Talon

by Savannah Rylan

THE END

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read Talon!

  Liked what you read? Make sure you check out the next book the series, Snake (The Road Rebels MC #3) releasing on January 17, 2018!

  Want a FREE book? Check out Bad Boy Boss HERE!

  Kisses <3

  Savannah

  Turn the page for your bonus book of Glock!

  Glock (The Bad Disciples MC #4)

  by Savannah Rylan

  Chapter 1

  Glock

  “Fuck!” Axel growled. He was pacing the floor of the bar, back and forth, up and down again; while the rest of us stood in attention, watching him grumble to himself. It wasn’t often that Axel, our MC Captain, lost his temper. I had always respected his ability to remain calm in the middle of the biggest shit storm. This was probably the worst shit storm I’d seen since I was a prospect with The Bad Disciples.

  We had been trying to reduce the Dark Knights’ prostitution ring to rubble for the past year and a half, and every time, after every shootout; that we believed we got them this time, the fuckers somehow rose up again.

  Prostituting women, selling them in the flesh trade; were strictly against the rules and the code of our conduct. As a motorcycle club, we had abided by this law since establishment. The Dark Knights, on the other hand, had taken matters into their own hands. They gave two shits to any moral code. They had been using and abusing women for the past two years right under our noses.

  Over the past year and a half, we had rescued at least thirty women from their grasp, and now word on the street was that they had captured and imprisoned at least twenty more. What the fuck was going on? How the hell were they able to grab twenty more, without us knowing? That was what Axel wanted to know, and we had no answers for him.

  “Another fucking shootout, you boys are not doing your job well or at all!” he barked, and his voice fell like a bag of cement on our shoulders. My brothers and I were standing with our heads hanging low, trying to find an explanation.

  The Dark Knights got another one of our shipments, shooting at us in the dark while Hunter, Gunner, Tank and I were overseeing the unloading of weapons at the docks. Luckily, no one got shot this time around, but we had almost lost all of the guns in the process. The Dragon Knights were retaliating for the shootouts we had conducted when we rescued a hoard of women from their capture. Those women were supposed to be sold off in the flesh trade within the week. They’d been very close to making a neat profit, and we’d scrambled their plan. Then, we rested easy thinking that the Dark Knights had no manpower and no resources to get back on their feet again.

  “They keep fucking shooting at us like we’re a bunch of sitting fucking ducks!” Axel growled, and he came up close to Gunner’s face, and Gunner looked him in the eye.

  “Are we fucking sitting ducks? Are we?” he yelled, and some spittle flew out of Axel’s mouth and landed on Gunner’s face.

  “No,” he replied in a firm voice, but I could see it on my brother’s face that he was beginning to blame himself. This had all started when we rescued his woman, Brooklyn, from the Dark Knights’ newly blossoming prostitution ring, and it hadn’t stopped since.

  “One of these days, one of you is going to get fucking killed, and I’ll have to put on a suit and go to the fucking funeral. I fucking hate funerals!” Axel continued screaming and walked over to the bar counter and picked up his abandoned bottle of beer.

  We watched in silence as he emptied the beer down his throat and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “You boys need to do your job!” he looked at us again, and pointed his finger at me, Hunter, Gunner, Tank, and Sniper. We were his elite crew, his right-hand men, the highest in the hierarchy of the MC. Which also meant, that every failure was our responsibility.

  “We need to figure out what’s helping them get back up on their feet after every raid we conduct,” I decided to speak up, and Axel squinted his eyes and then strode towards me threateningly. I clenched my jaw, he looked like he was going to punch me in the face for daring to speak. But someone had to say something. We couldn’t all just keep standing there and listen to Axel lose his mind.

  “You should have fucking figured that out a year ago!” he barked right in my face, and I nodded my head, accepting his criticism. “What do they call you Grapevine Glock for if you’re not collecting this information about them?” he continued, and I hung my head in shame again. I shouldn’t have said anything.

  Axel was right though, I had a reputation. I was good at making friends, at chatting drunk bikers up and extracting information that they didn’t want to give. I was the eyes and the ears of the Bad Disciples, and I always took pride in getting all the information I could. My secret weapon was the groupies. My brothers saw me as a no-strings-attached womanizer who fucked every groupie who hung around our MC and every other MC in Long Beach. They underestimated my libido. Groupies were like housekeepers, they know every dark and dirty secret, you just need to find a way of extracting it. I knew exactly how to do it, by making them scream my name.

  “You’re going to fucking do your job,” Axel barked again and then looked at the other members of the MC. “All of you are going to do your job and stop these assholes. That’s an order!” he continued and a buzz of agreement pulsated around the bar.

  “And you!” he narrowed his eyes at me again. “You go out there and live up to your name. Find out what’s going on, what they’re planning. Maybe this time, we can stay one step ahead of them before we end up losing one of our men,” Axel’s voice relaxed a little. He was returning to normal, his outburst had run its course.

  I nodded my head and watched him return to his bar stool at the counter before I turned to my brothers.

  Gunner ran a hand through his hair and shook his head.

  “Axel is right, we need to put an end to this,” he mumbled, as we huddled together around our usual table at the bar. Hunter and Tank muttered too, everyone seemed to be in a daze. In the last shootout against the Dark Knights, each of us had barely escaped with our lives, most of them were sporting bullet wounds and bruises.

  “Something has to give,” I said.

  ***

  By the time I stumbled up the stairs to the corridor leading to my apartment, I was piss drunk. Tonight, of all nights, was a night to get drunk. We had spent hours at the bar, discussing and then forgetting our trail of thought. The next day was time to get back to work, but tonight, we were going to celebrate that we’d survived the latest shootout.

  The keys jiggled in my hands as I walked down the dark corridor. My apartment was a private space where I slept and fucked women, that was all. I hadn’t bothered with finding a big apartment or buying all this fancy furniture and shit for it. What would I need that for? I ate at the Rusty Pelican, and I spent no more than six hours a night at my apartment.

  The closer I got to the door, the more my eyes adjusted in the dark. It was only when I was a few steps away from the door that I caught sight of Gili on the floor. She was sitting with her back to my door, chewing gum and twirling a lock of hair around her forefinger.

  “Hello sweetheart,” she said with a smirk, and I felt exhausted the moment I looked at her.

  I used to think she was the hottest piece of ass around. She had a weakness for fishnet stockings and really tiny denim shorts. Her nails were always perfectly manicured and long, leaving scratch marks on my back when she came. I’d fucked her too many times now to notice these things about her anymore.

  “Gili, it’s fucking late,” I said, fumbling a little with my words. I slid the key into my door and turned it, and when I pushed open the door, Gili fell back on the floor and giggled loudly.

  “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to get back, where have you been?” she said, and I stepped over her stretched out body and entered my dark apartment.

  “Where do you think?” I said and threw my keys over to the couch, but it landed on the floor somewhere with a clang. I was in t
he middle of taking off my leather jacket when I sensed her stand up and follow me into my apartment.

  “But it’s Friday, you were supposed to come looking for me, not hang around with the boys at the Rusty Pelican!” she said, and I could hear an accusatory tone in her voice. I’d been fucking her for two years now, every other week, and suddenly I was worried that she was growing attached.

  “It’s not like we have a deal or nothing,” I snapped at her and walked over to the kitchen sink and poured myself a glass of water.

  “Can I have a soda?” she asked and flipped open the fridge door and bent down in front of it.

  “I don’t have any soda, and even if I did, you couldn’t have it,” I snapped at her again and slammed the fridge door shut. She straightened up and plonked her hands on her bony hips. I rolled my eyes at her and grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water. Dealing with Gili’s attachment was the last thing I wanted to do right now.

  “You’re in a bad mood. I can fix it, sweetheart,” she whined and followed me, trying to grab my arm so she could pull me to herself. I yanked my arm away from her and emptied the cold water down my throat.

  “You need to leave my apartment right now, unless there’s something you have to tell me,” I growled at her. Gili was a groupie of a local gang, a small faction not big enough as The Bad Disciples. She hung around their bar, fucked most of the guys in the gang and she also fucked me.

  Gili crossed her brows at me.

  “Ask me nicely,” she hissed, and I stepped towards her, peering into her dark, glittering eyes.

  “Is there something you know? About the Dark Knights?” I asked, gritting my teeth at her. I knew this wasn’t going to work. These girls needed to be fucked and treated nicely before they spilled the beans on anything; but tonight, I wasn’t in the mood to pretend. None of these women did anything for me, not in any real way at least.

  “Ask me nicely, if you want to know,” she said again, and I stepped closer to her. I could feel my body writhing with rage. Did she actually know something or was she just winding me up? I could fuck her, I was always ready for it. I could fuck her, and when she was exhausted and satisfied, it would be way easier to get the information out of her.

  Gili bit down on her bottom lip, and I watched her thrust her breasts out in invitation. She was in my apartment for a particular reason, she wanted to be fucked.

  “Come here, baby, let’s relax a little and then we can talk,” she said and reached for my arm again.

  “Get the fuck out!” I barked, and I had no idea where that was coming from. I might have been too drunk, or I had too much on my mind to bother with her.

  Gili looked surprised. I was the jokester, the charmer, the smooth-talker. I had never raised my voice or been violent towards any of the groupies before. With her eyebrows raised and her mouth hanging open, Gili ran out of my apartment and banged the door shut behind her. I bet she was used to rage from most of the men she usually fucked, but she wasn’t used to it from me.

  I rubbed my temples, hearing Axel’s voice in my head again. We had all failed. We hadn’t been doing our job right. Would my brothers and I survive another shootout against the Dark Knights?

  I stumbled into my bedroom and crashed down on my bed, and once again I was thinking about the girl who might have made me feel better tonight. The girl that I always wished I was fucking instead of the groupies. That girl was a woman now, and I hadn’t seen her in ten years.

  Chapter 2

  Sage

  The wind was in my hair as my arm hung from the open window of the old beat up truck I’d recently purchased. While I walked or biked a lot in San Francisco, I knew I needed something else to get me around. This old thing was the only ride I could afford, and it had seen me through the nine hours all the way here.

  I was on the brink of starting a new life. These past five years had been a struggle, but nothing like when I first left home. I was a starry-eyed seventeen-year-old, a high school dropout with a desperate urge to get away from Long Beach. To get away from the gangs and the violence I had grown up in the middle of.

  My mom had done the best she could have done for me, but I had always dreamt of a better life. I had dreamt of more money, of having an actual career, and of living in a neighborhood where guns didn’t go off every night. When I first moved to San Francisco, I was surprised by how it was not that very different from the neighborhood in Long Beach where I had grown up.

  Small apartments, violence, people struggling to make a living…it was the same story, different city. However, the most significant difference here was that it was a land of opportunity. There were jobs, and there was potential.

  Those first five years had been a struggle. I was a teenager, without a high school diploma, and I had no other choice but to pick up any and as many part-time jobs, I could get my hands on.

  I did everything, from waitressing at a late-night diner to being a cleaning crew for office buildings. I had to get by. I had to make a living, and I did it…for long enough to attend night classes and finally get my high school diploma. Five years of living paycheck to paycheck, and sleeping a couple of winks on the bottom of a bunk bed in a studio apartment with four other people.

  I’d saved every penny I could get my hands on, I’d shopped at thrift stores, but only when my clothes and shoes had been worn to rags. Five years later and I had a new plan. I was going to go to law school and eventually take the California bar exam.

  I was working nights again, part-time jobs so that I could study during the day. I had enough money to move to a bigger studio apartment, this time with three people instead of four. I had enough to buy the books and the computer I needed, and I spent every day, when I wasn’t working, at the library.

  It had taken me five years, but I’d finally done it. I had graduated law school and passed the bar exam. I was now one step closer to living my dream life. I was twenty-seven, with a law degree and the potential of getting an actual job. I knew what this entailed. I would have to spend the next decade working as an associate, which was nothing more than a glorified secretary; but at this new job I would get to my feet wet and be a part of trying cases. I’d be able to afford my own apartment, I’d be able to save for a deposit on my own house, I’d be able to wear new clothes!

  And then, in ten years, when I was in the comfortable middle age of my late thirties, I’d be able to make partner at a firm or start out on my own. I could try my own cases, I could make a name for myself.

  I smiled to myself as I drove through Long Beach, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel with happiness.

  I hadn’t been back home in ten years. I didn’t have the time, I just couldn’t. I’d gotten addicted to my new life in San Francisco.

  I called mom once every week, and I knew she waited for my phone call every Sunday afternoon. She was happy for me, she knew little about the details of my daily life, but I knew she was proud. I had promised her every year that I would visit soon, but in the past ten years, with work and school, I couldn’t find the time.

  I was driving towards my old home now, that familiar neighborhood greeted me, and I could see how things had changed. The walls were still covered with graffiti, the roadside bins still overflowed with garbage but there was a scent of modernity in the air…or was I just looking at my old city through the eyes of an adult now?

  Mom was sick. She’d been ill for the past two years, and now that I’d passed my bar exam and I was on the verge of starting a new life; I couldn’t make any more excuses to myself to stay away. It was going to be now or never. I had just passed the bar, and I hadn’t made any applications to law firms yet, so I figured this would be the best time to finally go visit home.

  I hadn’t told mom I was coming. It was Sunday afternoon, and I knew she was going to be waiting in the kitchen for my phone call. But she was in for a surprise.

  ***

  Mom took several minutes to open the door, but not before she had peeped outsid
e through the thin lace curtains on the front windows, which were looking a little yellow now.

  She jerked the door open and then fell on me with a loud whistling cry. I barely had the chance to place my bags on the porch before she had me in her arms.

  “You’re looking good, mom,” I said with a broad smile, even though she was looking frailer than the photographs she’d sent me a couple of months ago.

  “And you are looking beautiful, my baby! This is such a wonderful surprise, I can’t believe it!” mom hugged me as she led me into the old house, and I’d noticed her watery eyes. She hadn’t seen me in person in ten years, I was seventeen when I’d walked out of that door and never returned. A familiar pang of guilt shot through my abdomen. Despite my long absence, mom hadn’t once complained.

  “Nothing’s changed, this is crazy,” I said, as I looked around the small living room. Mom couldn’t stop staring at me. I felt like a celebrity with her, and I went over and hugged her again.

  “I wanted everything to remain exactly the same when you finally came home, and now you have!” she exclaimed, her voice muffled slightly by my hair.

  “So, you can start moving things around now,” I replied with a laugh, and I followed her as she rushed into the kitchen.

  “Oh, I don’t know what I have to offer you, baby. Would you like some coffee? I only have the instant kind. And I might have some cookies leftover,” mom was flustering about in the kitchen, throwing open old cupboard doors and then slamming them shut.

  “I’m fine, mom, thanks. Sit down with me, coffee will do for now. Maybe later we could go out and have a nice meal. Any new restaurants opened up?” I sat down at the small kitchen table, as a wave of nostalgia washed over me. Even the wallpaper was the same, peeling at the same spots. The house smelled the same too, of coffee and baking and mom’s faint perfume.