by Isabel Wroth
He wasn’t nearly as good-looking as Saint, although seriously, Ripley hadn’t ever met anyone as good-looking as Saint. Roar was scary beautiful. Raid was made sexier than he probably was, due to his deep Sam Elliot-esque voice. With his romantically curly black hair, his deep set blue eyes and chiseled features, Saint was just devastatingly gorgeous.
Emphasis on the devastating part.
Ripley was suspicious that Perdition only recruited ungodly handsome men who were aware of their good looks, and consciously used said good looks as weapons against their targets if necessary.
This guy had sandy surfer blond hair swept up into a hipster coif, normal brown eyes, a California tan, and a perfect smile. He was about six feet tall, strapped with muscle, and clearly he never missed leg day at the gym.
All around he was just…attractive. Average and attractive.
“Good morning,” she greeted, getting up to come around her desk. Nerves didn’t even jangle as he got closer. “Can I help you?”
“Hi! Yes. I’m hoping to meet with someone about a photo shoot session?” the guy said, million dollar smile not slipping an inch.
“You’ve come to the right place. I’m Ripley, I do all the photography.” She stuck her hand out to shake, benignly appreciating the firm grip and the calluses on her potential new client’s palm.
“Nice to meet you, Ripley. I’m Sam.”
“Nice to meet you, too. Come have a seat and tell me about what kind of session you’d like to do.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Walking into the main room of the compound, Saint pulled a deep breath into his lungs to take in the smell of home. Ever waddled through the main room chasing after her son, who happened to be naked, bald, and giggling his ass off as he waved his diaper around like a maniac. Ever threw a glare over her shoulder and shouted loud enough to shake the rafters.
“Roar! So help me god, if my son gets glass in his feet because you let him do this shit at home, I will rip your nuts off with my teeth!”
Lyon happened to veer right to avoid his mama and Saint was able to scoop him up before he could get his feet all jacked up. Lyon gave a screech of kiddie rage at having been caught.
No doubt about it. This was definitely Roar’s kid.
“Hey, baldie. What happened to your hair?” he rubbed the spiky dome of the kid’s head rough enough to make the kid growl. So cute.
“His father went batshit crazy with my dog clippers, asshole.” Ever snarled like a dragon. Snatching her son with a glare so hot, Saint swore he smelled something burning.
Saint held his hands up defensively. “I just got back. How am I already an asshole?”
Roar arrived in time to hear his question and shot him a wink. “Everyone with a dick is an asshole. She’s overdue and getting crankier by the day. Welcome home, Top’s waiting with the rest of the club. Babe, put your fuckin feet up. I got the holy rollin terror.”
Saint saw the adoration shine so plainly in Roar’s eyes when he smiled at his crazy-ass woman.
It made Saint’s chest ache and his fingers itch for his phone. It had been just over six weeks since he had left, far longer than he had anticipated, and Ripley hadn’t sent him a single text. He looked around for her, half hoping to see her come walking out from somewhere. With the way they’d left things though, he wasn’t surprised by her absence.
Ever gave her husband the stink eye. “Athena and I are using your room to do yoga. She says it might break my water. I’ll scream if I need you, asshole.”
“You do that. Love you, baby.” Roar took his naked kid and dropped a kiss on Ever’s cheek.
Ever gave him the finger. “Fuck you. We’re not having sex until you get your junk capped off. I hate you.”
Saint had to choke back a laugh at the deadpan seriousness in Ever’s voice.
Roar seemed completely unaffected by his wife’s fury. “I know, baby. But I’m not capping off my junk.”
“Fine. I’ll have them rip out mine while they’re pulling my daughter out. Then we won’t have sex, ever again. Yeah. That’ll work for me. Screw the yoga, a C-section sounds great. Athena! Call Dr. Wilder! I want a C-section and a hysterectomy!” Ever walked past them heading for the stairs.
“On it!” Athena shouted from somewhere.
Roar’s eyes got huge and his smile vanished. “What? Now you wait a minute, Ever. God damnit, get back here!”
It was good to be home where Saint could laugh and relax while watching the baby mama drama unfolding. The lightness and amusement it brought despite the threat of danger drawing closer.
Saint dropped his duffel near the door, too tired to make the trip up the stairs and down again. Once he was anywhere near a bed, he would be face down on the sheets and out for hours. The meeting room had gotten an upgrade since he’d been in it last. New chairs around the old oak table, a huge coffee maker in the corner with a shit-ton of condiments, and zero ashtrays.
Usually the brothers who smoked lit up and puffed like chimneys in here, but all of them sat fiddling with pens or their coffee cups. Saint did a double take when Top stood up and gave him a tight grin.
“You look like shit, Saint.” the prez grunted.
It was on the tip of Saint’s tongue to reply back that Top looked about as bad as Saint felt. In the six weeks Saint had been gone, Top had aged considerably. Obviously having dropped enough weight for Saint to notice that Top’s cut hung a little big on him. The last thing this club needed right now was for Top to go down from some kind of illness.
“Feel like shit, Prez. You good?” Saint noticed some of the brothers shoot him a look and then back down at their coffee.
“Good as I’m gonna get. Nasa said you’ve made some progress on Pike and Susan’s case?”
“Yeah. Didn’t want to send the files via email, Nasa’s got me feeling almost as paranoid about all this shit as he is.” Nasa shot Saint the finger from across the table. “What I got, finally was a meet with an undercover DEA agent who’s had dealings with the Leviathans. He told me there had been some talk on the street about Susan and Pike’s murder being more of a targeted hit.”
Top sucked in a hiss of air through his teeth and sat down heavy, clasping his fists together tight enough to blanch the skin. The tension around the table rose to a tangible level, all eyes on Saint and burning with the need for blood. For vengeance. For justice.
The Leviathan motorcycle gang had been responsible for the massacre at the Taggart Tornado’s compound. Every member of the club but two, shot to death like fish in a barrel on Ever’s wedding day. The job that had cost Susan and Pike their lives, had been to discover where those two missing Tornado members had gone to, but someone had killed them before the mystery could be solved.
To make things even worse, Ever’s former fiance, who had been presumed among the dead at the Tornado’s compound, had not only shown up alive, but had been an undercover agent with the DEA trying to find any way possible to legally bring down the Leviathans. From the investigation Saint had been conducting, it was now clear that the Leviathan’s had been the ones responsible for Pike and Susan’s murder.
Clearing his throat around the ever-present burn of his rage, Saint pulled the thick file from inside his satchel and slid it across the table to Top.
“The Leviathan’s have a guy they use almost exclusively for their wet work. The feds know this guy exists, they just don’t know what he looks like beyond the fact that he’s quote, ‘average as fuck.’ Eyewitnesses always wind up dead before any kind of detailed description is given.
“According to that UCO, the guy is a full, patched-in member of the club and his road name is ‘Ghost,’ because no one sees him. Ever. He appears out of nowhere, disappears like he wasn’t ever there, and leaves zero evidence. I’ve got one shitty profile photo of a man suspected of being this Ghost. Maybe Nasa can clean it up or work some magic on it. But this is the guy who killed Pike and Susan. No doubt.
“I followed a hunch and checked out all the pri
sons within a hundred miles of Carson City. Pike went to visit with a guy inside the Northern Nevada Correction Center, one Mark Trudeaux. Drug dealer suspected of being on the Leviathan payroll. Pretty clear by the prison photos he is, he’s got the Leviathan club tat on his ass. Yes, Roar, on his ass. Left cheek. No, I don’t know why.”
Saint preemptively answered that question because he could see Roar preparing to ask it.
“I couldn’t talk to the guy, because day after Pike and Susan were murdered, Trudeaux got shived in the shower and his charter tat was cut off his body. What took me so damn long down there, was collecting every murder case I could get my hands on that the Leviathan Ghost was suspected of committing. I’ve got over three hundred across Nevada and some surrounding out-of-state cities where the Leviathans within the last three years have expanded their territory.”
“How in the hell has this dickhead not been caught?” Top demanded from the head of the table.
Saint shrugged and pulled another one of the paper files out of his pack to pass up the table.
“If the cops are able to question the Leviathans, which they usually aren’t able to do due to lack of evidence, a few days later some dude known to be looking for a patch-in to the club gets popped for something stupid and winds up confessing to the murder. With a detailed description of how it went down.”
From across the table, Pen spoke up, “So that prospect talks to this Ghost, confesses to the Ghost’s murders with the promise that when he gets out of prison, he’ll be a full patched-in member.”
Saint nodded at Pen’s astute conclusion, wondering what had the brother looking so run-down and haggard.
“Yeah. Except that guy gets killed in prison, six to nine months into his stay, during some violent and seemingly random act. Unfortunately that’s not what’s got me as paranoid as Nasa. Got a call last week from the DEA undercover’s handler.
“The UCO passed on a message to say the hit man, Ghost, was sent up here to our turf do some house cleaning. Seems in our search for the person or persons responsible for Pike and Susan’s deaths, we’ve turned over enough rocks to make the roaches start scuttling.”
Saint let that bomb drop and waited for the dust to settle.
He saw Roar cuddle his now sleeping son closer, palming the boy’s bald little head with a look in his eye that promised brutal death to anyone who so much as thought about hurting Roar’s growing family. Leather creaked as muscles tensed around the table, yet oddly enough, Top was smiling.
It wasn’t a pretty smile. It was one that made your short and curlies curl tighter.
“Nasa, you get anything off of Susie’s computer yet?” Top demanded.
Saint had only just been able to get hold of the evidence, quickly uploading a program to allow Nasa to hack in and copy the entire hard drive.
Nasa tapped his fist on the table top a few times in agitation. “Nothing that jumps off the page at me yet, but I’m still skimming through all her blog posts and checking the geo-tags for where she was when she posted them.”
“Bench it for now. I want to know who this Ghost is.” Top ordered, hooking his thumb at Nasa to get out of the meeting room to get on it. Nasa got lost. “Raid, you and your girl are moving in with Roar until further notice. Arm up and tell Athena to bring her bat.”
Raid gave a short guffaw, but nodded at Top in conformation. As the Master at Arms of the club, it was a smart move to have Raid stationed in the home with their most vulnerable members.
“Everyone in this room is going to assume that this Ghost is smarter than all of us. Even Nasa.” Sounds of immediate denial met Top’s decree, but the old man banged his hand down on the table for silence. “Shut the fuck up and listen. If we assume this twat is smarter than us, we can be better prepared for anything that comes our way. We’re also going to assume he is already here and has established a foothold.
“He has supposedly committed over three hundred murders and gotten away with it. If all of those do in fact belong to him, he is one hell of a hitman. He has a way in. Making that assumption will give us the edge we need to start closing up ranks and lessens the chance this psychopath will get hold of one or more of us.
“Saint, get that photo to Nasa and see what we get. For now, eyes peeled. We’re gonna start using the good old fashioned buddy system. Only place we go alone outside this compound, is the can. Pull the prospects in. Meeks, give them GPS tags and tell them to put it someplace it won’t be found. Don’t want to lose one of the silly little bastards when they’re out on errands.
“We will also assume all our phones are tagged. If this guy is as good as the rumors say, surely all twenty of us can put our heads together and be better. Raid, Roar, get your women and let’s update them. Any questions?” Top waited for someone to speak up. “No? Good. Get to work.”
Saint pushed up from the table and immediately called Ripley. His insides churned with need, the excitement to hear her voice growing as the phone rang and rang. He got her voicemail, listening to it for a second just to feel the smile that tugged at his mouth.
“Hi, this is Ripley. You’ve reached my personal line. If you’d like to make an appointment at Escape Reality, please hang up-”
Saint hung up and tried her at the shop. She didn’t answer there either. He sent her a text to tell her it was important she call him back. Nothing. He grimaced, figuring after how he had left things, she was probably still mad.
He heard Athena and Ever coming, bitching about having their yoga session interrupted. It was funny how Ever’s belly entered the room before she did, even funnier that her son was able to sleep through her bitching at Roar. Kid probably thought his mama’s tirades were lullabies.
“Ever, you talked to Ripley today? She’s not answering her phones.”
Ever quit ragging on her husband and shot him a dirty, low down look of disgust that was a bit more than just being annoyed by yoga interruption.
“Gee, Saint. I wonder why she wouldn’t want to talk to you. It’s only been what, six weeks?”
Even Athena looked pissed at him. Saint felt his eyebrow tick with growing irritation. Not appreciating Ever’s tone at all.
“Woman, I was on a job. Have you-”
Ever cut him off and shot her nose up in the air, “Roar, how many times do you call me while you’re on a job?”
Roar shook his head at his wife. “Do not bring me into your bitch drama. I will not-”
“Roar!” Ever snapped.
Roar gave a roll of his eyes. “I dunno. Whenever I feel like it.”
“Why?” Ever pressed.
“Cause, I love you.”
Saint wanted to shake his head over how whipped the brother with the biggest pussy count in the compound was. How tight a hold Ever had on Roar’s balls.
Ever gave a satisfied noise, crossing her arms over her massive tits. “What about you, Raid? You call Athena when you’re gone?”
“Every damn day.” Raid winked at his woman and pulled the tiny ginger up against his side.
“What’s your excuse then, Saint?” Ever challenged.
“Neither of these pussy-whipped bastards hunt down serial killers, professional hitmen, or go through gangs that might hold a grudge and go after anyone on my contact list for kicks. Don’t appreciate you being all up in my face about my business.”
Ever snorted, completely unaffected by Saint’s warning tone. “It’s Wednesday, Ripley’s probably at lunch with her boyfriend.”
Ever’s declaration was like the solid kick of a steel-toed boot, right in his belly. When he was able to suck in a ragged breath, a haze of red slid down over his vision. His fists clenched at his sides and he noticed both his brothers looking distinctly uncomfortable.
Which meant they’d known about this new development and opted not to share.
“What?” Saint bit out from between his teeth, ready to believe Ever was just busting his balls.
“Boy. Friend,” Ever enunciated slowly, like Saint was stupid. �
�You know, a guy who shows up regularly to spend time with a woman in a romantic, intimate fashion in public and in private? One who actually seems to give a shit about said woman, does not call her a whore in public, and has a commitment to doing something other than the dine and dash version of sex?
“The guy that doesn’t make a woman question whether or not she’s a worthy human being or has more to offer than just her body when it’s convenient to him. If you’re confused by the term, maybe Raid can give you some pointers. You,” Ever pointed her finger up at her husband. “Let’s go.”
“Babe, Top needs to update you and Athena, some shit-” Roar started, but Ever sliced her hand through the air and interrupted.
“Club shit is gonna have to wait. My water just broke. Give Raid the baby, and get. The. Car.”
Had Saint not been so pissed off, what happened next would have been comical. Roar shoved his still sleeping son into Raid’s arms and ran out the door so fast he left skid marks on the floor.
Athena, all sunshine and delight, wrapped her arm around Ever’s waist and gave a little squeal of excitement. “I told you the yoga would work!”
Ever growled, “We did one pose.”
“Okay, maybe it was going up and down the stairs. Or that righteous bitch slap you just laid down.” Whatever it was, Athena’s excitement for the impending birth wasn’t deterred. “Let’s get you out of your wet pants and into something clean. Where’s your go-bag?”
Saint watched the two redheads walk away, Raid falling into his peripheral. He carefully jostled Lyon into a more comfortable position, but the kid slept blissfully on, not realizing he was about to be a big brother.
CHAPTER SIX
Harper Lee Morningstar was the cutest baby in the entire universe, without question.
Roar was in trouble because his daughter looked exactly like her mama. A full head of fiery red hair, bright green eyes and it was obvious, even in the first hours after birth, little Harper had a presence that was almost captivating.