“Sure did,” I answered, extending a fist that he bumped. “I just barely got back into town.” Lie. “Haven’t even had a chance to get back by my place yet. You know if we’re waiting on anyone else?”
He threw his cigarette down and ground it into a dark smudge. “Nah, I knocked on the door when I got here a few minutes ago. Tex’s loud ass hollered that I was supposed to wait for you, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Waiting.”
There he is.
He probably didn’t realize he was even doing it, but the rude bastard was showing through already. I was oddly relieved.
We got along as well as we did because his abrasive personality didn’t bother me in the least. If he started changing up on me, I really was going to be concerned.
I squinted at the club, jaw working back and forth while I chewed on what he’d said. “Any idea what this is about?”
Axle raised his shoulders and let them drop. “A few,” he supplied helpfully.
I raised a brow, waiting on him to elaborate and only receiving a blank look in return. This fucker.
Didn't he know the brooding, silent gig had been taken and retired?
Before I could set my mind to a suitably petty response, the door to the club opened. Six and a half feet of giant, blonde-haired biker filled it as Tex stepped out onto the porch and shot both of us a look worth paying attention to.
It had been a long while since I'd seen his features cast in unforgiving stone.
After marrying his friendly little blonde, the former Sergeant at Arms had passed on the title to the man beside me. But there was no mistaking why Tex had held it for so long in the first place. All it took was being close enough to see those cold eyes staring back.
The same eyes he got when the hunt was calling, and the blood of his enemies was leaving an unmistakable trail.
“Shit,” Axle muttered under his breath, picking up exactly what I had.
Shit is right.
I wasn't dumb enough to have been hoping for good news. But was a little more peace and quiet too much to ask for? I wouldn't have minded a vacation announcement in the least.
“Come on then,” Tex said, waving us forward before disappearing back into the house.
I went up the steps first with Axle following close behind. When we hit the doorway and strode inside, I wasn't surprised to find the smell of fresh blueberry cobbler hitting my nose, making my stomach growl.
Caitlin was teaching herself how to bake, and the results so far had already been impressive.
I discreetly snuck a glance towards the kitchen but didn't see anything sitting out. Just as well.
I'd sworn off sweets in a major way years ago, and although I allowed myself some room to cheat on my diet here and there, I was way over my limit thanks to Sly twisting my arm to get me to indulge in doughnuts with her.
At least there’d been a lot of options for healthy eating in Charlotte. Oakdale wouldn’t know sugar-free if God Himself wrote it in the sky.
The club was quiet as it always was these days while we followed Tex through the hall, but I was getting more used to it as time went by.
This place used to be a hub of activity day and night back when the big seven still lived here together. But that was the way of things, wasn’t it?
Life changed.
Kane, Saze, and Tex were married and living with their spouses.
Rebel had turned traitor, his whereabouts unknown.
Tanner had been...arrested? Was that the word for having the government sweep you away without a trace?
Sylvia was with her man and not inclined to return.
That left Creed and Caitlin with the place to themselves, and I was sure the snarling monster wouldn’t have it any other way.
We reached the closed double doors leading into Creed’s office, and Tex knocked twice before pausing and turning the handle.
He went in first, big body blocking the view so that Axle and I were all the way into the black and silver room before its other occupants came into sight. When they did, my mouth immediately went dry, pressure falling against my senses from every side.
If Texas was the hunter, stalking and catching and killing his prey. Then Creed was the thing that went bump in the night. The reason man learned to make fire in the first place. The lurking shadow at the edge of your vision that made your lizard brain scream with one bone-deep instinct:
Run.
The President of the Sinners sat poised in his leather chair, one ink-covered hand spread out atop the huge ebony desk in front of him.
Caitlin was sitting sideways in his lap, colorful socks kicked up on one end of the desk while she folded a corner of the paperback she was reading and put it down. His other hand was wrapped possessively around the back of her neck, fingers resting right over her pulse.
I held onto my silence while Tex took his spot at the boss man’s right side, and I was grateful that the antagonistic badger usually buried up Axle’s ass seemed to be on break for the moment.
Caitlin seemed largely unaffected by the suffocating atmosphere created by the man who hadn’t moved or spoken, and—not for the first time—I wondered how she did it.
His gray eyes slowly shifting between us felt like threat and promise perfectly intertwined. I had no issue with admitting that. Why would I?
The father of the atomic bomb recognized what he wrought. And by the same token, I recognized what kind of man I pledged my loyalty to, even beyond the promise written on my soul.
“Welcome back,” he said finally, attention settling on me like a thundercloud. “Anything I need to know?”
I folded my arms behind my back and stood straighter, meeting eyes connected to an imposing figure that was always one centimeter away from violence. “The city is in good hands. While Carlos finishes recovering, his brothers have the Cartel leftovers in control enough to where I didn’t feel the need to put my hand on it.”
“And the Vipers?”
My lips thinned, thinking about the wayward chapter. They’d fucked up big time by allowing Raze to throw their lot in with Carlos. That it had managed to work out for the better was a point in their favor and the only reason they hadn’t been disbanded.
Or buried.
“Disorganized,” I told him honestly. “But salvageable.”
Creed tilted his head to the side, watching me carefully. “You have a plan?”
Is it still a plan if I already put it in action?
I thought over my next words carefully, but it was a waste of time. Either this was going to bite me in the ass or it wasn’t. He was going to find out about it before long anyway.
“I put Ryker in charge and Sloan as his second.” The focus on me sharpened, becoming a sword pressed to the hollow of my throat. I barreled ahead anyway, daring it to cut me. “They’ve been looking for a chance to prove themselves and this was as good as any. At Sylvia’s request, I also placed an outsider in the mix as their new Enforcer. He answers to her and then to me.”
It was Tex who spoke up and asked, “The old one didn’t mind losing his spot?”
His voice gave away little insight into how they felt about me overstepping and making decisions that would’ve rightly been theirs to make.
“He wasn’t happy about it,” I said. “Did a lot of yelling and posturing. Pulled a piece on the new guy, Jay. The next day, no one could find him and there was a sudden vacancy in the position.”
Caitlin’s eyes went wide around the edges but no one else reacted to the news. This wasn’t the fucking boy scouts. We were thieves and killers, criminals and monsters.
Either you stepped into the jungle capable of holding your own, or something bigger came along and ate your ass. It was the way our world worked.
Creed spoke, voice soft and twice as deadly for it.
Here it comes, I thought, bracing.
“You did well.”
A record scratch followed by a car collision went off in my brain, interrupting every other thought.
/> Did I need to get hearing aids at twenty-seven? I thought I would have a good fifty or so years before that became necessary.
“You heard me right,” he said. There wasn’t a smile on his face—I didn’t think he was capable of sharing those with anyone besides the redhead in his lap—but the cloud of violence lessened in its intensity. “I asked both of you to step up after Rebel’s bullshit put us back on war-footing, and you haven’t failed me.”
At the mention of her brother, the same one who’d betrayed the club and had her hand-delivered to the man she wound up falling in love with, Caitlin tensed, shifting uneasily.
Creed pulled her closer to him and pressed his lips against the sides of her head, whispering something I couldn’t make out. Whatever it was had her showing a small smile, and she nodded, hands resting on top of her stomach.
Tex watched them both, something proud sliding behind eyes that hadn’t quite regained their usual warmth.
The only reason I was even halfway paying attention to their exchange was because it was happening right in front of me.
Most of my focus remained on Creed’s last words.
I didn’t think I’d ever heard a word of praise from him before now. It wasn’t like he was big on pep talks or handholding. He was old school.
He expected us to handle the tasks we’d been assigned without needing to give out pats on the back for accomplishing the same shit we were supposed to be doing in the first place.
Axle shifted on his feet. “Thank you? I think?”
Stop there, you idiot. For the love of God.
And of course, he didn’t.
“If that’s all, then I’m just gonna…” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the door. He made it a single step backwards before the storm returned, rooting us both in place.
“Did I fucking dismiss you?” Creed spat, a muscle in his jaw jumping.
Way to go, brother. We’d been doing so well.
“Well.” Creed flashed his teeth. “Answer me.”
Axle raised his chin and for a moment I thought he was going to try and get both of our asses kicked.
But he only grumbled out a, “No. Sir,” that had me hiding my sigh of relief instead.
Creed continued to stare him down, looking like he was considering how Axle would look with the skin flayed from his bones.
It was Caitlin who pulled him back from the edge as she turned and put her palm on his cheek. He looked down at her immediately, eyes that had never known anything but blood and death going soft.
“Tell them,” she said, loud enough for us to hear.
He took a deep breath and let it out, one half of his mouth twitching with what I guessed was an urge to snarl. “Tex.”
The giant stirred to life, grabbing two manila folders on the top of the desk and handing them across. “Open them,” he ordered firmly.
So I did.
And kind of wished I hadn’t.
The first page was a picture blown up as big as can be. Looking back at me in living color was a face known by anyone belonging to the underworld.
Thanks to the gargantuan efforts of hundreds of ruthless motherfuckers, the Seven Sinners were famous—notorious, if you asked law enforcement—up and down the East coast.
Chapters stretching across multiple states had sworn their allegiance and chosen to ride beneath our banners. To the outside world, we were a force to be reckoned with at your own peril. There was truth to that.
But the world was a big place.
And despite how far we had come in a short span of time, we remained painfully new at this.
The man in the picture was older than the last time he’d come across our radar. There was gray at the sides of his temples now. Lines in his olive skin. And even though there was the slightest hint of a smile on his face, it didn’t begin to reach the dark eyes set beneath darker brows.
Joseph Palazzo.
The current head of the Palazzo family syndicate that operated primarily out of New York but had fingers in pies across the country and overseas. They were old money. His family legacy traced back to Europe and the tall, genealogical tree had set its roots in crime.
No one in recent memory had fucked with them. Those who were smart either stayed out of their way completely or found common ground to stand on. The Palazzo’s had gotten whatever they wanted for years and years.
Until a new beast had taken the stage—Creed—and taken great, great offense to the syndicate’s efforts of sending prospects our way that would be moles for them.
Fucking hell, Kit-Kat. If you wanted me to have a group of people around me, couldn’t you have forced me into a band or something instead?
“Judging by your silence,” Creed said, pulling me from my musings. “I’m assuming y’all both know who that is.”
“You gave him a black eye for that shit he pulled years ago,” Axle confirmed, paging through the rest of the folder. “What’s the problem now?”
Creed glanced to his right and something wordless passed between him and Tex.
The giant biker looked between us. “The problem is that the Palazzo’s don’t know how to let shit go,” he said. “When they didn’t respond to us sending their men back to them with broken bones and missing digits, we knew it would only be a matter of time before they decided to make another move.”
“Why wait this long?” I found myself asking, fists clenching at my sides. The palm of my right hand ached from earlier, but it was a pain I could ignore.
What I couldn’t ignore was the possibility that someone meant to harm those I considered mine. These scowling, temperamental, violent sons of bitches were frustrating. But they were family.
I was done losing people in my life.
Fucking. Done.
Creed drummed his fingers along the desk, an impatient beat. “We have guesses, but we don’t know for sure.”
“My brother is one theory,” Caitlin added softly, but she didn’t duck her head or hide or eyes as she said it.
I was glad she was done feeling ashamed of the shit her brother was up to.
It was a fact that Rebel had set off the chain of events that brought our conflict with the Cartel to a head once more. Was it likely he was responsible for the Palazzos renewed interest? We had no clue.
Which meant being unable to rule anything out.
Tex crossed his arms over his chest. “They might also be smelling weakness. Tanner and Rebel are gone. Sylvia’s in another city. I fucking hate to admit it, but if they’ve been waiting on a better time to hit us then they damn sure found it.”
“They’ve got people in town.” Axle squeezed the file in his hands tight.
It was the surety in which he said it that had me flipping through the other pictures in my folder. Finding the four unfamiliar faces wandering around very familiar places.
They were here.
In Oakdale.
My scowl briefly landed on the side of Axle’s mug.
You couldn’t have shared this earlier?
He saw me from the corner of his eye and offered a slight shrug.
Asshole.
“What do they want?” I asked no one in particular since I was the only one who seemed to be out of the loop.
“I don't know yet,” said Creed. Then his voice dropped to a low, angry growl. “I don't fucking want to know either. I'm making this your problem, Tone. Congratulations on your promotion to VP.”
I blinked, waiting for the joke and the laughter sure to follow. Sure, the position was technically open, thanks to Rebel. But me? I wasn't even core.
Except no drumline followed in the wake of his declaration.
No one pointed.
No one laughed.
Caitlin did snort, but not for the reason I was hoping.
“You can stop looking around,” she said, smiling. Nah. Beaming. Like my surprise was the funniest shit she'd seen all day. “He's talking about you.”
“Damn straight I am,” the monster said. “Whatev
er they want. Whatever they're here for. I want you to find out and deal with it as if you’re acting with my full authority.”
The fog of disbelief started to clear when that sank in. He was being serious. Purpose filled me, leaving no room for doubt or exhaustion or hesitation. But one thing wasn’t making any sense.
My eyes narrowed on Creed. “You’re sitting this one out?”
Since when did he not jump at the chance to destroy his enemies?
A sound rumbled from his chest, reminding me of a beast caged. “I have no choice,” he bit out, fist coming down on the desk with a startling bang. “I can’t be at the head of this. My nature won’t allow it.”
And we’re back to me being lost as fuck.
“Babe,” Caitlin said softly, twisting her body around until she was holding him around the neck. Placing soft kisses along his jaw. The hole inside me ached with emptiness and I ignored it. “Let me take this one.”
“But-”
“Shhh…”
Leather creaked as Creed leaned back, closing his eyes. He wrapped both ink-stained arms around his woman, holding her so tight to him that she could only turn her head to look at us again. Her smile was small.
Fragile.
Scared?
Then she dropped the second bomb of the morning.
“I’m pregnant.”
Oh. Fuck.
Axle made a sound like he’d just swallowed his tongue and started beating on his chest, coughing. For my part, I only glanced at Tex.
I kept my curses to myself when he nodded. Don't get me wrong, I had concerns. But Caitlin was clearly nervous. I wouldn’t make it worse for her by showing any signs of wavering.
“Congrats,” came out of my mouth on an easy smile. And seeing her shoulders lose some of their tightness made it worth it.
“What he said,” Axle managed. Which, honestly, was more than I expected.
“Thanks, both of you. This wasn’t exactly...planned.” She glanced at Creed. Although his eyes remained closed, he buried his head in her neck, breathing in the long sigh that left her. “And as happy as I am-” The hold on her tightened and she rolled her eyes. “As we are. The timing could’ve been better. I definitely understand how Lizzy felt when we were on the verge of war not long ago.”
“Except this is worse,” said Tex. A toothpick had appeared between his lips at some point and he was chewing the shit out of it. “Carlos delivered the killing blow, but we’d dealt with the worst of the Cartel years ago. They were stretched too thin. The same can’t be said about the Palazzos. Open your fucking ears because I need you to hear me when I say that we can’t afford a war with them. And Tone, you're the only one level-headed enough to keep that from coming to pass.”
Tempted by a Sinner (Seven Sinners Book 4) Page 3