by Lane Hart
“You gotta help me!” he calls out right before his eyes find mine. He’s nearly lifeless and I wonder if that’s the way they intended to leave him.
“Help you? Wouldn’t that be great?” I chuckle as I raise my arm to fire.
“Come on! You know the Feds are onto you too, Savage!” Yeah I figured the fucker knew who I was. That doesn’t change anything though.
“I already know that, asshole. You took somethin’ that didn’t belong to you,” I snarl at him, ready to pounce and rip his fucking throat out.
“I didn’t touch your girl!”
“No, but you ordered it didn’t you?” I can see the truth in his eyes and it pisses me off more than he could know.
“We gotta go, Savage!” Q yells, yanking on the back of my cut.
“Yeah, you ordered it didn’t you? You sick fuck! You ruined my girl!” Pulling the trigger, I watch the bastard’s head loll to the side. Straight between his worthless eyes.
“Let’s go!” Q roars again. This time I do turn and run back out of the front door and toward the bikes. We make it about half way before the explosion rocks the ground beneath us. Q and I share a look before climbing on the bikes and taking off toward home. We don’t need to be anywhere in sight when the fucking cops show up to that shit show. The closer we are the more they could flip this shit on us.
I lead the guys back to the clubhouse and park before we all come together in the parking lot. My guys and the guys from the other clubs who came there for backup.
“You all came out here for a fight and sadly someone else did it all for us. We do appreciate your steppin’ up, and if you wouldn’t mind, we’d love to have you stay. Special plans for tomorrow you might wanna stick around for,” I tell them but it’s Q that eyes me with worry etched across his face.
“You got it, brother!” The president of the other club says before ushering his guys inside. We follow behind them, but instead of going to the bar with the rest of them, I go to my room with Charlie instead. When I open the door I find her sitting on the edge of the with the laptop in her hands.
“What are you lookin’ at?” I ask startling her a little. She smiles over her should before looking back at the screen.
“Just looking up baby stuff. It’s all so weird and tiny,” she giggles. Walking around the bed I sit next to her and look at the screen.
“Harley gear, huh?” I smile when Charlie elbows me.
“Well, it has to have something of its daddy’s.” We sit together and look at baby stuff for a long time. I laugh at some of the stuff but Charlie beams with happiness. I truly believe this baby is going to be something that brings a light back into Charlie’s life.
“I gotta have a meetin’ with some people but before I do that I wanna tell you first.” Charlie closes the laptop and nervously turns to look at me, her hands wringing in her lap. I reach for them, pulling them into mine.
“I was workin’ with the Feds. Not by choice either. An old friend of mine, Bryon Hill, came into town months ago tellin’ me that I either helped them against Bloody Sunday or they take my club down. I did what he wanted up until lately. I’m steppin’ down as the president, Charlie. There will be a ceremony of sorts tomorrow so I need you to get some rest, yeah?”
“Are they dead?” The one question she wants an answer to. No why’s or how’s, just a simple question that I can fully answer.
“All of them. They can’t touch you ever again, darlin’.” She throws her arms around my neck when my phone rings. Keeping one arm firmly around her, I answer with the other.
“We’re here.” I hang up without replying, kiss her lips quickly, and pull away.
“Gotta go out there. Sleep, beautiful.” I toss her wink as I leave the room and head out to the main room to find Q. Just when I see him, he sees Bryon and David. His head spins around, eyes locking with mine. I give him a nod and head toward the office. As they follow me inside, I turn to Q.
“You’re gonna learn some shit tonight that I hate, brother. You’re gonna figure it all out, but I need you to listen to everything, yeah?” Q doesn’t hesitate when he nods his head. We all take our seats and nod to Q.
“You got that letter?” Q reaches into his cut, pulling the letter free as the other two watch. “Read it.”
“But you said…”
“I know what the fuck I said, Q! Now I’m tellin’ you to fuckin’ read it!” Q rips the end open pulls the paper out and begins to read. His eyes never leave the paper as my heart beats wildly in my chest. Q takes a deep breath and blows it out before crumbling it and tossing it on the table in front of him. I can feel the anger but I also see the confusion.
“This is Bryon Hall from the FBI. I’ve been workin’ for him the last few months.”
“You did this shit to him?” Q snaps, flying out of his chair and causing it to fall to the floor with a thud.
“Calm down and listen, Q!”
His eyes are full of murder and malice. I can’t blame him here. Q heaves a few more breaths before picking his chair up and sitting back down.
“There are few things I wanna do before tomorrow.”
“What the fuck is tomorrow?” Q snaps, jerking his head in my direction. I don’t need to say, he knows. His eyes widen and he shakes his head. “Fuck that, Savage! You were forced into this shit! That wasn’t your fault and that’s not the same!”
“It is exactly the same! We fuckin’ blew Thorn’s head off for the exact same shit, Q. Now fuckin’ listen. I want an agreement that you leave Bryon alone after this. You and David feel free to make your choices together, but Bryon is off limits.”
“Fuck him,” Q growls a low throaty sound that would scare the shit out of you if you didn’t know him. I can see the pain, the anger, the confusion. It fucking kills me to see that in him.
“I mean it, Q. Don’t make me regret my choice. As for Charlie, everything of mine is hers. I mean all of it.” Q nods, runs his hand through his hair, and blows out a ragged breath. I reach for the folder that I made up and pass it to Bryon.
“What is this?”
“It’s what I want for her. You set it up, yeah? And I just want you to know that blowin’ warehouse doesn’t change the fact that you forced me into this shit. That’s somethin’ that will never be forgiven on my end. Make sure you set that shit up, yeah?” Bryon doesn’t need time to think, he just nods his head and holds that file in his hands like it’s going to attack his ass if he doesn’t. Our past means nothing to me. Not after what he’s done to me.
“We good then?” I look around at the guys. Fuck, this is harder than I thought it was. No one says a word so I nod and stand. I risk another glance at Q and fuck does it kill me inside to see this hurt in his eyes.
“I’m goin’ to bed.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The ride out to the desert was nice. The air was clear and the heat level wasn’t as bad as normal. Having Charlie on the back of my bike was the best feeling in the world. I didn’t sleep last night, not one fucking bit. I was too lost in her. We park the bikes and I watch the guys as they circle around like they were told to do. I pull my bike off to the side, just like I’m supposed to do. It’s been a long time since we’ve had to do anything like this. I help Charlie off the bike and walk over to stand next to the guys as Q takes his place in the middle. I nod my head once and he begins.
“We live by our own laws. We have for the last fifty-six years and the laws have never failed us. We, as the Dark Savage MC, have grown in numbers over the years. We’ve had great men who served alongside us and we watched them sacrifice their lives for us. Today, one of our own has become a traitor to this club.” Gasps can be heard all around but I keep my head held high.
“Tell me you didn’t,” Charlie whispers but I ignore her. I have to.
“What we do with traitors is put them down like the rats that they are. There is gonna be a shift in power today and we all must accept that.”
I turn around, press a kiss to Charlie’s
lips and toss her a wink before I lean in and whisper, “I love you, Charlie.” Pulling away from her is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I walk to the middle of the circle and look around at the guys before pulling my knife from my pocket and sliding my cut down my arms. No one speaks a word as I cut the president patch from the front and hold it in my hand. Slipping the knife back into my pocket, I turn to Q and the guys.
“My last order as president, I’m gonna ask you to vote Q in. He’s a strong leader and I have no doubt that he can handle this club with honor. We’ve all grown up in some kind of shit life and we all found a place here. Whether it’s hell or home, this is what we are. Never turn your back on your family and never regret the decisions you make for them. We have rules for a reason, and at this point not all of you will understand what’s happenin’ here and now, but you will soon. As a member of Dark Savage MC we don’t tolerate rats. Even me, as the president must follow that rule. It’s time for me to move on to better things,” I say as I turn toward Charlie and wink at her once more. She gives me a soft smile before I look back to the guys.
“All in favor, say I.” I look to Roman and go down the line, everyone agreeing with me. I knew they’d see Q as a leader much like I have over the years. I pass the patch to Q and smile.
“I believe in you,” I tell him. When I go to hand him my cut, he shakes his head.
“I don’t wanna do this, Savage. You’re fuckin’ with my head right now. I don’t know that I can handle this shit,” Q says under his breath.
“You’re strong. You’re a goddamn born leader, Q. I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if I thought you couldn’t handle it. You got a heart but you also carry a bit of the devil in you. Those two worlds collide and you are the fuckin’ king. You got this, brother,” I say holding my cut out to him once more. He swallows hard but lifts his head, holding high just like I knew he could.
“No. If I’m doin’ this, it’s my way. Put it on.”
With a smirk on my face, I slip my arms back into the cut. There’s a somber feeling in the air. One that just feels right. It feels like every wrong is slowly slipping back into its place and turning right. I feel at peace, which is something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I slowly sink to my knees in front of Q and the rest of the guys.
“Don’t do this! Savage!” Charlie yells. I know she’s fighting Roman right now, but he has his own orders to hold onto her.
“You sure about this shit?” Q asks wearily. I know what I’m asking him to do. I know that he has a heavy heart as he stands before me, but this is what’s right. There has never been a doubt in my mind since this all started. I knew my end was near, but even still, I respect the hell out him for asking even though he already knows the answer. It’s our code, one by which we live and die. I nod once, smirk, and spread my arms wide keeping my head held high. This is who I am. This is who I was supposed to be.
“Savage!” Her voice rings in my mind, and as Q raises the gun and aims it at me, I smirk wider, my final fuck you to this world.
Epilogue
I sit in the sand and watch the sun setting like I usually do. It gives me a sense of peace when I sit out here.
“Do you see it?” Marcus yells from down near the water. I smile and nod my head. Days like this I miss him the most. That smirk of his, the way his eyes would sparkle before he laughed. I see it all in little Marcus every single day. The day Savage took that bullet my life changed. I knew deep in my heart that he was never supposed to be a permanent fixture in my life. He was destined to find me, yes, but he was never meant to stay. I whole heartedly believe that God put him there when I needed him the most, when I was at my lowest. I’d lost a lot in my life but I also gained. I’ve learned a lot about myself and Savage showed me that I could be strong. He also left me with the greatest gift of all. Our son.
Things don’t always turn out the way we want them to, but I think for me, they did. I thought that I found something I wanted in Savage but only now have I come to realize that it was what we mutually needed.
“You okay? You seem a little distant,” he says before sitting down next to me. I reach for his hand and hold it tightly.
“Do you ever regret what happened and how it happened?” I know he hates to talk about it as much as I do but I need to hear it. I need that closure and after five years of wondering, I need to put that part of my life to rest.
“Every fucking day, Charlie. If I could change it all, I would,” he says, his voice full of emotion, laden with sadness.
“I don’t think I would,” I admit. Bryon looks over at me and cocks his head to the side.
“Why?”
“It brought us here. It brought me to you.”
“But you lost him. You lost Marcus’s father.”
“No. I still have a piece of him with me. Like he said, I always will. He brought me through a dark time in my life and that will always be in my heart. I was never meant to stay in that world.” Bryon smiles and leans over, pressing a kiss to my lips before moving his hand to my belly.
“Do you ever regret that this one isn’t his?”
Shaking my head with a smile on my face, I tell him the truth, “Never.”
Maybe Savage wasn’t my happy ending but I know that I was his. He made sure to tell me that over and over again, and now that I’ve moved on with my life, I can see it. I can see the way he cared for me, the way he protected me. I know that we used each other more than either of us cared to admit, and while I still don’t believe that he deserved to die the way he did, I understood. He was a man of pride and that club was something he was proud of. He made sure that he followed every rule that was set before him, even if it brought him to his own death.
“Do you think he’s out there somewhere watching over his son?” I ask softly as tears roll down my cheeks.
“That little boy has a lot of his daddy in him so, yes. I do believe he is out there watching over all of us.”
The End.
This is book 1 in the Dark Duet. Stay tuned for book 2 where you can find out what happens to the club in the aftermath.
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About Erin Trejo
I am a wife, mother, child chauffeur and author. I love being able to create different characters and spin a web that makes them come together in the end. My books do not stick to just one genre, they span many.
I write about things that are real life situations and fairy tales are not always smooth sailing. My MC books are hard and gritty and they have struggles just like you would in life.
I also have books that are not so in your face. There are several that are good love stories that are fraught with issues that the characters have to deal with.
Did you enjoy this book? As always if you did, please consider leaving a review!
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Newsletter
Before Us
J.M. Walker
Introduction
Our relationship was toxic.
Intense.
Brutal.
When she slipped out of my hotel room, I made it my mission to have her back in my bed.
She ran.
I chased.
And when we finally crashed, I’d have to save her from the one person she trusted most…
Me.
Prologue
Piper
When I left his bed, I wondered where I’d gone wrong. Why life was throwing these curveballs at me. At us. Why had it decided to play these evil tricks on my heart?
I was happy. Content.
And then he showed up.
I was in another country and he still found me. Was he looking for me? Did he even know I existed before he sat down across from me at the little café in Paris?
“Piper.”
My name on his tongue was like a kiss to the back of my neck. The deep timbre slid over my body, touching every inch of me. Inside and out.
“You know who I am,” I said, allowing my eyes to rake over his large form. The leather cut he was wearing did nothing to hide the muscles beneath it.
I remembered him from when I was a girl, but now I was looking at him with the eyes of a woman.
“Of course I know who you are.” He sat forward, his smoky-gray eyes dropping to the cleavage poking out from my shirt. “Are you on vacation?”
“Backpacking.” I noticed his full lips, my mouth watering at what it would be like to kiss him.
It had been years since I had seen Jaron Mercer. Probably since before I even hit puberty. But the way he was looking at me now made me realize that I was no longer the little girl he used to tease with the other boys we grew up with.
“Your parents let you come here by yourself?” He raised an eyebrow and licked along his full bottom lip.
Heat rushed through me, my heart picking up speed at the small movement. “Who says I’m alone?”
He smirked, causing dimples to form in his cheeks.
Letting out a slow breath, I reached for my glass of water with a shaky hand. “Are you on vacation?” I asked, taking a sip of the cold liquid.