Hell on Wheels (Kings of Mayhem MC Book 4)

by Penny Dee

  “Any idea who did this?” he asked us.

  “You’re the police,” I snapped. “Shouldn’t we be asking you that?”

  I was angry at myself for not seeing this threat coming at us. If it wasn’t for my gun-toting grandmother, things could’ve gone south real quick.

  “A few people out here on the river have reported B & E’s. We weren’t sure if it was kids or not. But there has been a spate of them in the last week, so they are more than likely related.”

  “You’ve had reports of B & E’s along the river, and we’re just hearing about this now?” I growled.

  “It’s police business, son.”

  “We pay you to make it our business,” I barked at him. Christ, if anything had happened to Cassidy. “And when I have someone I’m protecting, I should know about this… fuck!”

  “You’re protecting someone?” Bucky stepped closer. “And why am I just hearing about this now?”

  Touché.

  Bull put a hand between us, and I stepped back. I was beyond frustrated. I should never have left Cassidy alone before the prospect got here. I was distracted by my feelings for her. If I hadn’t been, I would’ve seen this coming.

  “Think it’s time we had a word with those boys from the Tribe,” Bull said. “Quinn said they’ve been hanging out at Coota’s.”

  Coota’s was a bar just out of town. Far enough for Bull not to worry about them lingering too close to our territory.

  “Just don’t make it a bloody word,” Bucky said wearily. “I don’t want the paperwork.”

  “Relax, Bucky,” Cade said. “Coota’s isn’t in your jurisdiction. Sheriff Pamela would get this particular headache, and I’m pretty sure she will see it from Bull’s point of view.” He gave Bull a raised eyebrow. Bull’s affair with Sheriff Pamela from our neighboring county was the worst kept secret in both counties.

  “I’m coming,” I said. “I’ve got a few things I’d like to say to them.”

  With my fists. Over and over until they get the message.

  “No, you take Cassidy back to the clubhouse until we get this mess sorted,” Bull said. His eyes told me to not fight him on this. “You take care of her.”

  I nodded and turned to Cassidy. “Go pack your things and we’ll head back to the clubhouse.”

  When she disappeared into the bedroom, I turned to Grandma Sybil.

  “Let’s get out of here. The prospects can clean this up.”

  “You go on right ahead. I’ll just take care of the brownies and then I’ll be right behind you,” Grandma Sybil said.

  I shook my head. “We’re not leaving you here alone. It’s not safe.”

  Grandma Sybil waved me off. “Those babies aren’t coming back. Probably gone home to change their shorts. Little punks.”

  “I’ll stay and help Grandma Sybil with the brownies,” Maverick said with a grin. “And if those freaks come back, I’m sure Ma Baker and I can handle it.”

  CASSIDY

  “You okay?” Chance asked as we walked into his bedroom at the clubhouse.

  I dumped my bag on the bed and turned around. “Do you really think those men were there for stashed weed. I mean, they knew whose house they were breaking into, but I get the feeling there was something else going on.”

  He drew me into his arms. “I know it was scary for you, angel, but you’re safe now.” He wiped my cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I didn’t see this coming. If Bucky had told me earlier about the break-ins along the river, I would never have left you.”

  “It’s okay. Your badass granny kicked their butts.” I couldn’t help but chuckle as I remembered the old lady and her shotgun.

  Chance grinned and that warm gooey feeling came back again.

  “I’m all yours for the rest of the day. What do you want to do?” he said, pulling me to him by the hips.

  I knew the perfect distraction.

  I reached up on tiptoes to kiss his beautiful lips. “I know exactly how I want to spend the afternoon.”

  He grinned into our kiss. “I have a feeling I’m going to like what you’re suggesting.”

  Two minutes later, we were lying on the bed with another episode of Game of Thrones playing on the TV.

  “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he murmured against my shoulder. He lay behind me, my body resting on his broad chest, my arm spread across his solid abs. Here I felt secure. Safe and hopeful.

  I reached up and felt for my necklace. But it wasn’t there.

  I sat up abruptly and looked around me.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “My necklace.” I frowned, peeling back the layers of memory to when I had it last. I took it off before I went to bed and hadn’t put it back on. It was still in the cabin.

  I started to put on my boots.

  “Whoa, what are you doing?”

  “I have to get it. It’s too important to leave out there.”

  “We can’t go back out there tonight,” Chance said calmly.

  “But you don’t understand, it’s the most important thing I own in this world.”

  “I know how important it is to you.” He laced his fingers through mine. “But it will be dark soon, and it’s too risky to go now. We’ll go tomorrow, okay?”

  It wasn’t okay. But what choice did I have?

  I lay back down and pulled his arms around me, letting the warmth of his massive body thaw the frost of my anxiety and eventually lull me into a peaceful sleep.

  CASSIDY

  I woke up much later in the dead of the night to find Chance sitting on the edge of the bed. In the low light, I could see he was leaning forward, his broad shoulders hunched, his forearms resting on his knees. He was lost in thought. Troubled.

  I sat up and slid across the bed, moving behind him to rest my chin on one of his big shoulders. Something was up. He was somewhere else.

  Finally, his deep voice broke the shadows.

  “When I was deployed, we were sent to a little town in the middle of nowhere to set up camp.” In the dead of the night, his words hung heavily in the air around us. “When you stay in one place long enough, you meet people. You develop friendships.” I heard him swallow. Felt the regret coming of him. “I met someone over there. It was months before anything happened. But when you’re lonely and you’re missing home… war is a different place. She was offering comfort. Something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Something I didn’t realize I was missing so badly.”

  “Did you love her?” My voice was not my own. It came out of me before I had a chance to stop it.

  He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. At one stage, I thought I might be able to if I gave it time.” He turned to look at me, his jaw tight. “Turns out, she was someone we were looking for. Someone capable of some pretty fucked-up shit. I didn’t know until I saw her in my sights and my commander was telling me to take her out.”

  In my head, I was picturing him lying on his belly, his face lowered to the scope of his gun, his heart breaking when she came into view. I couldn’t help but wonder what she looked like. Was her hair long? Was it dark? Did he look at her the same way he looked at me?

  “Did you?” I asked, my voice just a whisper. “Take her out?”

  He looked back to his hands in front of him. “Just before the missile hit the building we were in, I shot and killed her.”

  I stiffened involuntarily and he noticed. His brows drew in and his torment was a dark shadow on his face. My heart ached for him. This big man, with his broad shoulders and strong body, was in pain from the leftovers of war.

  “Everyone in my team was killed.” He dropped his head. “Everyone except me.”

  “Because of your involvement with her?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “At first, I thought so. But there was an investigation, and they cleared me. Intel confirmed she and her brothers didn’t know we were there. An insurgent was alerted to our position when one of my team dropped his canteen,
and it hit the rubble three stories below and landed beside him. He was the one who fired the missile.” I heard him swallow. Felt his body get rigid. “Another SEAL team was with us. Seven, of their team of eight, survived.”

  I ran my hand over on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “I should have told you earlier,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He turned to look at me. “So you knew who you were getting involved with.”

  This right here… this is why he thinks he’s a monster.

  I slid my legs on either side of him and wrapped my hands around his thick waist. I pressed my cheek to his scarred back and exhaled deeply against his warm skin.

  “I wish you could see me as I see you,” I said softly.

  I could feel the violent thump of his heartbeat. Felt his abs tremble when my hands brushed over them.

  “I’ll never hurt you,” he rasped out.

  “I already know that. I just wish you did.”

  He twisted around to face me and reached up to cup my jaw. “I will do anything and everything to protect you. That’s my word.”

  I smiled at him, my heart warmed by the gesture. I scooted back across the bed and reached for his hand, pulling him toward me. He settled on top of me. Easing my legs apart, he effortlessly pushed into me.

  He kissed me and it was slow, his hands moving purposefully as they slid down the length of me. I sank back into the pillows and got lost in what he did to me. But then he stopped rocking. Stopped the delicious friction of his stroking to look me in the eye. He pushed his fingers through my hair.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  Magic lit up inside of me.

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I loved him too, but he pressed a finger to my lips. Torment registered on his face and I watched his throat work as he swallowed thickly.

  “You don’t have to say anything.” His eyes searched mine, reaching deep, and I realized now was not the time. I relaxed beneath him, and as I looked up into his handsome face, drew his finger into my mouth.

  I felt him flex inside of me, felt the shallow rock of his hips become a deeper grind, heard the pleasure in his moan as he began to make love to me again.

  But this time it was different. The L-bomb had exploded and hung in the air around us, fusing emotion to every movement, every moan, and every lip-searing kiss. He entwined his fingers through mine and pinned them to the bed as he moved deeper into me, grinding against my clit until the pressure became too much, and I came hard beneath him.

  “You’re so beautiful when you come,” he moaned against my neck. “I want to hear it again.”

  He thrust my arms above my head and held them there with one hand while the other kneaded my breast. The touch of his tongue on my nipple sent electricity zipping through me, but then his mouth closed over it and joined in the torment with luxurious agony. All of this while his gloriously hard cock continued to thrust into me.

  It was an assault against all my senses. A sweet torture. A mind-blowing ambush that sent raw pleasure streaming through every vein. My second orgasm roared through me with no warning. My back arched and I clawed the bed sheet, crying out into the dim light of his room. Because I was clenching him tightly, Chance groaned against my throat, his breath hot, his skin slick as he came with a violent shudder, his cock pumping his release into me.

  With a growl, he collapsed against me, and I basked in the heat and the comforting pressure of his naked body blanketing mine.

  I love you.

  His whispered declaration of love settled through me, bringing warmth and happiness.

  But it was as unexpected as it was wonderful, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was too soon. If it was said in the bliss of sex. Or if it was felt because of the high intensity of the situation.

  My fingers slid across the tight skin of his scar and he didn’t flinch. That, in and of itself, spoke volumes.

  What we had.

  It was real.

  CHANCE

  The following morning, we were finishing up chapel when Bull received a phone call from one of his informants on the street.

  “We’ve got a lead,” he said, shoving his phone into his cut. “Apparently Vander Quinn had a drug problem and talk on the street is she owed her dealer a lot of coin.”

  “Who’s her dealer?” Ruger asked.

  “Laurent de Havilland.”

  “Do we know where Laurent is?” I asked.

  “He’s missing.”

  “Of course he is,” I replied.

  “According to my sources she liked playing around with meth. Namely, sapphire meth.”

  “You thinking she got her gear from the Swampers?” Maverick asked.

  “The Swampers?” Animal looked confused.

  “Lowlife rednecks who cook meth and still think it’s 1959 when it comes to civil rights and women’s liberation.”

  Bull was being diplomatic.

  The Swampers were racist, chauvinist pigs who knocked up their sisters.

  They also cooked swamp-meth. Nasty, vile shit that chewed out your teeth and took your soul. It was also a very recognizable due to its bright blue color. Hence the name sapphire meth.

  Fortunately, they kept to themselves. They destroyed their own lives and those of their kind with their swamp crank. It never made it into our town. They had tried peddling it in Destiny once. A while ago now. Back when the president’s rank was new to Bull’s cut and the death of his wife still lingered in his bones as fresh as the day she died.

  He had paid the Swampers a visit and showed them what happened when people came into our town and tried peddling teeth-chewing drugs. Blood had thickened the backwaters of the border into Louisiana that afternoon, and no Swamper had been to our town since.

  They didn’t like the Kings of Mayhem cut, and Bull intimidated the fuck out of them. So it was no wonder our arrival was met with a convoy of dilapidated pickups and men in trucker caps carrying shotguns.

  Three men approached while seven hung back. Right away, I could see the weird looking motherfucker with the handlebar mustache and ginger sideburns was some kind of leader of the group. Despite being a good head shorter than the others, and with a voice usually saved for jockeys, he exuded crazy like it was pheromones.

  “Whataya doing here, Bull?” he whined, squinting his eyes against the midday sun as he looked up at our prez.

  “I want to talk to Snake,” Bull said, straight to the point.

  “And what business you got with our mayor?”

  Just as we all were, the Swampers were governed by federal law and local law enforcement, but that didn’t stop them creating a sovereign government within their community. They were led by a slimy guy appropriately named Snake.

  “That’s for me to discuss with Snake,” Bull said.

  Ginger Fuzz and Bull stared off for a moment before the little man spat a wad of wet tobacco out of his foul mouth. “Guess I better take you to him.”

  “You guessed right,” Bull replied.

  Ginger Fuzz and his associates led the way as we headed into the swamp and crossed a rickety wooden bridge toward a house buried deep in the water oaks and Spanish moss.

  “Man, this is real The Hills Have Eyes shit,” Maverick muttered, all six-foot-six of him looking squeamish.

  “It smells like decomposing bodies ’round here,” Vader said. “Do they bury their dead above ground in this part of town?”

  “Bury? Once a Swamper dies, they’re gator food,” Ruger replied.

  “Pet food.” Maverick grinned. “Just another way of keeping it in the family.”

  Despite smiling at the conversation, Bull said, “Keep your focus, boys. Not to mention your eyes on the greenery. You can’t be too sure what’s lurking in them.”

  The wooden bridge gave way to a mud path leading up to the house. It was an eerie place. Despite be open and seemingly harmless from the outside, there was a heavy sense evil in the air. And weirdness.

  Not to mentio
n decomposition of some kind.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Michael Western and his band of merry men,” came a voice from a hammock hanging between two water oaks.

  We all turned to see Snake lying casually in the afternoon sun. He had sunglasses on and was wearing dirty jeans and a T-shirt with a near-naked woman on the front.

  He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the hammock, slowly rising to his bare feet. “So what do I owe the pleasure of the mighty Michael Western darkening my doorstep?” He chewed a toothpick with his rotted teeth.

  Bull held out his hands. “You don’t pick up your phone, you don’t call, how else am I going to know how my crazy Swamper friend is doing?”

  Snake removed the toothpick from between his lips. “Friend? I don’t think so. We stopped being friends the day you came in here and blew holes in my family.”

  “They shot first.”

  “You killed my cousins.”

  “You brought drugs into my town and wouldn’t listen to reason. You forced my hand. Their blood is on yours.”

  Snake’s jaw ticked. He removed his sunglasses. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know where Laurent de Havilland is hiding out.”

  Snake’s eyes shifted to a pocket of trees to the side of the house then back to Bull. It was so quick I wasn’t sure anyone noticed. But I did. And there, just through the leaves, I could make out a flash of bright red paint.

  My wife is dead and her red Mustang is missing.

  “Name isn’t familiar,” Snake said.

  “Cut the shit, Snake. We know he’s on your payroll. So stop wasting our fucking time. Where the fuck is Laurent de Havilland.”

  “And why would you be looking for him?”

  “We’re investigating the murder of Vander Quinn.”

  “Name’s not familiar.”

  “Just like Laurent de Havilland wasn’t familiar, huh?” Maverick said.

  “If you’re not familiar with Vander Quinn, why is her car parked through those trees?” I asked, stepping forward.

  Brandishing a shotgun, one of Snake’s buddies stepped between us, the stony look on his face telling me he didn’t have a problem blowing a hole in any of us.