by Kati Wilde
Giving It All
Kati Wilde
Contents
Giving It All
1. Saxon
2. Jenny
3. Saxon
4. Saxon
5. Jenny
6. Saxon
7. Jenny
8. Saxon
9. Jenny
10. Saxon
11. Jenny
12. Saxon
Also by Kati Wilde
Reading Order
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Giving It All
A Hellfire Riders MC Romance
This Christmas, the Hellfire Riders must repay an old debt that could tear Saxon Gray’s world apart…
If a club owes a favor, then a club pays up when that favor’s called in. So when the Hellfire Riders are asked to hide someone away at the ranch over the holidays, as club president I’m obligated to accept—even though the old man we’re protecting sure as hell ain’t Ol’ Saint Nick. He’s my father.
But the conniving old man better not expect a heartwarming Christmas reunion. The only family that matters to me now is Jenny Erickson—whose grief-shattered heart hasn’t had time to heal since cancer took her dad. She’s too fragile, so I’ll do anything to keep the old bastard away from her. But I never imagined I might be the one who was hurting her…
1
Saxon
The Hellfire Riders’ warlord did not just say what I think he said. There’s nothing but silence in the office as I stare at Blowback, trying to figure out which word I misheard. But the big bastard’s not giving anything away. He just sits in the chair in front of my desk, staring right back.
I shake my head. “Say that again?”
Voice flat, dark eyes inscrutable, Blowback says the same damn thing he said before.
“I married Lily.”
Married. To another Hellfire Rider, Zoomie—the only female Rider. They hooked up a few months ago, and he’s living at her place, so maybe it’s not so unexpected…
No, it’s still not sinking in.
Blowback might be crazy about her but he’s completely fucked up, emotionally. I never figured he’d risk marrying anyone. And Zoomie, shit. She’s never held on to a man—or a woman—for much longer than a single night.
And now they’re married?
I glance at the only other man in the room. My veep, Thorne, has got twenty-five years on both Blowback and me. He’s been around, seen some crazy shit. I don’t know if he’s seen anything like this. Two patchholders, married.
But if he’s surprised, there’s no sign of it on his weathered face. Instead he’s sitting back in his chair, grinning.
Hell. I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to ward off a headache. “So what does this mean for the club? There’s no clause in the Constitution that covers this situation, that’s for damn sure.”
“It means nothing,” Blowback says. “I’ve no intention of telling the brothers and it won’t change a thing for me and Lily here. But as you’re the prez, I figured you should know.”
“It means nothing? Bullshit. You can’t marry a woman and tell me that doesn’t change your priorities.”
“I can tell you that.” There’s nothing in his eyes when he answers. “Married or not, my priorities are exactly the same.”
A chuckle has me glancing at Thorne. Apparently amused as hell, the older man says, “Which means Lily is first, either way.”
Yeah, I figured that. I can’t give Blowback shit about it, either. There’s a lot of words in the Constitution that talk about the club always coming first for the members, that say a patchholder should always put his brothers above everyone else, even their own blood. But we all know there’s some who wouldn’t, and that includes me. Because there’s a dark-haired, green-eyed woman who could make me walk away from the Hellfire Riders, if she ever asked me to—and if my being in the club was hurting her, she wouldn’t even need to ask. Jenny is always first for me.
Since Zoomie’s got the club up high on her list of priorities, though, I can’t see how their marriage will change much.
“All right, then,” I say, as if that approval means shit. There’s not much I can do about the situation now.
After throwing a wry glance at me, Thorne adds, “Congratulations, Jack.”
Blowback accepts that with an abrupt nod.
And I’m being an asshole. Typically I don’t care if I am. But Blowback’s been at my side for years. There’s not one brother I trust more at my back. I just don’t like surprises, because too often they’re the kind that land you in the emergency room with a doctor digging shotgun lead out of your shoulder. And Blowback’s usually the one who makes sure nothing sneaks up on me, so I doubly didn’t expect the surprise coming from him.
But all that aside, this is the best fucking news I’ve heard in a while.
“Congratulations, brother,” I say, then reach over the desk. Blowback shakes my hand and I pull a smile out of him when I add, “So you locked Zoomie down tight, huh? Smart man. I’m not sure which of you is luckier.”
“I am,” he says. No doubt in his voice at all.
And he’s probably right. Zoomie is one hell of a woman.
“One thing for sure, you’re not going to have a single boring minute.” I settle back into my chair. “So how are you going to keep this quiet?” Pine Valley is a small town with a lot of big mouths. “Did you go to the county clerk’s office? Because you know Grasshopper’s old lady works there.”
“We did it in Vegas,” he says.
Vegas? Zoomie and Blowback were there the first week of November and I know they haven’t gone back since. I stare at him, once again thinking I didn’t hear him right. “That was almost two months ago.”
“That’s right.”
“And you just got around to saying something?” So much for As you’re the prez, I figured you should know.
He shrugs. “At least I got around to it.”
With a snort of laughter, Thorne gets up. “I’d say this calls for a drink. Give me a minute.”
Yeah, a drink. I get up, too. Not to head out of the office, as Thorne’s doing, but because my booted feet are suddenly restless and my lungs are tight, as if something thick got lodged in my chest. I head over to the big windows overlooking the woods behind the clubhouse. There’s snow all over the place. It only started this morning, but a good four inches have already piled up, with more fat flakes drifting down. If this keeps up, it’s going to be a fucking white Christmas. Pretty as hell, sure—if what it looks like mattered. All I care about is how ice and snow make for the worst goddamn weather to ride a motorcycle in. We’ll all be driving around in cages for a couple of weeks.
Without glancing around, I tell Blowback, “Make sure the brothers who rode their bikes out here this morning have a lift home.”
“I’ll arrange it,” he says.
“And tell them to read a motherfucking weather report next time.”
“I will. You got something else to say?”
The goddamn bastard can read me like no one else can. Like he can see right into me, see the shit clogging up my chest. Maybe he doesn’t know exactly what it is, but he knows it’s there.
I know what it is. Jealousy. Or envy. Or whatever the fuck it’s called when your brother puts a ring on his woman’s finger, not just making her his but making her HIS, in goddamn capital letters on a legal dotted line. And you can’t claim your own woman the same way. Instead you can have her smile and her heart and her warm body next to yours every night and you tell yourself that’s all you need when you sink your cock into her, when she’s coming and crying your name and every part of her is squeezing you tight. The truth
is, though, you want more—and you can’t have it.
Yet.
But fuck me if I’m going to talk about my feelings. “No.”
“Good,” he tells me. “Because I’m so fucking pleased with myself for marrying Lily, I don’t want to hear any of your bullshit.”
The look I give him would have sent just about any other Rider scurrying away. Not Blowback. He only sits there, wearing a smug grin.
And any other Rider, I’d be knocking out his teeth for speaking to me with such disrespect. But Blowback, he’s got allowances. I rely on him to call me on my shit, to pull me back to level. And he does, but he’s careful to never yank my chain in front of the others, to never undermine my position.
That’s why his expression rolls straight back to inscrutable when Thorne returns, carrying three lowball glasses in a cloverleaf between the fingers of his right hand, and a black box topped with a big red bow in his left.
“A Christmas present from a client.” He sets the tumblers on my desk and starts opening the box. “He put in over five million on an irrigation project Red and I finished up for him this year, so either he’s so fucking broke now we’re about to drink pig swill, or he’s still flush with cash and we’re about to drink some mighty fine scotch.”
I’ll go with mighty fine. We carry that label at my tavern. One bottle. And it doesn’t go on the top shelf—instead it’s locked up. “It’ll do.”
Thorne pours two fingers into the first glass, hands it to Blowback. “We ought to invite Zoomie in, too. But maybe that’ll be the second round. I’ve got something else to put in front of you.”
“Then put it,” I say before rolling a swallow of scotch over my tongue. God damn, that’s smooth. Something Jenny might love. At her brewery, she mostly makes beer, but she’s got a real appreciation for fine liquor. So a bottle of good Scotch whisky might be something I can wrap up for her and give Christmas morning. Otherwise, I can’t figure out what the hell to get her. There’s nothing she wants that she doesn’t already have.
Except for her father. But that’s one thing I can’t give. Cancer took Red from her only a month ago. The shadows haven’t left her eyes since and she’s built up a wall of pain and grief.
I’d give anything to ease it for her. Knowing how she’s hurting, I’ve walked around with a solid ache in my chest. But I can’t tell if anything I’ve done for her has helped or if I’ve just made it harder. One day, I’ll do something to make her smile, and the next day, doing the same thing will make her burst into tears.
And Jenny’s tears, Jesus. They rip my heart out.
I just don’t know what the hell to do. Fucking useless to her, that’s what I am. I can’t even come up with a goddamn gift worth giving. What am I thinking—after losing her dad, is an expensive bottle of liquor supposed to mean shit to her? Is it supposed to make it all better? Fucking hell.
Just fucking hell.
The next swallow doesn’t go down near as easy. His eyebrows pinching together, Thorne eyes me but doesn’t say anything about how I just tossed back the scotch like a cheap tequila shot. Instead he starts talking business.
“I got a message from the Sand Demons’ prez,” he says. “You know him?”
“I know of him.” From seeing that club at rallies and just because knowing about other MCs in the state is part of doing business. The Sand Demons are a small outfit from a town on the southern Oregon coast. Low-key, they stay mostly out of trouble with the law and with other clubs. That doesn’t mean they aren’t doing shit that could get them in trouble, though. It only means they’ve done a good job taking care of any trouble that comes up. “Name is Anthill, yeah?”
“That’s right.”
I flick a glance at Blowback. I’ve got a general handle on the other clubs in the state, but it’s his job to know the details of their operations. Right now the warlord is just listening, not sitting forward as if he intends to say something, which tells me there’s nothing about the Sand Demons he thinks is worth mentioning yet. “What was his message?”
“He wants to call in an old favor—wants the Riders to do a little babysitting. They’ve got an asset in trouble and Anthill wants to hide it away for a few days while they take care of the threat.”
An asset. Thorne’s not being vague on purpose. Anthill probably didn’t tell him exactly what that asset was. But it’s not hard to guess. Clubs like to protect their moneymakers. Babysitting means that moneymaker is a person.
Babysitting also means they don’t expect the threat to come here. Anthill’s not asking us for protection, just to keep the person out of sight.
Easy enough, unless whoever they want to hide away will be a problem.
I look to Blowback. “What are they into? They pimping out girls? Selling them?”
Because if they are, I’m not touching that shit.
“Meth,” he says immediately, his flat gaze steady on mine. “High quality, large quantity. So if they’re looking to hide someone away for a while, it’s probably their cook.”
Because a good meth cook brings in a hell of a lot of money. “You think he’s being poached by another club?”
Blowback hesitates just an instant. It’s enough to make the skin on the back of my neck tighten. Hesitating isn’t in Blowback’s nature.
Waiting isn’t in mine. “Spit it out.”
His jaw clenches, then he says, “If it’s their cook, I suspect it won’t be another club coming for him. It’ll be someone he owes money to.”
Enough money that he has to hide away? Combined with Blowback’s reluctance to tell me more about this cook, I’m starting to suspect the name he hasn’t said yet. “Who is it?”
Blowback looks me square in the eye. “Frank Carlisle.”
My father. Huh.
I glance at Thorne. Carlisle used to live in Pine Valley, so my veep probably recognizes the name. His eyes narrow as he puts two and two together, and a flush rides up under his jaw. Goddamn pissed, because even clubs holding info close to their chests should know better than to keep their mouths shut regarding that sort of detail. It’s real hard to believe Anthill didn’t know of my relationship to one of his men and he should have said something.
“Tell Anthill,” I say softly, “Merry Christmas, and he can go fuck himself.”
Thorne’s jaw works. Pissed off at Anthill, maybe feeling like he was played, but there’s more than anger that I’m reading on his grizzled face. There’s steel resolve, too.
“I can’t,” he grates out. “Anthill’s calling in a favor.”
And if a club owes a favor, then a club pays up. Usually, I’d honor that. But I’ve no intention of honoring this one—and, thank fuck, I’ve got a way out. “From the Hellfire Riders or from the Steel Titans?”
I ask, knowing the answer. The Riders don’t owe shit to the Sand Demons. And although I folded the Steel Titans MC into the club a few months back, bringing in all their patchholders—including Thorne—they’re not Titans anymore. No one’s going to hold the Hellfire Riders accountable for promises the Steel Titans made.
Though if it were anyone else asking, I’d pay those debts. Hell, if someone else walked through the door with a Titan IOU in hand, I’d pay it this second. But I’m not paying this one. Let whoever’s looking for Frank Carlisle find him. I don’t give a fuck.
“From the Titans,” Thorne confirms what I already knew. “But this favor was for Red, personally. He just used the Titans’ name to secure it.”
Red—Jenny’s father.
Something tightens in my chest. Red was the Steel Titans’ president. When he got sick, he was the one who came to me, asked me to fold the clubs together…and to take care of Jenny.
Fuck. I push up out of my chair, stalk to the window. Red’s dead. No one can call in any favor from him. And it’s not my responsibility to pay Red’s debts…but I can’t turn my back on this.
Maybe Thorne thinks I am, though, because he adds quietly, “It was about Jenny.”
Everythi
ng in me goes rigid. About Jenny? That doesn’t make any sense. What kind of favor would Red need to ask? Jenny’s father had money of his own and a club behind him. If Jenny had been in trouble, he wouldn’t have asked for any favors—he’d have taken care of the trouble himself, even if it meant dying for it. The same way Thorne would.
The same way I would.
My blood rises straight to a boil. I’ve got ‘Jenny’ and ‘danger’ in my head now, and everything in me is ready to tear apart anything that ever threatened her.
I face Thorne again. “Tell me.”
The older man was close enough to Red that Jenny grew up calling him ‘Uncle.’ And whatever he’s about to tell me has him wound tight, the smoker’s rasp in his voice deepening. “It was about when Reichmann got her down.”
Just the mention of that is a jagged screw in my heart, twisting hard and ripping me open. Fifteen years ago, Jenny was at a rally with the Steel Titans and she accidentally wandered into a part of the field claimed by a skinhead club. The head of that club, Reichmann, got his hands on her, shoved her to the ground and was about to rape her in front of his men.
I didn’t know Jenny then. Had no idea she was the daughter of the Titans’ prez. But I was hanging out nearby, saw what was happening, and charged in. I kicked the fucker off her—a boot to the head that ended up killing him.
I got five years in prison for manslaughter. I’ve never regretted a second. And I know Red only regretted he hadn’t been the one to kill Reichmann.
Thorne pours another scotch, then refills mine. Blowback’s still nursing his first. “There wasn’t nothing left for Red to take care of. Reichmann was dead. That ate at him, but it was what it was. And he didn’t see anything of what happened. Just heard about it after, from what little Jenny said and what others told us. But all that mattered then was making sure she was all right. That meant keeping her away from the cops, trying to see that she never had to think of it again. Even when it looked like you’d be going away for worse than you did.”