn't already lost in her, I would have been just looking at her in that outfit she chose to wear tonight. It was a blue, lacy thing - what did they call them, onesies? No, a romper, I think. Shorts and the top attached. Whatever the fuck it was, I was mesmerized. It was short as hell, showing off her long, toned legs that revealed how long she had been dancing for, but it wasn't skin tight like most of the things the other girls in attendance wore. No, the fabric of this moved with her, leaving little, but still enough to the imagination. It was low cut, that I had definitely noticed, but still classy. At least, that's what I thought.

  Maybe analyzing
her outfit for the night would keep my thoughts away from all the terrible things I wanted to do to her.

  Nope. Didn't work.

  And now I was leading her away from where her brother was making bad decisions in a half-opened room with one of the Sweeties - I think it was Tatiana - and towards the other hallway across the building. Once we pushed past the drunken party attendees and headed away from the kitchen, we could head out the other side door to the outside where most people wouldn't be.

  Once we were out under the night sky, away from the loud music and alcohol-fueled shouts that filled half of the first floor, I felt both of us relax. I could also tell that Leah was approaching an early level of drunk, but not enough for me to be concerned. I was still nursing a Jack and coke, but it definitely wasn't my first for the night. We both seemed far less tense and lost in our heads in the fresh air, away from everyone else.

  While we were out here, I could almost allow myself to pretend that my life was easy, uncomplicated, that I wasn't holding the weight of the world on my shoulders.

  Like I hadn't forbidden myself from having this woman next to me in every way I possibly could.

  I could imagine that her life wouldn’t be in danger if I showed the world that she was the most important thing in the world to me. That I wouldn’t be sentencing her to a life of constantly looking over her shoulder for our enemies, of being used against me in the worst possible ways.

  But it wasn’t that easy, was it? I had kept myself from Leah for a reason, and it was for her own good. I couldn’t bring her into the mess that was club life. I couldn’t put her at risk. I’d made the right decision all those years ago to keep my distance, and avoiding her for the most part was what worked. It was moments like these, when I was alone with her and my defenses were down, that I became weak and imagined what life could be like with the one woman who was everything to me.