Struck in the Crossfire (BERZERKERS MC Book 1)

by Linny Lawless

  I wasn’t going to admit it to him or anyone else, but wearing his property patch felt like a cloak. Being protected by the President of the Berzerkers MC turned me on every time I wore it.

  As I stood, pulling the beer tap, I squeezed my thighs, daydreaming when Angel came over and bumped my shoulder, leaning in. “That skank Venus is making a move on your ole man, Izzy.”

  “Who’s Venus?” I said as my eyes steered toward the pool tables to see a woman with big and wavy long blonde hair—a Lita Ford look-alike dressed all in black. She had a Barbie Doll figure and stood a bit too close to Stryker.

  “Everyone calls her Venus. But me, Ginger, and the girls call her Virus. The biggest club skank in two counties. Ginger hates her cause she fucked one of her old boyfriends in the Riot MC. And gave him herpes too.”

  “Stryker is not my ole man,” I said as I watched Venus follow Stryker. He sat down at his table and took a drink of whiskey when she planted her ass right on his lap, wrapping her arm around his broad shoulders.

  I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt, and my chest burned. I slammed the full mug down, beer foam splashing on my shirt. Angel stepped back. “You’re wearing his properties, Izzy. That means he is your ole man. And looks like that Virus bitch don’t give a fuck.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I grumbled, placing the three mugs of beer on a tray and walking over to them.

  Stryker smirked, not paying attention to Venus as she leaned into him, whispering something in his ear.

  I placed the tray on the table. “Get your skanky ass off my ole man, bitch.”

  Venus spun her head and looked up at me, her eyelids caked with blue eyeshadow.

  Stryker chuckled. “Told you, Venus. My ol’ lady is a little firecracker.”

  Venus stood as she looked me up and down. “And what are you going to do about it, retarded freak? Oh wait, that’s your sister— “

  I swung and my fist connected with her cheekbone, and she stumbled back. I shoved her, and she crashed landed on the table. Men’s whistles and cheering reverberated in the bar, and someone yelled, “Catfight!”

  I was on top of her and grabbed handfuls of her hair as she fisted mine. I growled as she screamed when I slapped her hard across the face a few times. Stryker’s big arms wrapped around my waist, hauling me off her.

  Stryker had a firm hold of me around the waist and barked at Venus as she climbed off the table. “You’re a stupid bitch! Get the fuck off club property, and don’t come back.”

  I didn’t talk to Stryker much afterward. When we closed the bar and came back to the trailer, Marie was in bed. I found a grocery list she left on the kitchen table. Many of the words were misspelled but written well enough I could understand. Beside it was a sketch she drew of me. I was decked out in a loincloth bikini, sitting on a white unicorn, and in my hand, I held a huge sword. I looked like Taarna, the Taarakian warrior maiden from the movie Heavy Metal. I choked back tears. Was this how Marie saw me? Like some kind of brave super-heroine?

  “Your sister has talent,” Stryker said as he sat on the couch and stretched, planting his booted heels on the coffee table. “Most people I know can’t draw a triangle to save their life.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Come over here, Izzy. Put that cute little ass on my lap.”

  My jaw was set as I walked to him and climbed onto his lap. I straddled my legs over his hips like I did when I rode on his bike. “I hope you never fucked that bitch. You know she has herpes?”

  He laughed, his voice deep, sending tingles straight to my nipples. “I’ve fucked a ton of club whores, but she was never one of them.” Then he side-eyed me. “Do I see a bit of jealousy?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Of course not!”

  He leaned toward me. “My little green monster.”

  “I’m not jealous!”

  “Yes, you are. And I like it. You did what a Berzerker’s ol’ lady is supposed to do. Now kiss me.”

  I brushed my lips softly against his and then my hands wrapped around his shoulders. Our tongues wrestled clumsily to taste each other. He groaned as his hips rose off the couch to rub against my still tender center.

  I kept my thighs wrapped around him as he stood from the couch and carried me to the bedroom. He was gentle with his hands and mouth on my body that night in the darkness. And when his bold erection filled me, I bit down on his shoulder to muffle my cries. When we exploded together with orgasms, I felt as if my heart would burst. And I feared it would shatter into little pieces.

  11

  Stryker

  Izzy copped an attitude two nights later, right before Bandit’s fight match in the basement as she complained about not wanting to watch it. We knew Sinister Creed was planning on crashing the party, so everyone in my club was on alert mode, waiting for all hell to break loose.

  Squatch and Tug kept watch upstairs at the bar for any trouble. Izzy huffed after she lost her argument with me and descended down the stairs to the basement. That woman knew which buttons to push with me and got my dick hard, all at the same time.

  Only a few overhead light bulbs illuminated the fight pit. A rusty chain-link fence, along with barbed wire, was built around the pit to keep the fighters in, and the other men out. Men stood shoulder to shoulder, most wearing their club colors. Izzy yelped at the sound of a beer bottle crashing and breaking on the cement floor. But she held her chin up, grasping my shoulder and followed behind me as we meandered through the crowd and stood with my club next to the rusty boxing bell.

  I wrapped an arm around Izzy’s shoulders, pulling her close to me. “You stay right here.”

  Our fighter, Bandit, stood with Ajax, rolling his neck and shoulders, his inked-up body covered in a sheen of sweat. His hands were taped as he clenched and unclenched his fists while Ajax helped him focus on the task at hand—to destroy his enemy when he heard the bell. Grinder was his enemy, and he stood only a few yards away on the opposite side with his club, the Mob Rules MC.

  I rang the rusty bell as Bandit and Grinder circled each other. Ajax trained Bandit, and he was one of our best fighters. He loved the adrenaline rush from getting punched in the face a few times before he’d go in for the attack. And that’s just what Grinder did, throwing a few jabs and hooks Bandit’s way, and connecting on a few as jeers and shouts came from all the men in the dark basement.

  Bandit was quick, throwing powerful punches at Grinder, and tiring him out. Then the energy around Bandit changed. He went in for the attack and landed a hard leg kick to Grinder, then jabs and hooks. Bandit landed strong elbow strikes to Grinder, and when his face was covered red with blood, Bandit went in for the kill and knocked Grinder out with a spinning elbow to his temple.

  Izzy wrapped her hand around my bicep, gripping tight, digging her nails into my skin while she turned her head. “I think I’m going to be sick!”

  “It’ll be over soon! Just keep your eyes closed and hold on to me.”

  No sooner than I turned back to watch the fight, it was over. Grinder was knocked out cold on the dirty cement floor. Shouts and some groans were deafening around the fight pit as Ajax wrapped his arms around Bandit, lifting him up as he roared with victory.

  A few of Grinder’s club brothers huddled around him, slapping him in the face a few times, but he was out cold. They dragged his limp body across the bloody cement floor and propped him up against the wall.

  Izzy wrapped her arms around my waist, burying her face into my chest. “I can’t breathe, Stryker!” I could barely hear her and tilted her chin up.

  “Come on, let’s go upstairs. I’ll be down the hall with the men to settle up the winnings. Go help Ginger and Angel. It’s gonna be a long, crazy night!”

  She nodded and smiled, following me through the crowd of drunk and stoned bikers up the stairs to the bar.

  Angus was the President of the Mob Rules MC and tossed rolls of cash on the desk that I fucked Izzy on in the back room. He shook his head, looking down at all t
he cash he just lost. “You gotta good fighter there, Stryker.”

  I smirked. “All my fighters are good, Angus.”

  When we left the back room and blended into the swarm of drunken bikers and barflies, Squatch had a huge fist in Jeb’s shirt collar, hauling him out the front door of the bar. “Stupid fucking burnout!”

  I saw the look of fear in Izzy’s eyes as her back bumped up to the counter behind the bar. My blood boiled to molten lava as I stormed outside. Jeb stumbled and swayed when I fisted his shirt with one hand ripping it. “You’re a dead man!”

  His left eye was swollen shut and his mouth was all busted up as he cried like a bumbling idiot. “Don’t kill me, man! Sinister Creed sent me!”

  Izzy stepped outside and stood next to Squatch.

  I clenched my jaw baring my teeth. “I don’t give a fuck!”

  “Wait, wait! They busted me up and fucked with Kay really bad!”

  “What did they do to my mother!?” Izzy snapped at him.

  He hung his head and sobbed again as I released my grip on him. “RamRod. He’s the Prez. I made a deal with him a few months back. We were gonna do business together here at Durango’s. We shook on it. I was gonna give him the bar. But then Stryker comes in with Cullen and takes over, fucking everything up!”

  Izzy stepped up, slapping him hard across the face. “They raped Marie! Was she part of the deal too?”

  Jeb coward away. “That was Syko! He wanted Marie! And you!”

  I pulled Izzy off him, and she broke down, burying her face into my rags, her screams and sobs muffled. In half a second, I could have ripped his throat out with my bare hands. But he wasn’t even worth the kill.

  “Tell RamRod it’s him and me. Tomorrow at midnight. In the fight pit. Just him and me. And our officers. The man left breathing wins. Berzerkers will dominate, and Sinister Creed will no longer exist.”

  12

  Izzy

  Stryker held me close as I sobbed in bed. The heat from his hard body was warm and comforting as he brushed his calloused fingers through my hair. I clung to him, crying through the early morning.

  I listened to the strong pounding of his heart as I laid my cheek against his chest. “When I kill RamRod tomorrow night, there will be retribution from his club, and all hell will break loose. Pack some clothes for yourself and Marie. Bandit, the Berzerker soldier who fought tonight? You get in your car and follow him and my other brothers to the Berzerker bunker until I come for you.”

  Suddenly my chest felt heavy, and my stomach pitched with dread. What if Stryker was killed instead? The weight of all that had happened in the past few months came crashing down. I kept my heart guarded, wanting to hate him for barging into my life and taking over. But he only showed both Marie and me more kindness than our mother and Jeb ever did. And slowly, he invaded my heart, and I fell in love with him.

  I moved on top of Stryker, straddling him, guiding his bold erection deep inside me. I cried out. “You promise?”

  He was quick, swiftly rolling over, pinning me beneath him, thrusting his hips roughly. “I promise, Izabella.”

  The next morning, I had to explain to Marie what was to happen that day. “We’ll need to pack some clothes and stay a few nights away from here.”

  She wrapped her arms around her swelling belly. It was the very first time Marie showed any concern for the child that grew inside her. “Where are we going, Sis?”

  Bandit pulled up in front of the trailer on his bike, along with two other Berzerkers. Bandit was as intimidating and fearsome as all the others in Stryker’s club. They twisted their throttles, the thunder of their pipes rattling my small trailer park. Marie sat in the passenger side of my car as Stryker leaned back on my car door and held me for a moment, not even concerned about showing me affection in front of his men in broad daylight.

  He tilted my chin, and I looked into his dark, intense eyes. “Bandit and my brothers are loyal to me. They will watch over my property, what belongs to me and no other man.”

  My tears spilled, and my throat hurt with the fear that I would not see him alive again. “You made a promise to me, Stryker. I’ll hold you to it.”

  I clung to him as we kissed, his strong hand gripped my hair and pulled, so his mouth dominated and devoured me.

  Marie didn’t talk and listened to her favorite cassette tape of Van Halen as I followed the three Berzerkers twenty miles away from our little single-wide trailer. We pulled into a cement parking lot off a dirt road. The bomb shelter or as Stryker called it, the Berzerker bunker, was built underneath the ground.

  We followed Bandit down a narrow entryway to a set of concrete steps leading below ground. He opened a heavy metal door. The dark space was similar to the size of the trailer. Storage cabinets, cots and narrow bunk beds, a small kitchen, bathroom, and a separate room with a conference size table that must have been assembled down in the bunker with several chairs. It smelled of stale air, weed, alcohol, metal, gunpowder, and body odor.

  Bandit didn’t say much, except a few grunts, and showed us around, and told us we could sleep on the cots or bunk beds. He went into the separate room with the other two Berzerkers, Butch and Masher, and shut the door. A few moments later, the scent of weed wafted underneath the door crack.

  There was a boom box sitting on the bottom bunk. Marie pulled a Foreigner cassette tape out of her bag, and placed it into the boom box and pushed the play button. The song “I Want to Know What Love Is” came through the speakers, and I sank down onto the small cot and cried.

  Marie rushed over, sitting down next to me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Why are you crying, Izzy? Are you worried about Stryker?”

  I clung to Marie and sobbed. “Yes. I’m afraid I’ll never see him again.”

  It was a strange feeling to have Marie’s arms wrapped around me as I leaned on her for support when I was usually the one comforting her.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, Sis. He loves you, and I like him. He’ll come back for us.”

  I leaned away, wiping my tears, and placed my hand on her swollen belly and smiled. “How are you feeling?”

  She placed her hand over mine, looking down. “I’m feeling okay. My back hurts sometimes, though. The baby is growing.”

  Marie’s body had changed so much, so quickly, and I felt only guilt that I couldn’t do more to help her. She needed to see a doctor, and I didn’t want to add any more stress on her.

  13

  Stryker

  I’ve never had a problem killing a man. I actually enjoyed it, especially when I used my bare hands to make them stop breathing forever. Women were the weaker sex, and men who raped or killed women took up too much space in this fucked up world. I was hungry to get my hands on this RamRod motherfucker and watch his eyes go lifeless when I killed him.

  Squatch and Ajax were the only Berzerkers in the basement to watch the fight. RamRod showed up at midnight with his officers—one called Rook, and the other that Izzy called Syko was the VP. He was one of the Sinisters who raped Marie, who had a pretty boy face that I’d enjoy busting up, permanently. I was going to find out who the others were, and my club would take them out one by one.

  There were no rules in this fight. It was kill or be killed. I sized RamRod up as he did the same to me. He wore a pair of brass knuckles. What a fucking joke. He followed me through the gate and into the caged in fight pit.

  RamRod glared at me as his nostrils flared, baring his teeth. “You ready to die, Berzerker? ‘Cause after I kill you, I’m gonna make that bitch of yours my property, and fuck her till she can’t walk.”

  I rolled my neck and shoulders, shaking out my hands that Ajax taped up for me. “You’ll be dead within five minutes, RamRod.”

  I was wrong. He was dead in ten. He put up a good fight though, landing a brass knuckle above my left eye, which only made me break out in a little bit of sweat. My first and last attack was with a suplex as I locked my arms around his waist. I thrust my hips and arched my bac
k, launching him upside down with one powerful throw.

  He landed hard on the cement floor onto his back, and the air was knocked out of him. I came at him and tossed him over onto his stomach, and drove my knee into the small of his back and grabbed under his chin. I roared with rage, going berserk as I pulled back with all my strength. His vertebra snapped with one loud pop, then he went limp. I let go of his chin, and his head dropped to the cement floor.

  Squatch and Ajax already had their guns drawn and aimed at Syko and Rook when I climbed off the dead body. “Sinister Creed no longer exists. You’re stripped of your colors, and the Berzerkers take your drug trade, your sheep, and bikes. You got one minute to carry your dead President off of Berzerker territory.”

  Syko stepped forward, even as Squatch had the barrel of his gun pressed to his temple and started counting, “Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight…”

  Syko and Rook grabbed RamRod’s dead body by the wrists and ankles and carried it upstairs.

  My Berzerker brother, Grunt, was a Vietnam vet who came back from that hot jungle war-deranged and unhinged. He was good with patching up cuts and other minor injuries in a fight, and he knew where to get the good medical drugs. He stitched the cut above my left eye, then I left Durango’s and rode hardcore, throttle wide open to the Berzerker bunker with Squatch riding staggered behind me.

  I hauled the heavy steel door open and descended the cement steps that led to the bunker. Izzy lay on the same cot I slept on so many nights before, and as I entered, she sat up and gasped. She climbed out of it and rushed to me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and cried. “You kept your promise!”