Among the Chaos: Book 2 of the Soldiers of Chaos MC Series

by A. A. Askevold

  “Are you serious? How the hell do you plan on destroying the Soldiers?” Sheila asked.

  “We’ve got a man inside.”

  It was Roach’s voice. What the hell was she doing with him?

  Her mother laughed loudly, “Oh darlin’ you crack me up.”

  “I’m not joking woman,” growled Roach.

  “Please. None of those bastards would turn on their precious club,” the disdain in Sheila’s voice was clear.

  “You’re wrong about that Sheila,” Roach replied.

  “So who is this so called inside man?”

  “Reaper Jones,” the ‘so there’ went unsaid though it was obvious from his tone.

  “Really?” Nikki could hear the sadistic glee in her mother’s voice.

  There was only one thing Sheila hated more than the club and that was Reaper. But there was one thing she desired even more than causing that man’s downfall, money. Her mother’s death suddenly made so much more sense. Nikki’s anger swelled again and she knew she had to end this shit tonight. Tonight she would become the club’s executioner, their angel of death.

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  “You won’t be able to get to him.”

  Tex turned his head toward the darkened corner of the room. Nikki leaned forward into the light slightly. She was absentmindedly turning her gun over in her hands staring off into space. He’d had no idea she was there and judging by the sudden still tension in the air neither had anyone else. He’d told her to stay home, to leave this shit alone but she hadn’t listened. They all watched her silently for a moment then the table resumed arguing about what they were going to do with Reaper.

  She was right they would find it nearly impossible to get to him. His eyes flicked to Trace across the table. He was still watching Nikki frowning at her. Tex turned back to her. Her father had killed the prospects but worse he’d killed Rat and Tex just knew that somewhere he’d had a hand in Sheila’s murder. He’d betrayed them all adding another nail to Nikki’s coffin. He knew she was close to breaking point and he wanted right now to steal her away and hide her till all this shit was over. Suddenly she stood and slipping her Glock into the waistband of her pants she strode out of the room with a look of hard determination on her face. Tex wanted to go after her but there was no way any of them were leaving that table till shit got sorted.

  “What do you think he’s just gonna let us waltz on up to him and put a bullet in his brain? Ace is right none of us are gonna be able to get within an inch of him,” Case fired off.

  “No one except her maybe. They have appeared to be rather chummy the last little while,” Rock quipped.

  No one except her.

  “That’s enough. She had nothing to do with her bastard father’s betrayal and the next man that suggests so will find my fist buried firmly in their skull. Got that?” King yelled at the group.

  No one except her. Shit. Both he and Trace started for the door at the same time.

  King called after them, “Where the hell are you two going?”

  To save Nikki from herself.

  Nikki had sat and listened to them discuss Reaper’s traitorous actions. She’d listened to some of her brother’s try to sell her down the river right alongside him. He’d played them all but he’d played her more than anyone. The things she’d done for him. The darkness that was her constant companion rose up from inside her. She should’ve seen this coming. He’d allowed her to help him too easily. She’d been his scapegoat and now there was only one way to prove she hadn’t been in on it with him. Nikki pulled her phone from her pocket as she exited the clubhouse and dialed a number.

  The call connected.

  “Reaper it’s me don’t hang up.”

  “What do you want kid?” his voice was harsh.

  “The club knows I did those hits. They’re saying they weren’t sanctioned by King. I don’t understand this shit. You told me King sanctioned this? Why would he lie?” She tried her best to sound anguished.

  “Woah slow your roll kid. What do you mean they found out?”

  She didn’t know if Reaper was playing along for shits and giggles or if he was genuinely surprised.

  “I don’t know. I overheard them talking. They think you work for Bridges. That I work for Bridges. They’re going to kill me.”

  Silence followed and she knew Reaper was considering the truth of that statement.

  “I need your help Dad. You’re the only one who can sort this out, who can tell them the truth.”

  Several choice words exited his mouth, “I can’t kid. They think I work for Bridges they’ll shoot me on sight. There’s no way they’d take my word over King’s.”

  He was gonna leave her to hang for his crimes. She knew the man was hard but shit she never thought he’d let her take the fall for his actions.

  “So you’re gonna leave me to die?”

  Silence followed by a low growl, “No kid I’m not gonna leave you to die. I’ll get you out. Meet me at the old mill.”

  Then nothing, he’d hung up on her.

  Nikki mounted her bike and slid her mask over her head. She let the darkness slip through her and reign over her body. Her bike roared to life and she threw her helmet on. A shout from the direction of the clubhouse brought her head around. Tex and Trace stalled in the doorway staring at her. She felt a twinge of something, then it was gone, the monster having already taken hold of her. She tore out of the compound towards the old mill. Tonight she would hear the truth from his mouth. Tonight she would know for certain the extent of her father’s betrayal.

  As she neared the lonely stretch of road that once held the entry to the mill she glimpsed Reaper waiting for her. The light from his headlight lit the road near the entrance to the old mill. Her father leant against his bike his arms crossed over his chest. Nikki came to a stop a couple of meters from him and switched off her engine leaving the headlight on. She pulled down her mask leaving it to hang around her neck and removed her helmet and glasses leaving them on the seat of her bike. Nikki took a couple steps towards him as he pushed away from his bike and turned to her.

  “Hold up kid.”

  She stopped a few steps from him as he pointed a gun at her.

  “Lift up your cut and turn.”

  He didn’t trust her and he was right not to. She lifted her cut and spun around slowly to show she was unarmed. Her Glock was stashed inside her saddle bags.

  “Sorry kid just had to check.”

  She watched as Reaper stowed the gun in the waistband of his pants at his back.

  “Are you sure about all this shit kid?”

  Nikki moved again throwing herself at Reaper her arms going around his waist and her head ducking into his shoulder. He froze. His body instantly tensed as if he was preparing for her to attack. She turned on the tears.

  “They voted it,” she sobbed into his shirt, “They all voted yes.”

  Reaper’s arms closed round her awkwardly, “I’m sorry kid. We made our bed and now we have to lie in it.”

  We’ve made our bed? She had made no such bed. Nikki moved quickly. She brought her head up at the same time as her hand closed around Reaper’s gun. She head butted him her forehead connecting with his nose. Reaper’s grip loosened and she ripped the gun out of his waistband. Nikki backed up quickly pointing Reaper’s gun at him.

  “Smooth kid, very fucking smooth,” Reaper said as he swiped at the blood dripping slowly from his nose. “So where’s everyone hiding? King gonna pop out of the bushes and finish me?”

  She didn’t need King to do this.

  “There’s no one here but you and me.”

  His eyes narrowed further.

  “Now get on your knees.”

  Reaper shifted slightly towards his bike. Nikki knew he’d have more weapons stored in his saddlebags.

  “I wouldn’t bother old man. My aim is faultless and you haven’t got a hope in hell of getting to those bags before I drop you. Now get on your fucking knees.”

>   He slowly knelt on the bitumen, “Think about this kid. What’s killing me going to achieve? This how you’re planning to get right with the club? It won’t work. You’re still gonna be in the same position only with me gone you won’t have an out.”

  Play the game Reaper, play the game.

  “How long?” His eyes narrowed at her.

  “How long what?”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Dad. I know. They all know. How long have you been working for Bridges?”

  She couldn’t believe the audacity, trying to play her this late in the game.

  “Since before you were patched.”

  His answer took her by surprise. He’d been working for Bridges for that long? How the hell had no one noticed?

  “His people are on their way to meet me here. So you better decide quick kid whether you’re going to kill me or not.”

  She ignored his threat.

  “Why would you betray the MC like this?” That was the one thing she couldn’t figure out. The reason behind Reaper’s treachery eluded her.

  “Because they killed the only woman I ever loved.”

  Nikki’s eyebrows hit her hairline as those words left his mouth. The woman in the pictures?

  “Who was she?”

  Reaper looked off into the dark but said nothing.

  “You’ve destroyed my life and yours for the sake of this woman the least you can do is tell me who she was. Who meant more to you than your own daughter’s life?”

  He continued to look off into the dark as he spoke, “she was beautiful, olive skin, dark hair and the most exquisite green eyes I’d ever seen. She was young, wanted to take a walk on the wild side and I gave her that opportunity. We were in love but love don’t mean shit. She was a poor kid chasing a better life and I couldn’t give that to her so she left me for a rich man who could give her the life she deserved. She married him and they had a kid together. I met Sheila and you know the rest.” He paused, probably taking a trip down memory lane. “She came to me one night warning me about some shit going on with the Bridges and the club. The next thing I knew Sophia was dead. The club killed her.”

  That made no sense to Nikki. If this woman was warning the club why the hell would they kill her? They had more reason to keep her safe than kill her.

  “If she was helping the MC why would King have her killed?”

  His gaze came back to hers and she glimpsed pain and anguish there. If the darkness hadn’t spread through her already she may have felt a twinge of sorrow for her old man.

  “She was Bridges wife.”

  Holy fucking shit.

  His eyes turned feral with hate as he spoke, “King knew who she was to me and he killed her anyway.”

  Now she understood why her old man hated the club but to throw his own daughter under the bus?

  “Those hits we did?”

  His mouth lifted into a sneer, “It was a setup kid.”

  Of course it was.

  “All so you could frame me?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, “What can I say kid? You’re predictable and oh so fucking faithful, a Soldier to the core.”

  He’d turned her into a traitor and a cold blooded killer. There was no going back from there for her, no going back for either of them.

  “And Sheila? At what point did you decide she needed to die?”

  Reaper’s face was solid as a rock and completely emotionless.

  “That was her decision, not mine. She chose to sleep with the Soldier’s enemies and she chose to go snooping in places she had no place in being,” he answered.

  “You lie. She found out you were working for Bridges and you had her killed,” she snarled at him.

  He sneered back at her, “She was sleeping with Roach and the pillow talk made her a liability. You’ve got no proof either way.”

  It wasn’t the pillow talk itself that made her a liability it was the fact that she had threatened Reaper with going to the Soldier’s and divulging his secret if he didn’t pay her hush money. Nikki had no idea how Sheila could’ve been so stupid as to think she would get away with it.

  “That wasn’t what made her a liability. It was the recordings she had that made her a liability.”

  His eye twitched slightly. He had no idea she knew about the recordings

  “You didn’t think she’d only have one copy of them did you?”

  His hands curled into fists. He hadn’t thought there were any more copies either.

  “I’ve got the proof but I don’t need it. Whether it’s me, the club, the crows or Bridges who pulls the trigger, you are a dead man.”

  Reaper stared past her into the darkness beyond them as he spoke, “I was dead long before this all started.”

  She could no longer put off the inevitable. It was Reaper’s turn to die.

  “Take off the cut and put it on the floor,” she commanded quietly.

  He removed his Soldiers cut and dropped it on the ground behind him. Nikki placed her finger more firmly on the trigger and Reaper smiled at her, this creepy evil pride filled grin.

  “You are more like me than you’ll ever know kid.”

  She was nothing like him. She would never betray her real family the way he’d betrayed her.

  “I am nothing like you,” her words came out on a dark growl and she knew the monster was really taking control now.

  “You sure about that kid? Everything you have I gave you, everything you are now I made you and everything you know you learnt from me.”

  She shook her head at him, “You have given me nothing but the hatred I have in my heart for you. What you have made me I can erase with one squeeze of this trigger and there is only one lesson I have ever learnt from you.”

  “And what’s that kid?” he asked with a sneer.

  “Club first, always,” Nikki answered then squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet entered her father’s skull right between his eyes and exited out through the back of his skull spraying his cut with blood and gore. He fell forward onto the pavement in front of her. As she stared down at his lifeless body she felt as dead inside as he was. That is what he had given her.

  Nikki picked up Reaper’s cut from the ground behind him and placed his gun in the shoulder holster she wore under her cut. Taking his make from his saddle bags she tried her best to wipe the gore from his cut. The blood smeared across the patch leaving a streak of red through his white patch. She gave up folding the cut trying her best to keep the bloodied parts on the inside. Nikki reached into her saddle bag and removed her other gun shoving the cut into the now empty bag. She turned back towards Reaper’s body. It could stay there. It would serve as a warning to Bridges that the Soldiers were not to be messed with. The unmistakable growl of a group of Harley’s sounded in the distance. The cavalry were on their way.

  A crunching noise sounded from the darkness behind her. Nikki swung in that direction raising her gun to shoot.

  “Whoa there Angel, I’m not here to hurt you.”

  Cole. He stepped from the darkness into the light slowly walking towards her with his hands up showing he was not carrying a weapon. She stared at him in shock. She hadn’t laid eyes on him since that night and while some small part of her was screaming at her to run the monster inside her was shivering with anticipation. His green eyes glinted in the light from Reaper’s headlight, those beautiful other-worldly green eyes.

  “Put the gun down Angel.”

  His words snapped her out of her trance.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to rescue you,” he explained.

  To rescue her? From what?

  “You’re in a bad position here Angel. You’ve killed one of Bridges most trusted allies.”

  Cole gestured behind her. She shifted her eyes back to Reaper’s body and Cole took a couple of quick steps toward before she turned her attention back to him. The growl from the bikes grew louder. Nikki threw a quick glance in the direction of the sound. Headlights were brea
king through the darkness. As she watched the club hurtling towards them through the dark she pictured the confrontation that would happen if Cole didn’t disappear and quick. The men she loved facing off against the man who was her demon personified.

  She turned back to Cole, “You need to leave now.”

  He shook his head at her, “Not without you Angel. You think they’ll welcome you back with open arms because you’ve killed Reaper. You killed your own Angel, they won’t accept you back. Both Bridges and the club will be after you now. You have only one safe harbor and that’s me.”

  Cole was anything but safe. More footsteps sounded from behind Cole.

  Roger stepped out of the darkness behind him, “Miss Jones. We need to go Cole and we need to go now.”

  Killed her own? How did he know about the prospects?

  “How did you know about that?” she asked quietly.

  Cole looked between the bikes bearing down on them and Nikki.

  “Come with me Angel. No one has to get hurt if you just come with me know.”

  A tall thin figure stepped out of the shadows. The minute Nikki’s gaze fell upon him her blood ran cold. Jason Black. What the hell was Bridges right hand man doing here with Cole?

  “What is going on here?”

  Her question brought Black’s gaze to her. Creepy guy’s eyes stared right out of his face into her soul calling the monster inside her into action. She raised her gun again pointing it in his direction. He immediately trained his aim on her.

  Cole turned slightly towards Black, “Lower your weapon Black. You hurt her, I will kill you where you stand.”

  Jason Black averted both his eyes and his aim away from her.

  Now he was taking orders from Cole. Nikki was clearly missing something here. She swung her gaze and the muzzle of her gun back to Cole.