Contents
Cast of Characters
Cast of Characters - Arizona Chapter
Satan’s Devils
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue
Other Works by Manda Mellett
Glossary
Acknowledgments
Stay in Touch
About the Author
Copyright
Published 2019 by Trish Haill Associates
Copyright Manda Mellett
Book and Cover Design by Lia Rees at Free Your Words
(www.freeyourwords.com)
Edited and formatted by Maggie Kern at Ms.K Edits
Proofreading by Melanie Darrow at Professional Writing Services
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book reviews.
www.mandamellett.com
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Warning
This book is dark in places and contains content of a sexual, abusive and violent nature. It is not suitable for persons under the age of 18.
Cast of Characters
Colorado Chapter
Officers
Demon – President - Old Lady Violet
Children: Theo
Buzzard – Secretary/Treasurer - Old Lady Sindy
Thunder – Sergeant-At-Arms
Mace – Enforcer
Sparky – Road Captain
Patched Members
Hellfire - Old Lady – Moira
Children – Demon, Kennedy, Samuel
Bomber - Old Lady – Jeannie
Cad
Ink
Lizard
Pyro
Paladin - Old Lady Jayden
Rusty
Skull
Prospects
Dan
Wills
Smithy – Failed Prospect
Sweet Butts
Bella
Breezy
Sheila
Titsy
Tulia
Deceased Members
Blackie – Previous President
Furnace – Previous VP
Ingot – Previous Enforcer
Taser
Arizona Chapter
Officers
Drummer – President- Old Lady – Sam
Children – Eli
Wraith – Vice President - Old Lady – Sophie
Children – Olivia
Heart – Secretary - Old Lady – Marcia
Children – Amy, Jacob, Isabel
Dollar – Treasurer
Peg – Sergeant-At-Arms - Old Lady – Darcy
Children – Noah
Blade – Enforcer - Old Lady – Tash
Joker – Road Captain
Children: Maya (niece)
Mouse – Computer Expert - Old Lady – Marianna
Patched Members
Bullet - Old Lady – Carmen
Beef
Hyde
Jekyll
Lady
Marvel
Roadrunner
Rock - Old Lady – Becca
Slick - Old Lady – Ella
Shooter
Viper Old Lady – Sandy
Drifter
Truck
Prospects
Matt
Hound
Roadkill
Deceased Members
Adam
Buster
Tongue
Hank
Bertram
Chapter One
“Fuck! Break it up. Get them a-fuckin’-part.”
Four arms come around me, two bodies pulling me back. I continue to swing blindly for a moment, hearing swearing and an oomph before I’m better restrained.
“For fuck’s sake, Beef. What’s got into you?” Lady, far stronger than he looks, snarls into my ear.
“You want to take me next?” Peg, the sergeant-at-arms of the Satan’s Devils Tucson chapter, growls. “’Cos I’ll fuckin’ break you in two.”
The voices at last seep through the red fog in my mind. As the mist clears, Rock comes into view, standing in front of me, ruefully rubbing his jaw while moving it side to side as if to test it. One of his eyes is already swelling and is surely going to be black tomorrow. What the fuck have I done?
“Becca’s going to be fuckin’ furious with you, Beef,” Rock warns, as he shrugs off Drummer’s assistance and question as to whether he should call Doc. “What the fuck just happened?”
I don’t know. That’s the plain truth of it. Rock’s my best friend. Has been since we prospected together. Tonight, at our monthly sparring match, I just lost my fucking mind and took out all my frustration on him. My eyes catch his, wincing at his left eye that’s closing more by the second.
“Brother, I…” I stop. How can I apologise when I don’t know what the fuck happened?
“Suggest you go cool off,” barks our president, Drummer. “Whatever’s between you two, sort it the fuck out, and not with your fists, Beef.”
Rock’s looking at me, more curious than pissed off. He knows better than anyone, losing control is so unlike me. Shit, Becca. That little girl doesn’t deserve me sending her man back to her in pieces. Tomorrow she’ll no doubt give me a piece of her mind, and I won’t stop her. I love that girl like a sister. Or more than that, I admit to myself. Maybe that’s part of the problem.
It hits me then, why my anger came out and why the target was Rock, the man who’s now confidently turning his back on me, his action showing he knows whatever drove me to act out of character has left me. Peg and Lady feel my body relaxing and release me at the same time. I follow Rock down from the ring, squeezing my large body through the ropes and dropping down to the floor.
Instead of going off to examine his injuries, he’s waiting for me. “Want to talk about it?”
My shoulders rise and fall. “Probably need to, Rock. But not now, okay?”
“You gonna sort,” the prez’s hand waves between Rock and me, “whatever this is, out?”
“Sure, Drummer. Look, I’m sorry, okay?” It’s not okay. But the lame apology is all I can offer. Hitting out at Rock, taking out my frustration on him as I can’t hit or
shout at the person to whom my anger is really directed. Or, more realistically, at myself, and the situation I’ve found myself in.
“Go home, Beef,” Rock tells me, his eye now completely shut. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
But I don’t want to talk, tomorrow, the next day, or the one after. The mess I’m in is completely of my own making.
“My office, ten o’clock. You hear me, Beef?”
I hear Drummer loud and clear. Seems my president has had enough of my recent behaviour, my sour moods, my sulks, which culminated tonight in turning what should have been a friendly bout into something that could have become a murder scene had I not been pulled off by my brothers.
A chin raise to him, then I purse my lips as I view Rock again, his hand stroking his jaw as he tries to ease the ache there. I got off uninjured as he, at least, was pulling his punches. If he hadn’t, one of us may well have ended up dead.
Prez has a right to be concerned.
Eyes follow me as I leave. Wraith, the VP, shaking his head. Blade looking confused. Joker looking from me to his partner Lady, even Heart’s face is set and angry. All I can do is raise my hands in general apology and stride out through the clubroom into the fresh night air.
Home. That was where Rock suggested I go. Home. But where the fuck is that now? The home I want to go to is my suite adjacent to Rock’s that I had occupied since the Satan’s Devils had moved to this compound. I’ve given that up though, allowing him and Becca to have more space. They needed it, having added baby Rose to their family.
Around me, my brothers have fallen like flies, all capturing their one. Their old lady, the love of their lives. While I would never have made a move on Becca—she was Rock’s from the start even though he’d had his head up his ass for a while—she’s the image of the woman I want.
Rock had taken time making up his mind, allowing me to become close to his woman. No one knows it was only my loyalty to him that had stopped me from stepping up and claiming her. She’d got under my skin. Those long hours when she’d stayed with me in my hospital room while I lay close to death. She’d been there, when I came back to life, but she was never for me, only for Rock. I knew it and hadn’t interfered. The perfect woman for Rock had entered his life when he least likely expected it.
Just like it had happened with the others. Wraith’s girl, Sophie, turned up out of the blue when she needed somewhere to hide and be safe. Drummer found Sam when she came searching for her father. Peg found his by the side of the road. One by one, Slick, Mouse, Blade and even Dart, who subsequently transferred to San Diego, stumbled across their old lady. Even young Pal eventually got the girl he’d been waiting for. It seemed so easy. No one can doubt my brothers have all found the woman they know they can be faithful to for the rest of their lives.
That’s what I had in mind, what I wanted for myself. A wife and a family. It wouldn’t have mattered if those kids had come readymade, if she’d been the right woman for me. I thought I’d found her, but, as it turned out, I’d been too hasty. Thought because she’d fallen into my path, that I should make her my old lady.
Starting my engine, I head out through the gates the prospect slides open for me, pointing my bike as Rock had instructed, toward what everyone else calls my home.
As I ride, I think how I couldn’t describe it as that. It’s a house the club owns, the property where Heart had lived with his first wife. The single storey building which now houses the woman I claimed, and her two children.
I should be happy, I muse, as I kick down the stand, before reluctantly taking the few steps toward the front door. This is what I wanted after all, a woman I could call mine waiting for me to come home. It hurts to say it’s not working out and will be painful when I have to admit that to my brothers.
They already know.
Yeah. They probably do, though no one has said as much. All waiting for me to give them the words. The signs have been there, almost from the beginning. I’d jumped in with both feet far too fast, and now I’ve no idea how to extricate myself. I’m a coward, knowing what I should do, but not being brave enough to cause the hurt I know will result.
I open the front door as quietly as I can. The clock once belonging to Heart, well, we moved into this place fully furnished, shows it’s eleven o’clock, and I might be lucky. She might have gone to bed. As I’m wondering whether I can get away with sleeping on the couch, tomorrow’s excuse running through my head, I didn’t want to disturb you, footsteps sound.
“Beef. You’re back.”
A tinge of guilt at the joy in her voice. A suggestion that maybe she’d thought I wouldn’t come home. I may have considered sinking my cock into a sweet butt, Allie’s perhaps, she’s sweet as pie, or taking Paige and Diva together as I have many times in the past, but I’m not so much of a bastard to do that to the woman who’s trying so hard to make things right between us. An impossible task, though she doesn’t realise it.
“The kids are down, Beef. They’ve left some pictures for you. They were trying to draw your bike.”
Yeah, guilt me why don’t you? I don’t need the reminder it’s not just her I’d disappoint if I came out with the truth. Since her ex-husband went to prison and she got her divorce, she’s pushed the kids at me at every opportunity. They’re good kids, no complaints there, she’s brought them up right. I like them well enough, if they had a different mother, maybe it would work out. But the woman who’d come into my life, the person I thought was meant for me, isn’t the one I’ve been waiting for. She isn’t Becca, or anything like her.
“Sally,” I begin, my voice tired.
“Beef,” she interrupts. A look of concern on her face. “What’s happened?” Taking a step forward, she raises her hand and touches my eye. I flinch. Rock must have got a lucky shot in. I hadn’t even felt it. “Have you been fighting?”
That right there. The look of disgust that she can’t hide. I’m a biker. Yeah, tonight I went too far, but I regularly spar with my brothers. It keeps us fit, sharp. She didn’t mind violence when it rescued her from the situation she’d been in. But now? Her background shows. A gentle woman from a moneyed family.
“Just sparred with Rock,” I explain. “You know what we do, Sally.”
“I’ll clean it for you.”
Another woman’s attentions might be welcomed, not hers. Becca will probably be doctoring Rock and, after she’s fussed him enough, with the birth of Rose a few months back, her touch will probably end up with him having his cock deep inside her. “Nah, Sal, I’m fine. I’ll do it myself.”
Sally might not be the right woman for me, but it’s not because she’s stupid. A wistfulness crosses her face, a clear sign she wants me to let her help. “I’ll get you a beer.”
I don’t need serving. But how do you turn down a well-meant gesture? “Sure. I’ll be right back.”
While she disappears into the kitchen, I take myself off to the half bath, take a much-needed piss, then examine my reflection in the mirror. There’s a small cut above my eye, no wonder it didn’t register. Nothing to worry about at all. Still, to ease Sally’s mind I splash my face with water, getting rid of the dried blood. So tiny a wound, it doesn’t bleed after.
I stare at my reflected image as though it might have more answers than me. How can I tell a woman like her that things are not working out? I hadn’t lifted a finger nor been an active participant when we got together, no effort required on my part at all. When she stayed at the clubhouse waiting for the media to lose interest in her husband’s high-profile court case, she’d latched onto me. To my shame and regret, I hadn’t put up much objection, it had been easier to go along with it. When it was suggested she move into Heart’s place, along with her kids, the thought of being alone had caused her stress. When she’d hinted she’d like company, I said I’d go with her, just to help ease her into her new life.
Playing house had been a novelty at first. A woman I could call mine to come home to. When she invited me into her bed, what can I
say? I’m a man, I went. It was okay, I got off, made sure she did too. When my brothers asked if I was claiming her, I said yes.
It soon became clear, my preferred style of loving wasn’t hers. My adventurous nature a complete turn off. Missionary position was the only way she permitted me to take her. After years of variety, I soon got bored. Wouldn’t step out on her though. Not while I was with her.
Her husband had beaten her, badly. Had agreed to stay away from her and had for two years. until a wife and family was helpful in his desire to have a political career. She’d been afraid of him, with good reason. In front of her, he admitted he’d get the sympathetic vote if she was killed.
She’s already been told she’s worthless. How could I do that to her too? I never realised Sebastian Lawson had been her first and only boyfriend, her family had kept her sheltered until they’d found her a suitable man. Now that I know, it influences what I can do. She’s no knowledge of break-ups, of relationships which don’t work. Her husband wanted her dead, and I’m thinking of discarding her like, what, a worn-out shoe?
Nah. Can’t do that to her. I’ll have to stay and make this work.
“Beef? You okay?”
“Coming.” I flush the toilet. Then I take a deep breath to fortify myself.
Devil's Due: Satan's Devils MC Colorado Chapter #3 Page 1