Biker Born: The Lost Souls MC Series (The Lost Souls Series Book 4)

by Ellie R. Hunter

She goes to leave and like a shot I’m in front of the door barring off her only exit.

  “Is that what you think is going to happen here? You couldn’t be more wrong, this is nothing like that Hunter’s club. That’s not what I want either.”

  “It won’t matter if it’s not what you want. The violence will find you and when it does you won’t have a choice. Someone will get hurt and I want to leave before that someone is me.”

  The shock of her words takes me off guard and she uses this as an opening to leave. Managing to pull myself together, I run down the stairs, past Micky and Flo and Oak and catch up to her as she opens her car door. Holding onto the door, I stop her from leaving.

  “I told you when we got together that I have nothing to offer you apart from myself. I don’t know for sure where all this is going,” I say, holding my hands out towards the whole place, “But, I know sure as shit that I would never let anything happen to you. I would lay down my life before I let that happen. Do you know how many guys here would look out for you too if I weren’t around?”

  Her sigh is shaky but her eyes are hard.

  “That’s the thing Mark, I don’t want to be with a guy if he has to constantly look out for me let alone his friends watching. It’s not a world I want to be a part of.”

  I step back and give her the space she needs to get in.

  “Then you should go,” I say, holding my hands on my hips.

  This is what I dreaded, her leaving. As much as I want her to stay, I can’t change because of her. This is what I need to do for me and for everyone else who is here. She could be right but she could be wrong. If she can’t stick around so I can prove to her that she would never have to fear anything then she is better off out of it. I’m not selfish enough to make her stay if she wants to leave.

  Before she climbs into her car, she steps towards me and lightly kisses my jaw. My airways restrict when she moves away, she climbs in her car and slams the door shut. I move to lean on the open window rim and prepare to drive the final nail into our relationship.

  “Know this Ray, I can’t be dealing with you coming around here at the weekends if we’re not a thing and I won’t come into the diner when you’re working. I think it’s best if we don’t see each other for a while.”

  Her face falls and her eyes glaze over but I carry on driving that fucking nail into the coffin.

  “Mark…”

  I cut her off.

  “I’m not going to play friends after you’ve been mine. You drive away now and that’s it. I have a lot of shit to deal with now and I can’t be losing my head about you if you’re not prepared to give me all of you.”

  An awkward, tense silence fills the air around us and nothing happens. Then she starts the car and I have my answer.

  I step back as she wheel spins out of the gate and heads for town. The slap on my bare shoulder stings more than it should but it feels better than knowing I have lost Rayna.

  “That didn’t look good, brother.”

  I should’ve known Michael would be around to witness that. I sigh, that isn’t fair. He hasn’t caused any trouble for us like I thought he might.

  “It wasn’t,” I grunt, “Be ready to go in an hour.” I tell him and make my way back into the house.

  “Why was my best friend high tailing it out of here?” Flo starts, as I walk through the door.

  Not being in the mood to speak to a woman unless it is Rayna, I look to Micky who has his arms wrapped around her. I’m starting to think they have been surgically stitched together.

  “Tell your woman to stay out of my business, we’re leaving in an hour, be ready.”

  Flo not being one for keeping her mouth shut begins to go red first then shouts up the stairs behind me.

  “Who do you think you are? Micky won’t be telling me nothing! If you’ve hurt her, so help me God, I’ll…”

  I hear Micky yell at her to shut up and then their voices trail off as I close my door on them.

  The bar Micky took us to was in the middle of town. I’ve passed by in the past but never went in on account that it always looked too up market for the likes of me.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” I ask Micky.

  “Yeah, come on. He’ll be waiting for us.”

  I shrug my shoulders at Michael and follow them into the bar. My eyes take a minute to adjust to the dark contrast to the midday sun outside. At the other end of the bar is Denzel Parker. My first impression of him is he is a money grabbing sleaze, dressed in what seems an expensive suit with his hair slicked back away from his face he looks wrong. He looks like he is missing something, like he wants to be the big man but is only playing, I guess time will tell. As long as he can pay us cash, I don’t care.

  “Denzel, this is Mark and Michael Blake,” Micky leans on the bar introducing us.

  “Micky’s told me quite a bit about you. I hear you want to make some cash and he tells me you don’t mind how you make it, is that correct?”

  His voice surprises me, it sounds more demanding than his look does.

  “That’s right,” I say, taking the stool two away from him.

  Michael and Micky step back but remain close enough to listen in.

  “The thing is, I can get muscle at the click of a finger.” He pauses to show us his point and clicks his fingers making me want to reach over and break them. “What seems to be hard to find is muscle and brains. I’ve got some important business coming up that needs to be handled with caution so I need you to be able to think fast and handle whatever occurs.”

  I hear Michael snort behind me then cover it with a cough when Denzel glares at him.

  “Mark, can you think when you’ve been put on the spot? Make a decision with a gun stuck to your head?”

  I don’t hesitate, I don’t need to, I’m confident with my answer.

  “Yes I can. I have done and here I am, sitting here with you. Does that answer your question?” I keep my reply clipped and to the point.

  He smiles happily with my answer and holds his hand out. I take his hand and shake it.

  “I like you already, Mark. I think this will work out nicely for the both of us,”

  We sit talking for half hour longer about trivial shit, he is interested in our club and where we are based. I tell him as much as I want him to know and luckily that holds him off for a while.

  One of his guys comes in and taps him on the shoulder and whispers in his ear.

  It must be news he has been waiting for judging by the twisted smile that creeps across his face.

  His guy steps back and Denzel slides off his stool.

  “I think you should come with me,” he says, looking only at me.

  Michael comes closer and Micky begins to object. I hold my hand up to let them it’s okay and stand and follow Denzel through a door at the back of the club.

  At the bottom of a dimly lit corridor another guy is standing guard in front of a door.

  “He’s a fucking squealer, Mr Parker.”

  My blood begins to run cold as I have a pretty good idea what is on the other side of the door.

  The guy opens it and I fight the urge to bunch my fists at the sight of a man tied to a chair, shirtless and gagged. His lip has to be split in at least four places and his eyes are so swollen he can’t see out of them.

  Denzel lights a cigarette and circles the guy, blowing smoke in his face.

  “Mark, this motherfucker thought he could steal from me and I wouldn’t notice. He thought he could take what is mine and live it up snorting my coke off some whore’s ass cheek before paying for her fucking services with my fucking money,” he yells in the guy’s face.

  He inhales deeply on his cigarette and puts it out on his chest, the guy hisses through the pain gaining himself a back hand from Denzel.

  “As you can see Mark, I don’t like it when people double cross me and I don’t let it go unpunished. I always know everything, remember that and our partnership will be glorious.”

  His sm
ile is twisted and I believe every word he says. He nods for the guy behind me to open the door and that is my cue to leave.

  “I’ll be in touch, soon,” he calls out.

  They guy tied to the chair screams around his gag and I can still hear him through the closed door and at the other end of the corridor, I’m glad I’m still not in the room to see what they are doing to him.

  Both Micky and Michael look relieved when they see me back in the bar.

  “What the hell, brother,” Michael hisses, as I head passed them and straight for the exit.

  Once we are outside and by our bikes and clear of Denzel Parker, I fill them in on what happened.

  “He was warning you,” Micky says.

  “You don’t fuckin’ say.” I mutter.

  “So, what’s happening next?” Michael asks, more soberly than his usual eagerness for information.

  “He said he’d be in touch soon, so let’s get back to the others and go from there.”

  Being back here and meeting Denzel has me wanting to get back to Willows Peak as soon as possible.

  MICHAEL

  The roads are dusty and only the sounds of our bikes fill the air as we ride into Willows Peak. What I saw this morning between Mark and Rayna didn’t look good and the way she high tailed it away from him suggests that she might not come back.

  It would be the perfect opportunity for me to slide straight in and be the guy she needs. We approach the diner and I expect Mark to pull in and go and see her, but he carries on riding straight past without so much as glance at the place. Micky follows behind him like the good little bitch that he is.

  I slow down and spot her Camaro parked at the far side of the lot. I pull in next to it and watch as Mark turns his head to see what I’m doing. I point to the diner as if it isn’t obvious and he carries on towards the old Johnson place with Micky.

  The diner is busier than usual and I’m left with the last stool at the counter. A whole fifteen minutes goes by before she sees me sitting here and walks over.

  “What can I get you?” she smiles.

  She doesn’t look any different to any other day, a little tired maybe but apart from that you wouldn’t have guessed that she had a major argument hours earlier.

  “Coffee.”

  She pours me a large coffee and tells me she’ll be back in a minute. When she does walk back over she nods towards the door.

  I follow in her direction and find her sitting on one of the benches out front.

  “I haven’t got long, it’s too busy to take my normal break today,” she tells me, rubbing the back of her neck.

  “We just got back, I thought I’d come and check on you. I wanted to make sure you were okay after this morning,” I say, taking a seat beside her.

  “Mark’s told you then.”

  “He hasn’t said a word,” I tell her, truthfully, “What happened?” I ask.

  “It’s over, we want different things and what he wants will never work for me,” she says, the tears soon well up in her eyes but she brushes them away before they have a chance to fall down her cheeks.

  “Why? I thought everything was cool between you both.”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we?” she asks, half turning her body to face me.

  It’s stupid, I know that’s all we have ever been, but hearing her say the word friends still hits me like a two ton punch to the jaw.

  What surprises me the most is if that’s all she has to give me, I’ll be her friend until my last breath.

  This will be different, I’ve never had a female friend before.

  “Of course we are,” I smile, assuring her.

  She takes a deep breath and looks out into the distance.

  “I had a brother once, Billy,” she begins and obviously it doesn’t end well with her choice of words.

  “He left home as soon as he turned eighteen, it’s like he vanished. He didn’t write or anything. Then one day five years after he left, he turned up totally different to the boy we used to know. He was hard and cold. He stole from our mom and when our father told him to leave and not come back he changed again. He begged to stay and for my dad to help him. We were all confused by his behaviour, it was like he was pretending to be the son my parents knew, like he was hiding from something.”

  She only pauses for a second but it is enough time for her to come back from whatever dark place she went to and carried on.

  “He had been home for a couple of months before he started acting really strange, he would snap at us for the smallest things. He vanished again but only for three days. When he came back he was high and paranoid, he kept saying they were coming for him. To this day I still don’t know what he had done,” she says.

  “What happened next?”

  “That night he refused to move away from the window. He freaked my mom out and my dad couldn’t take it any longer, he left to go to the bar and an hour later four guys turned up shouting that my brother had to pay. Billy used our mom as a shield against them and eventually they were shot and they both died.”

  “Shit Ray, I’m so sorry,” I say, moving to wrap my arm around her.

  “It later came out that he had joined a motorcycle club, a job had gone wrong and Billy went on the run. That club had changed him into someone we didn’t know.”

  There was more to it than she was letting on but I don’t want to push her. I heard the real reason for her leaving this morning without her having to say it.

  “You’re scared that Mark is going to change?” I ask, pretty certain I was right.

  “I think I love your brother, Michael, but I can’t watch him change like my brother did.”

  Sweet, beautiful Rayna. Another element to her that I would never have guessed about her. All this time and she has been carrying around the truth about her family and yet she shows no emotion about it around anyone. She is strong no like no other woman I have met. She deserves happiness and it pains me to admit it but my brother did make her happy, well, until he didn’t.

  “If it helps I think my brother loves you too. You’re just getting to know him but I have known him all my life and I can promise you that he isn’t like your brother. No matter what happens in the future he will always be the man you first met. Mark is strong, physically and mentally. He doesn’t take anything lightly and he is a meticulous planner, he would never put you in danger, nor would I,” I promise her.

  “We’ll see,” she murmurs, not looking convinced.

  When she buries her head into my chest I regret trying to push her back into Mark’s arms.

  “Thanks for the chat but I should go back in, I’m surprised Hank hasn’t yelled for me yet.”

  Once again, the smile is back and her secrets are hidden behind it. I push off the bench and by the time I’m riding away from the diner she’s back to taking orders and running around for other people.

  Mark was sitting on the front steps of the house when I got back.

  “How is she? It doesn’t take a genius to work out why you stopped at the diner,” he says.

  “She’s okay and in love with you.”

  For a man to hear a beautiful woman is in love with him you would think he would be happy about it but not Mark, he just frowns and looks down to the ground.

  “She has a right to be worried about what we’re trying to do here but I told her she’s safe with you and always would be. She has insecurities but if you give her time she will be back.”

  I don’t know why I am telling him this. I should be taking advantage of their split.

  “You told her that?” he asks, looking up at me disbelieving as usual.

  “I did. Know this though brother, if she does come back and you hurt her or let anything happen to her, I won’t care if you’re my blood, I’ll make you pay.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he smiles.

  We hug it out briefly before going our own ways. I meant every word I said, if he so much as makes her cry I will hurt him.

 
CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mark

  Before me sat fourteen guys ranging from nineteen years old to the oldest at thirty-one. All here for reasons unknown to me yet but here all the same. Micky is leaning against the bar off to my left and Michael and Oak are occupying a small table to my right. This meeting has been due for over a week now and with men turning up randomly it needs to be done now. We all need to know where we stand otherwise there will be chaos.

  “You all know why you’re here, we all want the same thing. Freedom and cash. I’m not your fuckin’ mother. I’m not here to wipe your eyes or your asses. There will be a few rules but not like you’d expect and pretty essential for us to make this work. By the end of this night, you will either still want to join us or you will leave or you won’t be welcome here again.”

  I wait for every man to acknowledge this and carry on, “Firstly, you don’t talk our business to anyone unless they are the men in this room. Club business stays in the club, if any of you talk, you won’t like what happens.”

  “Goes without saying boss,” one guy calls out. I like it, loyalty already.

  “Apart from when you’re needed you are free to do what you want, like I said I’m not your fuckin’ mother, but you will not bring trouble to our door or the fuckin’ cops. Later on, I’ll want to know who of you have been in jail before now too.”

  I swing one of the chairs round and take a seat. Most of these guys I have only known for a few weeks but we all have a common goal and I already feel the need to make sure they don’t go off the rails more than what they already have done. All they need is a little guidance from the right sort of person. It’s no good being told by a judge to do this or that because they don’t have any respect for authority but I can guide them without them feeling like I’m being patronizing.

  “We’re all in this together, every man here is as valuable as the next, and here with us no one is above you. The work we’re going to be getting may involve some danger so you’ll need to be prepared to fight not only for yourselves but for each other as well.”

  At the mention of a fight, they all holler and a few of them bang on the tables in support.