by Brook Wilder
Table of Contents
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Prologue
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
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.
Claimed copyright @ 2017 by Brook Wilder. 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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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHANCE’S BABY
Prologue
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
Epilogue
BARED
Prologue
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
OTHER BOOKS BY BROOK WILDER
CLAIMED
Prologue
It was the banging on the door that woke Gabe up. His alarm clock went off over an hour ago but he trained himself long ago to forget the sound and sleep through the blare until the battery of the phone died in the attempt and he was still in his peaceful slumber. So when he woke up that morning he knew it had to be from something else entirely. Hannah was at work, besides, she never once forgot her key and never stopped reminding him every time he called to ask her to let him in. So whoever was banging wildly on the door was not his sister. His next thought was perhaps Mrs. Jerry from next door was coming by to complain again. They hadn’t had a party at the house in months but that wouldn’t stop her from finding something to bitch his ear off about.
The pounding continued and he fumbled out of his bed, low to the ground from the lack of bedframe and box spring. He walked over the hardwood floor of his bedroom, careful to miss the places where splinters stuck up and out of the boards with a bit of a vengeance. He’d once gone to the emergency room with a shard of wood lodged in his foot and Hannah never let him live it down, telling him constantly to wear socks when walking around in there. He forwent her advice and walked out of the room to the front door where the pounding continued.
“Alright, alright. I’m on my way,” he said through a yawn. He was dressed still only in his boxers, a breeze at his crotch told him the flap was open but he didn’t care. Maybe it would scare off Mrs. Jerry for a while.
But it wasn’t Mrs. Jerry at the door. He was staring face to face with a man he knew well. Ben Andrews was staring down at him from his six foot two inch height with glaring, dangerous eyes. He looked every bit the threat he liked to pretend to be when they were at bars together. Gabe could smell the richness of the leather coming off the branded and patched vest he was wearing displaying the Satan’s Knights insignia. There was a jangle of metal from all the chains that were woven into the fabric as he took it upon himself to step into the room without invitation.
“Uh—”
“We need to talk,” he said dangerously, closing the door behind him. Gabe would have suddenly given anything for it to have been Mrs. Jerry waking him up. “You owe me money, little man.”
Gabe could have sworn he felt his knees downright shaking but prayed that Ben didn’t. Suddenly the breeze at his crotch felt more like total vulnerability. He’d heard stories of Ben Andrews taking some rubber bands and a pocket knife to men’s balls and then keeping them as trophies. He instinctively pulled his legs closer together but refrained from placing his hands over the vulnerable area, to keep Andrews from getting ideas. He backed up until it was nothing but a wall behind him and Andrews in front of him.
“Hey man, how are you?” he asked, trying to force something casual out of a clearly dangerous situation.
“Waiting for that money you promised last week, you sure are the shittiest gambler I’ve met,” he said. “You think you’d learn. It’s not for everyone, kid.”
“Everything’s got one of those Bell curves you know,” Gabe chuckled without humor and without courage.
“Not the best attitude to have where money i
s involved.”
“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I’m learning my lesson man. I just need a little more—”
“If you’re about to ask me for more time, you’re out of your completely fucked up mind,” Ben said, stepping even closer to him. “You’ve owed me this money for over a week now and I have my own bills to pay. So you either have it now, or we’re going to have a very serious problem.”
This was it, this is how he was going to go. He was going to die because some bully on a bike showed up and decided to punch the shit out of him until his heart stopped because he couldn’t pay him back all he money he owed him. He’d hoped to die in some cool way like at the top of Mount Everest or in a plane crash or in space or some other crazy shit. Instead, he was going to be torn limb from limb by some back water biker.
“Hey, Gabe I forgot my—what the hell?”
Hannah was home. Gabe didn’t know whether that was a relief or a whole new set of issues to deal with. She always stopped home on Thursdays to change from her work clothes into something for class. There she was, in the middle of her brother about to be murdered by a professional killer, looking at the pair of men like it was some late night comedy skit gone wrong.
“Who’s this bitch?” Ben asked, thumbing behind him to point to Hannah. She glared.
“My sister,” he said.
“Tell her to go into the other room, I’m willing to make a deal with you.”
Gabe looked at his sister with pleading, wide eyes. She was glaring at the whole situation, clearly unaware of the real danger of it all. She knew he had a gambling problem, once or twice she’d cleaned him up after he’d been roughed up a little too much by guys outside a bar. But she figured it was some kind of horse play, some boys who got a little too eager at the chance of laying into a kid and exerting some power. This was something entirely different. Ben Andrews wasn’t some high school football captain repressing inner emotions by beating up on someone weaker than him. He was a dangerous, terrifying man.
She walked away, nonetheless. Gabe knew it wasn’t because she was told to, but because she had to get changed for class. She had a way of not caring what he got up to unless it concerned her. She was out of the room, rolling her eyes, and Gabe was sweating bullets while Andrews stared at him.
“You don’t have my money, that’s fine,” he said a little too kindly. Gabe thought he might pee himself. “We can do this another way.”
“Sure, yeah, whatever you need,” he said against his better judgement.
“So the girl…”
“My sister,” he coughed out.
“Right. You want more time?”
“Yes.”
“How long do you need, kid?”
“A week? Maybe less. I’ll get it to you I swear I just—“
“Calm down my man. There’s no need to panic. I can be incredibly understanding when I need to be,” he said. “I’ll give you that extra week, because I’m so nice. To make sure you actually get me the money this time, I’m going to take some collateral from you.”
“Uh sure. Like a credit card?”
“We’re not talking about bar tabs here.”
He was dangerous again. No one was ever so skilled at playing good cop-bad cop before, Gabe was sure of it.
“What is it you want?”
“Your lovely sister. She comes with me. You get her back safe and sound when you’ve paid me the money. We got a bargain?”
Oh fuck.
Chapter 1
Hannah really didn’t care for whatever crap Gabe got up to when he was out all night drinking and spending what measly paycheck he got from the bar on poker tables. He said he had a natural born poker face because he was pretty. Not handsome, not dashing, pretty. He was the epitome of what the grizzle alpha male types called a pretty boy because his hair was perfectly combed, even on his roughest nights, his jaw was chiseled, there wasn’t a spot of acne to be found on his porcelain face. This made him the kind of person that people wanted to talk to, believe, do anything for.
But gambling was about a lot more than looks. It was about a lot more than lying. There was luck involved, and some God-give abilities, but there was also talent, smarts: something that Gabe seemed to think he could just avoid learning and call it a day. He’d tried using that face for a lot of things, confidence scams, real estate crap, opening some kind of hipster coffee shop. This time it was gambling, and he was worse at it than he had been with any of the other schemes he tried.
She ignored it. If she didn’t look then she wasn’t culpable and she’d just have to deal with cleaning up his busted lips and bruised face later. It’s not like the bar he worked at was some upscale place or anything. He could get by looking like he just walked out of some fight club dungeon. She turned her attention to her closet. She had a half hour before class to get dressed and she made the mistake only once of just wearing work clothes to school and smelled like an onion the entire day. So instead she perused her closet, looking for something that didn’t quite scream that she was a poor waitress. Unfortunately, most of her wardrobe seemed to say just that.
Whatever. It’s not like she was trying to impress anyone. It was about the goal, not how good she looked getting there, no matter how many people in her class dressed in expensive Blundstones and flannels that cost more than her dinner last night. She could worry about dressing nice for her trials, not for some professor who probably had no idea what her name was. She threw something on and heard a timid knock at the door.
“Did your boyfriend leave?” she asked.
“Hannah, I gotta talk to you, can you open the door?” said her brother’s voice through the wood and she groaned, though she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t at least a little nervous for his tone.
She buttoned her pants and walked over, pulling the door open. Gabe was standing there, still practically naked in his Star Wars boxers and nothing else. He looked so scrawny. It was one of the reasons he never tried to apply that angel face to modeling or acting. He tried his hand at bulking up muscle in high school and couldn’t gain more than five pounds. He had one of those fast metabolisms everyone was jealous of.
He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
“You might be a little more intimidating to your loan shark friends if you actually got dressed,” she said, looking in the mirror to start applying makeup. “Am I going to come home from school and find the place trashed and your blood staining everything?”
“Listen, he offered me a deal and before you make a decision on it, I really want you to consider it,” he said. “He’s giving me an extra week to get him the money, which is perfect. But he’s taking collateral.”
Oh here we go…
“In the form of?”
“You.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“He wants you as the collateral.”
“And did you tell him this is the 21st century and that I’m a person, not a piece of merchandise that can be tossed around at anyone’s whim?”
Gabe was cringing. He walked over and dropped down onto her bed. He ran his fingers through his hair, pulling at the base tightly. He let out a groan and slammed his fists onto the mattress where they bounced back.
“Hannah, he’s going to kill me. I don’t mean that like ‘oh, mom’s going to kill me’ but literally cut my throat and leave me bleeding in some back alley. I know I fucked up and maybe this is my rock bottom to try and fix it, but I really need your help,” he said, his voice cracking. She wondered if she was actually going to see him cry.
“You got yourself into a fucked up situation and now you’re asking me to put my life in danger to try and get you out of it,” she said. “Do you even hear what you’re asking from me?”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m going to get him the money ASAP, I swear. He won’t hurt you. If he does he knows he won’t get his money.”
“And when you fail to give him the money what do you think he’s going to do to me then?�
�
“I won’t fail. I swear to God Hannah, I won’t let him hurt you.”
She wanted to scream.
“I have class, Gabe. I’m becoming a lawyer. I’m finally moving toward actually helping people instead of getting them coffee and ignoring when they try and grab at my ass and you expect me to put all that on hold for a week to go play house with a biker?”
“I’ll fix it, I swear. I just need your help. Please. Please.”
She was becoming a lawyer because she wanted to help people. And her brother was people. More than that, he was her baby brother, someone she was sworn to protect on instinct. He was her family, her responsibility and if she couldn’t find a way to help him, how could she be expected to help the dozens and dozens of low income people in the area she claimed she was going to help with her law degree?
This was not at all how she imagined her day going.
***
Chance liked getting out of town. He loved his home. He loved the familiar smells, he loved the way everything seemed to fit into place. He liked knowing he had a position here, people knew his name, knew who he was. But he also liked getting out. The town could be stifling, he could be easily caged in. Business trips were always the best excuse out. He didn’t take vacations. Though the guys often told him he should try, that there was nothing wrong with taking a few days off, he didn’t like the idea of being absent. He was the president of the club. His father never took time off when he founded Satan’s Knights. He wasn’t going to be the first one to go AWOL and break tradition.