Grave (Royal Devils MC Chicago Book 1)

by Erin Trejo

  “What is he doing?”

  “When a patch walks, he loses everythin’. That includes his club tats.” Her eyes shift from Psycho lighting the torch to me. I can see this is something she wasn’t expecting. “You don’t have to stay and see this,” I tell her. Silla straightens her spine and holds herself together.

  “This is what I signed up for, right?” I chuckle.

  “No, you signed up to be mine, not deal with this shit,” I remind her.

  “This so-called shit is your life, Grave. If I’m here, I’m here for it all.” The fact she even wants to stand here and witness this should tell me what I found in this girl. She’s everything every other woman isn’t. She doesn’t hide who she is or what she does. She’s open and damn, do I like that about her.

  “When you leave this club, there are things you leave behind. Your patch, your place. Even your goddamn ink stays! Darth! Get over here and hold these fuckers,” Preacher roars. They move quickly as I lead Silla out of the ring and over toward them. She might not want to be up close but I sure as hell do.

  I drag her closer, watching as the torch blazes into the night. Psycho has a giant grin on his face. The motherfucker lives for this. It’s in his blood. The scent of burned flesh drifts through the air and permeates my nose. Silla shifts next to me, but I don’t move. I can’t. This is it. This is what my life has been lived for. This moment in time. I can feel the heat as it burns their flesh, removing anything they have pertaining to the club. The skull rings are ripped from their fingers which is lucky. Psycho typically likes to take the whole goddamn finger as his prize.

  “This is insane,” Silla says under her breath, but when I look down at her, she seems captivated by what’s happening in front of her. I don’t comment, just watch with her until they are done. Then I turn to face the crowd.

  “Tonight, we fuckin’ party! Tomorrow we get back to business and makin’ this club what it’s meant to be!” Cheers sound all around us. Some happy, others unsure. It isn’t like I thought they would all take this well. I grab Silla, pull her under my arm and start walking back toward the clubhouse when Psycho runs in front of me.

  “What are we doin’ with him?” he asks with a maniacal smile in place as he nods toward the ring.

  “What do you wanna do with him?”

  “Make him the goddamn bonfire.”

  “Go for it, brother,” I tell him, watching the way his face lights up like a kid at Christmas.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Ribs are bruised. I don’t think they’re broken,” Preacher says as he pokes at my sides. “Cut needs stitches. You want me to do it?”

  “I’ll do it,” Silla chimes in, shocking us all. Preacher smirks and continues looking me over. It’s fucked up now that we don’t have a doctor on hand, but for shit like this? We can handle it ourselves. Preacher checks everything until he’s satisfied nothing is too damaged.

  “Nose might be broken,” he adds. I flip him off. He acts like it would be the first time that’s happened in our lives. He chuckles and hands Silla the bag of medical supplies. He turns and leaves the room, leaving just the two of us once again. Silla pulls out everything she will need to stitch me up.

  “Done this before?” She raises her eyebrow, causing me to chuckle a little.

  “I know how to sew someone up. I’ve done it plenty of times. Even sewn a few mouths shut in my day.” I can almost hear the hint of sadness in those words. She’s going to miss killing. She’s going to miss doing what she was raised to do.

  “You don’t have to stay, Silla.”

  “Didn’t we already discuss this?” she asks, filling the syringe with numbing medicine. She leans forward, sticking it in near the cut above my eye. I just watch her work.

  “It’s hard to give up somethin’ when it’s all you know.”

  “I’m not giving up much considering what I get in return.” She moves to stitch my head and I can’t not look at her. She’s everything a man could pray for. When she’s finished and presses the bandage over her handy work, I grab her wrist before she can pull away.

  “What are you gettin’ in return?” She licks her lips and looks me in the eye.

  “You.” I lean in and press my lips to hers, tasting her. My cock swells in my jeans, pressing against the zipper painfully. Silla can feel it and moves to climb off me. It’s funny how she straddled me the whole time she cleaned me up and I was able to contain myself from taking her. Not now. Not anymore. Silla slides to her knees on the floor in front of me and unzips my jeans. Freeing my cock, she takes it in her hand and slowly pumps it up and down. I lay my head back on the couch and close my eyes just feeling her. When she leans down and wraps her perfectly shaped lips around the tip, I groan. I want to watch her. I want to see her when she’s like this. Lifting my head, I watch her as she sucks me deep into her mouth. Her wet little tongue traces the vein on the underside of my cock and I nearly raise my hips. Forcing myself to stay still, I let her do what she wants. One of her hands wraps around the base of my cock, while her lips do all the work. Someone bangs on the door and when Silla tries to pull her mouth away, I growl.

  “Don’t you dare,” I hiss. Silla smiles and goes back down but the bangs don’t stop. “Fuck off!”

  “Fuck you! It’s a party fucker! Get your ass out here,” Freak roars making me chuckle.

  “You gonna suck my cock if I come out?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Then you can wait!” I hear him chuckle on the other side of the door just as Silla drags her teeth over my flesh. I groan and grunt, my balls pulling up tight. A few more sucks and I’m coming down the back of her throat. Her hand tightens as she swallows, and she doesn’t let go until my limp cock is empty.

  “You should get out there,” she says sweetly as she likes her lips.

  “I think I should eat your pussy first,” I add.

  “We have all night for that. Besides, they’re waiting on you.” Silla climbs to her feet and the way those cut-off shorts hug her ass, I debate letting her leave this room at all. Shoving off the couch, I stand and grab her around the waist pulling her into me. The pain is there but I can’t keep my hands off her.

  “What did you want when you were little?” She looks over her shoulder, smiling up at me.

  “Random question isn’t it?”

  “No, not really. I’ve been wonderin’. I wanna know everything about you, darlin’.”

  “I guess I just really wanted to be normal. I was always raised for this which is a little shocking because most of the hitmen I know are men. There aren’t many women in our line of work, but my dad said that was about all I would be good for. The choices I had weren’t really choices at all. It was either this or be whored out.”

  “That doesn’t tell me what you wanted.”

  “I just wanted to be loved. I wanted to be wanted and to be taken care of. I wanted what a lot of girls want. A man who will love me, who will take care of me no matter what. A man who can look at my faults but can move past them. I wanted a man who could dance with my demons.” God, this woman has stolen my heart, and she doesn’t even realize it. I spin her in my arms so I can grab her face in my hands.

  “I will give you the goddamn world if that’s what you want, Silla. Everything.” She blinks rapidly trying to keep her tears at bay, but I know she’s feeling this. I lean down and kiss her just as someone bangs on the door once more. Silla laughs and I pull away shaking my head.

  “They need you.”

  “I need you.”

  “You have me, Grave.” When the banging gets louder, I huff out a breath and move toward the door. Pulling it open, I nearly punch Freak in the face, but he blocks it and laughs.

  “It’s your goddamn night, Prez. You can get your cock sucked any time. This shit doesn’t happen every day, brother,” he says with a shit-eating grin on his face. He’s right, it doesn’t, and fuck does it feel good. Silla grabs my hand and intertwines our fingers as we follow behind Freak. When I st
ep into the main room, it erupts in screams and roars of excitement. Preacher moves in, my cut in his hands. He holds it out to me, the president patch proudly on display. I take it and shrug my arms into it. People grab me, pull me into hugs, and slap my back. In the commotion, I lose Silla, but I know she won’t go far. Beers are thrust into my hand as joints are passed around the room. When I step out back, the fire dances in the sky, a sickening scent lingering. I’d like to think it was Cash’s no-good ass burning into the pits of hell.

  “You did it!” Psycho roars.

  “We did it, brother. We did it.” He nods his head although his eyes are wild. I grab his hand and pull him into a hug.

  “I’m proud of you, Grave. All the shit he’s put you through and you made it back.”

  “Don’t do that, brother. We’re gonna pull you back in too. You aren’t gone. You’re still here, man, and I’m gonna make sure I never let you stray too far, you get me?” He pulls back and looks me in the eye with tears in his own. He’s not typically a crier, like most men, but this is real. This is our lives we’re talking about here, not some story in a book.

  “We got each other, brother. Just like always.” Nodding my head, I agree.

  “Just like always.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I roll over and groan as the ache of last night sets in. My body wants to refuse to get up, but I know there is shit to get done today. A warm-bodied Silla snuggles closer into my side and I gladly welcome her. There were many days I didn’t know if keeping her around was such a good idea but that’s quickly passed now. Most guys don’t want to keep a woman around in this lifestyle because of the fear of the unknown. You take an old lady, you put a target on her back, but Silla is the marksman. She can handle herself and if she ever couldn’t, I would kill anyone who ever thought of hurting her. That thought alone should tell me how deep my feelings for her are getting. I lean down and press a kiss to Silla’s head before slowly rolling out from under her. Climbing out of bed is a feat in itself, the way my body screams at me. Ignoring it all, I head into the bathroom and start up the shower. I let the warmth work out the tension in my muscles as I think about today. First things first, I’m getting my mom out of that house as soon as I can find out who was hired to kill her. Then she can go home and live a free life but that’s not really what I’m thinking. I want her back here, at the club where she belongs. That’s going to be hell trying to convince her.

  When I finish washing, I climb out and dry and dress quickly when I notice Silla isn’t in the bed. Sneaky little shit. As I shove my feet into my boots, she strolls back in wearing one of my shirts and holding two cups of coffee.

  “Figured you would need this,” she says, holding a cup out to me. I take it and grab her with my free hand, careful not to spill hers and pull her in for a kiss.

  “I need to go talk to my mom today. I want you to ride with me.” She smiles. That smile could make me stay in bed all day with her just to see it play across her face.

  “Okay. Let me get a shower,” she says, moving into the bathroom. The door clicks shut, and I take the moment to go out and talk to Preacher, my coffee in hand. I find him sitting in the main room looking about how I feel.

  “You dead?”

  “Not a goddamn chance in hell,” he chuckles.

  “You look it,” I add.

  “Shit, brother. I feel it. I don’t think we’ve partied that hard in a long time.”

  “It’s been a while.” I drop into the chair next to him and lean forward, ready to get this talk out of the way.

  “I’m thinkin’ about askin’ my mom to come back. We need someone to keep these bitches in line around here. Cash let too much happen that we need to put a cap on.” Preacher nods his head as he nurses his own coffee.

  “I agree. You know I brought that up many times in church. He didn’t give a shit.”

  “Well I give a shit and shit is gonna change around here. We need to get a new doc on board and get Psycho back on track. I don’t like him bein’ off his meds this long.” Preacher nods, fully understanding where I’m coming from here. He knows Psycho can only get worse without it and that part scares me the most.

  “I’ve got a call into Mystic. He’s tryin’ to see if he can track down who the shooter is. Silla might have better luck with that shit though,” he adds.

  “What will Silla have better luck with?” Speak of the devil and she appears. She walks around the table and I grab her, pulling her into my lap.

  “Findin’ out who the hitman is that’s supposed to take out my mom. We got calls out,” I tell her.

  “You have to make that call we talked about first, Grave. I can’t go into detail with anyone I have connections with until I know what my dad is doing.”

  “I can do that. Let’s talk with my mom first, yeah? Then we’ll get back here and get started on your dad’s shit.”

  “What’s this shit?”

  “We need to know if her dad is the one who ordered the hit on her or if it was some random shit. She doesn’t think it’s random though,” I tell Preacher.

  “Your own dad?” he asks, looking at her as she nods.

  “I wasn’t born with a cock between my legs. That poses an issue for men like him. He threw me to the wolves, and I came out leading the pack.” Damn, I think I love this girl.

  “That’s how you do it, darlin’. You don’t let them push you down.”

  “Goddamn right,” I add.

  “Okay, so you go talk to your mom, I’m gonna get the prospects to start cleanin’ out his room,” Preacher says but I shake my head.

  “I’m not stayin’ in that room,” I tell him.

  “What the fuck, Grave? That’s the prez’s room. Your room.”

  “Not after the hell that I lived in it!”

  “The fuck, Grave? You earned this shit! Fuck what happened in the past. It’s done. You ended it. Move forward, brother.”

  “He’s right. You earned it, Grave. Take what you deserve, baby.” She has never called me that until just now and my cock seems to like it. After what I lived through in this clubhouse, I should burn it to the fucking ground and start over, but they might be right. This isn’t just about Cash. This is about all the brothers who came before him. The ones who stood up for what this club was meant to be.

  “Fine. Get them to move our shit in there,” I tell him. He raises an eyebrow, no doubt, hearing the word our.

  “Our?”

  “Yes, our. Silla ain’t goin’ anywhere and when I get shit handled the right way, you can bet your ass we’re havin’ another party when I make her my old lady, officially.” Silla squirms in my lap before turning to look over her shoulder.

  “We haven’t discussed all that,” she says.

  “I think we did the other night when my face was buried between your thighs and then discussed it again when I was balls deep inside you. I gave you the choice to leave, and you didn’t take it. You’re mine now,” I growl.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Have you lost your mind completely, Greyson?” My mom asks as she stares at me. I sit on the couch grinning with a cigarette between my lips, shaking my head.

  “No. In fact, I’ve been thinkin’ about this for a long time now.”

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  “Mom, think about it. You were happy there once before.”

  “And he ruined it for me, Greyson! The club went to shit, and I hated everything he did there!”

  “He ain’t there anymore,” I remind her with a smirk.

  “And I still can’t believe you did that! You could have been killed! Did you tell him he could have been killed?” She looks to Silla.

  “He doesn’t really listen to me.” She smiles.

  “He doesn’t listen to anyone.”

  “Mom, come on. I need someone who can keep the club on track when I have shit to do. You were his old lady for a long time. You know how shit goes. Think about it?” I ask her. She shakes her head and keeps paci
ng the room.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know that I want to be a part of that anymore.”

  “It’s not gonna be the same as before. I’m fixin’ it. I’m makin’ it better,” I tell her. She stops walking and turns to look at me with a strange look in her eyes. “What? What is that look?”

  “Before this shitstorm came blowing in, I was seeing someone.”

  “Seein’ someone? Who the fuck are you seein’?”

  “Greyson!”

  “Well?”

  “He isn’t in a club. He’s just a guy,” she says. Silla giggles when I turn to glare at her. She just shrugs. I drag my hand through my hair as I blow out a breath.

  “You’re fuckin’ with me, right?”

  “No, I’m not. I have a life. Fuck, Grave, I’m not dead!”

  “Don’t even go there. I do not wanna hear about your sex life.”

  “Why not? I used to have to hear about whatever skank you were sinking your cock into at the time,” she snaps. Silla laughs this time. A full out laugh and when me and my mom turn to look at her, she covers her mouth with her hand.

  “I’m sorry. That’s just funny and she’s right, Grave. She isn’t old and she wants a future.”

  “Why are you helpin’ her?” I snap.

  “I’m not. Okay, I am but I know what it feels like to be alone and have nothing. Let her have that,” she adds.

  “She can have it at the clubhouse!”

  “You think I want to drag him into that world?” my mom snaps once more.