by Brook Wilder
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Outlaw Virtue copyright @ 2019 by Brook Wilder and Scholae Palatina Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
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BOOKS IN THE ROUGH JESTERS MC SERIES
BOOK 1: SAVAGE ANGEL
BOOK 2: BROKEN BEAUTY
BOOK 3: CORRUPT HONOR
BOOK 4: RUINED MERCY
BOOK 5: SINFUL HAVEN
BOOK 6: TAINTED DESIRE
BOOK 7: OUTLAW VIRTUE
BOOK 8: WICKED LEGACY
BOOK 9: SHATTERED GRACE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
OUTLAW VIRTUE
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
Epilogue
OUTLAW VIRTUE
Chapter 1
Two Tone
I hung my arms over the handlebars of my bike, my ears sensitive to every sound around me.
The fly buzzing around my ear.
The sound of the trees rustling in the warm breeze.
The drone of traffic above me on the overpass; the drivers heading home after a long day’s work.
Me, I wasn’t going anywhere. Instead, I was sweating my balls off under the overpass, waiting for my mark.
The temperature had ratcheted up instead of dipping down the later it got in the day and there was a constant beeline of sweat rolling down my back, my T-shirt sticking to my skin under my leather vest. I longed for a cold beer and shower, but neither were in my very near future until this job was done.
And it would be done, just as soon as my damn mark showed his ugly face.
Adjusting my shades, I stared out onto the stretch of back road, hoping that he would show up before the sun went down. Trying to chase down someone at night wasn’t fun for anyone and posed more danger than it did good.
But if I lost him tonight, I didn’t know when the next time was that I was going to have a lucky break like this.
I had been tracking Declan ‘Warhorse’ Collins for three weeks now, hoping that he would lead me to the ultimate target: Mac Planter. Mac had once been a Rough Jester like me, loyal to the death to the biker club and all of its rules.
The last few months, however, had turned many of my brothers-in-arms against the club that had given them so much, led by Mac himself. I too had felt some weight in his words, blasting the current Jesters president, Rex ‘Chains’ Harper, for allowing the club to meld with the all-women club, the Hell’s Bitches. The Bitches just happened to be run by Chains’ wife, Widow Maker.
I had been against the joining in the beginning, feeling like our club was losing some of its edge by allowing a bunch of Bitches (no pun intended) to infiltrate our ranks. After all, they had been a pain in our side for years.
Slowly, though, there had been some acceptance.
Some.
The biggest blow had come when Machine Gun, our road captain, had nearly been killed due to blackmail from an undercover CIA agent and no one had informed us of the fact that the CIA guy had been in our club. At first, I had felt anger, agreeing with Mac’s continued discussions about breaking free and starting our own damn club.
But then, something had happened. I really don’t know what it was, but something he said one night twisted my gut and I backed out, deciding to keep loyal to the club that had provided me with a shitload of opportunities.
Well, that and the CIA agent won over one of the Bitches and almost sacrificed his life for her. Though I wouldn’t admit it, he won a little bit of respect from me, though I had nearly killed his ass before that.
More importantly, Chains didn’t kill me over the separation. When he called me into his office, I expected him to blow my head off, honestly.
I never expected him to give me this assignment or the directive to kill the former bikers that were against the Jesters club. These were guys I had ridden with, fought with, drunk with.
These were guys whose personal shit I knew, some with families.
I couldn’t feel sorry for them though. They had made a choice, albeit not a very good one.
And now the enforcer was coming for them.
I wiped my brow with the back of my hand, hoping that Warhorse showed his ass soon. He was gonna be my ticket to finding Mac and ending this assignment, putting me back in the club where I belonged. While I didn’t mind doing this for Chains, and even kind of owed him this for my little involvement with Mac, I didn’t like being away from the club. The Jesters were fragile right now and there was still unease about who truly was loyal to the club.
Chains was the worst. I had watched him become more untrusting of people that were fiercely loyal to the club and to him, questioning everything that everyone was doing.
What was going to come of the club after this shit was over with, I didn’t know, but it wasn’t going to be the same. Those days were gone.
Which meant I was at a crossroads. The Jesters had been my family for going on ten years now. When I first joined them, I was nothing but a punk kid with no future. My old man had been killed fighting overseas when I was sixteen, my home life going to shit when my mom started to drink and take pills to kill the pain.
She killed herself instead and at eighteen, I was evicted from my childhood home, pushed into the streets to fend for myself.
Fend I did. I spent more time in the drunk tank at the local jail than anywhere for the first two years after she died. I moved from job to shitty job, making just enough to spend it at the strip joints and bars, following the same damn path as my mom.
But when I was twenty, Chains busted me trying to steal his own damn bike out of the strip-club parking lot. Instead of killing me, he saw something in me.
What, I didn’t know. But he took me into the club, told me to clean my shit up, and gave me a family.
For that, I owed him. I wanted to bring him Mac’s body and see the satisfaction in his eyes knowing that the traitor had been captured.
I wanted blood and I wasn’t gonna be denied.
The distant sound of a bike brought a smile to my lips and I sat up, watching as Warhorse blew past me on the road. Rumor was that his old lady lived on this road and he had been camping out there during the day, riding only at night to meet Mac and the other traitors.
I had paid a shitload of money to learn that little tidbit of information and if I could get Warhorse to loosen his trap about where that meeting was to take place, I could get this shit over tonight.
I couldn’t wait.
Gunning the engine, I pulled onto the blacktop myself, following Warhorse down the empty road. I had scoute
d the road earlier, learning all the blind curves and clocking the traffic that passed by.
The good news was that there wasn’t much traffic. In fact, the houses were so far apart that it would be easy to take care of my business and no one would ever notice anything different.
Which was the way I liked it.
I increased my speed and soon Warhorse came into view, far enough away not to notice me but close enough for me to start my business. Pulling the gun out of the holster at my side, I aimed and fired at his back tire, rewarded with the careening of the bike as he struggled to maintain control before pulling off into the grass.
I was off my bike and at his back before he could swing his leg over the bike. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Two Tone,” he said listlessly, not bothering to get off the bike. “I thought that was you.”
“Yeah,” I answered, pressing the gun into his back. “I got a few questions for you.”
He chuckled. “I bet you do. Too bad I’m not willing to talk to trash like you.”
I jammed the gun in his back. “Get off the damn bike, Warhorse.”’
I thought he wasn’t going to, but finally he swung his leg over, standing beside the bike, his hands at his sides. I kept the gun pressed against him, knowing how fast he could move. Hell, I had trained with him, shot a few rounds. The man was lightning fast with his gun.
Quickly, I grabbed the zip tie out of my back pocket and secured his hands together, my anxiety ratcheting up a notch as I did so. I fully anticipated him trying to fight me, trying to get the hell out of here.
He had to know that nothing good would come out of this.
He didn’t and I spun him around, meeting his ugly mug. “You know,” he said, looking as if we were having a casual conversation and he wasn’t at the end of my gun. “There’s still time, Two Tone. You can still come back into the fold. Mac is willing to forgive you for turning your back on us.”
“Who turned their back on who?” I growled, my gun pointed at his chest now. “The Jesters gave us everything.”
“And fucking ruined it because of a woman,” Warhorse bit out. “If that Bitch hadn’t gotten into his head, we wouldn’t be so weak.”
“Weak?” I asked. “The only thing that is weak around here is traitors like you.”
He chuckled. “You, my friend, have been brainwashed. You will see. Soon Chains will meet the bite of a bullet and then where will everyone be?”
“Tell me where Mac is,” I threatened, tired of the idle talk. “I’m fucking tired of following your ass, so how about we end this right here?”
“You aren’t gonna get that from me,” Warhorse answered. “I ain’t no snitch.”
I ignored him, patting him down until I found a cell phone tucked into his shirt pocket. It was locked so I held it up in front of his face. “Give me the damn code.”
“In your fucking dreams.”
I pressed the gun to the center of his forehead. “You aren’t gonna have any if you don’t give it to me.”
To my surprise, Warhorse grinned. “Don’t worry. Soon you and the rest of the Jesters will be dead and none of this shit will matter.”
I didn’t like his tone. It was clear Mac was planning a war against the true Jesters and given the reduced size of the club right now, there was a high possibility that we would all be dead. “Just give me the fucking code, man.”
He stared at me. “You won’t kill me.”
I thought about all the times we had gotten wasted together, the runs we had made, and deep down, wished I didn’t have to do this to another brother.
It had to be done though. “You made your choice.”
His expression grew serious and he visibly swallowed. “You will get yours, Two Tone. You will get yours.”
I snapped his neck before he could say another word, allowing him to fall to the ground before I tucked my gun back in my holster. I could have shot him easily, but this needed to look like an accident.
“Sorry, man,” I muttered as I cut the zip ties, picked him up, and slung him over his bike, making it look like he had been riding it all along. After kicking up the kickstand, I walked it back to my own waiting bike, holding onto it while I started my own and climbed on.
With some interesting maneuvering, I got both of us up to the best speed I could with his blown tire, letting go and watching the bike and its occupant crash into the barb-wire fencing. Warhorse’s body flew over the fence and I turned my bike around immediately, heading the other way as quickly as I could. Someone would be along soon, and I couldn’t be anywhere in the vicinity.
Another fucking dead end.
***
Thirty minutes later I was pulling up to the club, the lack of bikes in front still unnerving. At one time, you couldn’t find a parking spot, but now you could pull the damn thing all the way to the front door.
Chains was in his office when I walked in, throwing the phone on his desk. “That is Warhorse’s. It’s locked, but I’m sure Sabrina can unlock it.”
Chains looked at me. “And Warhorse?”
“Dealt with, “I said, rolling my shoulders. “I’m fucking beat. I’ll be back in the morning.”
Chains grunted and I walked to the front door as my phone buzzed, causing me to pause to pull it out. A grin lit my face as I saw the text, feeling some of the weight of what I had done lift off my chest. While my career was in a shitty place, there was one thing that was positive in my personal life.
Leigh Greene was her name and she was my neighbor; my non-biker chick neighbor.
The complete and total opposite of what I was.
How it had happened, I still wasn’t so sure about, but the past few months had been a good distraction with her in my life.
No, it had been the best fucking thing that had happened to me in quite some time.
And now, she was responding about the interview she’d had earlier. I had told her to go for it, to interview for the position she so desperately wanted, and had checked up on her before heading out to my vantage point to meet Warhorse. I fired off one of my dirty responses that she was used to before tucking it back into my pocket and heading out to my bike. Someone like me didn’t allow for someone like her in my life and while we had turned into friends with benefits, I was starting to wonder if she wanted more. Sure, the sex was fucking amazing, but I had found myself starting to look forward to her texts and her account of her day when we met for supper.
More than just a hot time in the sack, that was for sure. Somehow, Leigh had wormed her way into my pathetic life and given me something to look forward to.
Climbing back onto my bike, I fired the engine and pulled out of the parking spot, turning it toward the house. She had another hour before she would be done with work, which gave me enough time for a shower.
Maybe she could wipe this black mark on my soul today. Maybe she could help me forget this shit about the club just for a little while. She didn’t know who I was when I walked out of her house. She had no idea that I did the things I had done today or any other time when I wasn’t around her. I had no doubt she suspected I was part of the club, but what I did, well, I would be embarrassed to tell her.
While my dirtied hands didn’t deserve to touch her, my damn black soul needed just a little bit of her goodness.
Even if it wasn’t anything permanent.
Chapter 2
Leigh
I pulled my car into the parking spot and cut off the engine, glancing at the clock on the dash.
Perfect timing. I wouldn’t even have to use anyone to handle my remaining two hours left in the school day. Frankly, I thought it was very nice of the district to allow me to interview during work hours, which was probably why they had only taken the lunch and recess period from me.
All in all, my interview at the high school had gone very well.
Climbing out of the car, I walked toward the elementary school that had been my home for five years. While I enjoyed teaching kindergarten, I had
recently gone back to get my master’s in history with hopes of one day getting my doctorate.
In order to use that master’s degree I had gone into debt for, I needed a job that focused on the topic. When the history teacher at the high school had announced his retirement, I was ecstatic, seeing it as a sign for my ambitions.
Now I just had to wait for the verdict.
Crossing the bus lanes, I paused as I saw the kids playing on the playground in the distance, their laughter warming my heart. I would miss my little ones. Children that young had nothing but innocence in their veins. Most didn’t know anything outside of loving parents and a soft bed to sleep in.
They didn’t know the ugliness in the world.
I had been one of those people long ago, with fanciful notions of marrying a man who loved me and raising my own children one day.