Table of Contents
Copyright
Title Page
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
Sneak Peak at Abe (Marked Skulls MC #3)
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Copyright © 2018 by Savannah Rylan
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Rodeo
Marked Skulls MC
Book Two
By Savannah Rylan
Chapter 1
Rodeo
Fred was dead, and Marcus didn’t know anything else. We were all in shock, but I had charged right at Marcus, pushing him up against the wall of the bar. He had his hands up in defense, and was struggling against my grip on him.
“I don’t know anything else, man. This is all I know!” he screamed.
“Fuck! How did this happen?” Lewis was yelling behind us, and I heard Lila burst into tears.
“Who told you this? What the fuck do you mean he’s dead?” I was barking right at Marcus’ face and he was shaking his head.
“Little Will. He saw the cops. He said Fred was being carried out on a stretcher!” Marcus yelled back.
“The cops got there first? Fuck! Fuck!” Abe was growling. I could feel waves of rage washing over me as I kept Marcus pinned to the wall. He had given up struggling to get away from me. He knew I was stronger.
“Rodeo! Let him go,” Lewis said, in a calm and subdued voice behind me, but I was seeing red.
“What else do you know? Tell me what else you know!” I barked and some spittle flew out of my mouth and landed on Marcus’ face. He shook his head, his eyes were bloodshot.
“I don’t know anything else. I know whatever Little Will told me. I swear!” he yelled back.
“Rodeo!” Lewis called out to me again, and this time, I released the pressure of my hands on Marcus’ arms. He slid away from me the moment he got the chance and I ran a hand through my hair.
“How is this possible? How did they get Fred?” Abe was pacing around the bar, while Girth had Lila in his arms and he was consoling her.
Fred had been like a father to us, especially to Lila and me. I had nobody before I had Fred. I didn’t even have the MC before he pulled me out of the life I used to lead. He was the one who introduced me to the Marked Skulls. He changed my life, he saved me; and now he was dead.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I hissed through gritted teeth.
“Was it the Dark Legion?” Abe asked and Marcus shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know man,” he replied.
“It has to be!” Lewis roared and when I looked at him, I could see the rage in his eyes too. Lewis and Fred had been best friends. Fred was Lewis’ right-hand-man, the MC’s vice president.
“When they realized that they can’t get to my daughter,” he continued and swung his head around to look at Lila who was still in Girth’s arms, “they decided to take out one of us.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him. I’m going to hunt him down and kill him, whoever this motherfucker is,” I growled and Lila burst into another fit of tears.
“I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe Fred is gone,” she blubbered, while Girth held her tightly. Lila was like a sister to me, I cared about her the same way I would have cared about my family if I had one. I was glad that she now had Girth in her life, so I didn’t have to worry about her.
“Where was he going? Where was he?” Abe asked, turning his heaving shoulders towards Marcus again. Marcus gulped before he spoke. He was clearly getting the wrong end of having to be the messenger.
“Don’t know. All Little Will said was that he was found on the corner of Shelby Street and 42nd, in front of some apartment building,” he replied, just as the doors of the bar burst open and Hugh Ashland rushed in.
He was a young beat cop who had long been working with our MC. He looked up to Lewis and Fred and helped cover up any shit that our MC got into. He was breathing hard when he came in and I charged at him next.
“What the fuck is going on, Hugh? Where have you been?” I growled at him and Hugh clenched his jaws.
“He got shot. He got shot by a drive-by shooter,” Hugh said, walking in towards us. The color had drained from his face. Fred had left his mark on a lot of people’s lives. He was a calm and composed man full of wisdom, who had seen the best in a couple of street-kids like me. Hugh used to admire him too.
He looked apologetic now as he came to a stop in the middle of the bar.
“What else do you know, Hugh?” Lewis asked him and he breathed heavily as he looked at each of us.
“All I know, all anyone knows at this point is that there was a single gunman on a bike and he got Fred right in the chest as he rode by,” Hugh said and there was another burst of tears from Lila. She was uncontrollable in her shock. A couple of weeks before this, she had been in a similar situation when the Dark Legion were trying to get to her to get to us. They wanted to teach Lewis and the rest of us a lesson for dealing weapons in their territory.
I clenched my jaws, fisted up the palms of my hands and tried to control the rage that was bubbling up inside me. We were a small MC, smaller than the Dark Legion and any of the other big players in the city but I wasn’t going to sit back and do nothing when Fred had been shot and killed. I wasn’t going to cower away in fear.
“So, there’s nothing else? We don’t know who exactly shot him?” it was Girth who spoke up now, and Hugh shook his head. Then slowly, he turned to look at me. Everyone knew the relationship I shared with Fred. Hugh narrowed his eyes at me before he spoke.
“But there is a witness,” he said.
Chapter 2
Jordan
I was rocking myself back and forth while sitting on the couch in my living room. I had pulled the curtains on all the windows in my apartment, and I had my back turned to the window I saw it from.
I shouldn’t even have been standing there. I had no reason to be looking out of that window. It was early in the morning, and I was standing there with a mug of coffee in my hand and admiring the silence of the street. It was only that quiet early in the morning.
The man was walking down the street at first, with his hands stuffed into the pockets of a leather jacket. I watched him walking towards our apartment building and then he looked up at the building, right at my window. I remember feeling strange that he had seen me at the window. I didn’t recognize him, I definitely didn’t know him. The moment he looked away, I heard the sound of roaring engines. There was a bike approaching.
The man looked over his shoulder just when I saw the biker appear on the street. He was picking up speed now, and the man who was standing underneath my window dragged his hands out of his pockets and started running. I saw the biker pull out a gun, and within a matter of seconds, I heard the sound of one shot.
I squealed and stumbled away from the window, the coffee from my mug spilled on the floor. I was mumbling ‘oh my God’ u
nder my breath and I ducked under the window. With my heart beating rapidly out of my chest, I slowly looked up, just above the ledge of the window.
The man on the street was lying face down in a pool of blood. The biker had stopped right beside him, and now, he was the one who was looking up at my window. He had seen me peeking out.
Yelping, I threw myself on the floor again.
The biker had taken his helmet off, his eyes were focused on me at the window. There was no mistaking the fact that he had seen me.
I had crawled along the floor, too afraid to make a sound or stand up. I crawled like that, all the way to my bedroom and banged the door shut behind me.
I didn’t want to call the cops. I was too afraid to leave my bedroom. Whoever that man on the bike was, was dangerous. In that split second, I had seen his leather cut, the tattoos on his arms, the rings on his ears. He was a part of a Motorcycle Club. That much was clear to me, and I knew exactly the kind of danger I was in now.
I didn’t leave my bedroom till there were knocks on my door. With my whole body shaking, I made my way towards the door. There was more banging.
“Police! Open up!” there were voices on the other side. I looked through the peephole and saw three armed and uniformed police officers on the other side. When they banged on the door again, I had no choice but to open up.
“We’re looking for any witnesses to the shooting that took place outside your building at five this morning,” one of the men said. I shook my head. The color had drained from my face, and my lips were quivering. I couldn’t get a single word out from my lips.
“Can we come in?” another one asked, and without waiting for a response, the three of them barged into my apartment.
“Ma’am, we need you to tell us if you saw anything,” one of them said and I shook my head again. I knew what the consequences of snitching would be. I had a clear view of the crime, I had a clear view of the shooter—I was the best witness that the police could have hoped for.
One of the officers walked to my window, and gently parted the curtains. He was looking down at the chalk outline of the man who had been shot on the street. I was staring at him with fear dripping from my eyes. He turned to look at me, and just from the look on my face—I knew that he knew I had seen something.
“Did you see it happen?” he asked, taking a few steps towards me. I shook my head. I still hadn’t said a word to any of them.
“Ma’am, I’m Officer Ashland, and I want you to trust me. If you know something, tell me now,” he said, in a soft consoling voice. I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t trust anybody. I shook my head again.
The other men were still looking around my apartment, while Officer Ashland remained with me, staring me up and down. I knew he had figured out that I had seen something.
“I want you to leave!” the words came bursting out of me. The cops looked at me and then exchanged looks amongst themselves.
“You have no right to be here without a search warrant. I didn’t invite you in. Leave, now!” I barked at them. I didn’t know where I was finding my strength to say these things. I didn’t even recognize my voice.
The cops looked at each other, looked at me again and then in silence, filed out of my apartment. Officer Ashland stopped at my door and turned to me.
“You can come down to the station any time. Ask for me if you have something to report,” he said and I slammed the door shut on his face.
Speaking to cops was asking for trouble. I had a feeling I was being watched. The shooter, the man in the leather cut definitely belonged to a gang of men who weren’t going to let a witness just slide. They were going to come after me and I knew the cops wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
***
I was on a journey of trying to get my life on track, and this new situation wasn’t going to help matters. It was exactly the sort of trouble I had been trying to steer clear of. Finally, I thought I had some peace in my life, that I could become somebody mom would have been proud of, and now that I was a witness to a shooting, I knew it was going to change my life.
I still had a regular low paying job at a diner as a waitress, which I knew wasn’t going to get me anywhere. So, I had joined community college and I was training to become a teacher. That was what was going to turn my life around, I had finally found my calling.
I liked working with kids, I liked learning and educating myself and community college was going to be my way out of the life I had led up until this point. It was my golden ticket, and I was working hard everyday and studying so that I wouldn’t miss this opportunity.
Education was never top priority in our household when I was growing up. Not that it was much of a household to begin with. Mom was a single mother, I had never known my dad. While she never spoke badly of him, she also hadn’t given me any information on who my father was. It was obvious to me that he had made a run for it when he found out that mom was pregnant with me. I hated him. I despised him for leaving me and mom alone, a young teenage mother struggling to bring a child up all by herself. Even though I didn’t know who he was, I was never going to forgive him.
My earliest memories from childhood were of mom working three shifts a day, me being babysat by my alcoholic grandfather and being tucked into bed at night in a cold apartment by mom who was too tired to even stand up. She worked most nights too, which meant that even as a five year old, I stayed alone a lot.
It wasn’t a happy childhood filled with warm fuzzy memories. Mom didn’t care about my school, her biggest concerns were to earn enough money to pay the bills and to keep me alive. By the time I got into high school, mom was on the verge of giving up. My grandfather’s alcoholism had been an influence on her, and she took to the bottle just like he had.
I had to drop out of school to take care of her. She couldn’t go to work anymore because she was drunk all day. I had spent all my teenage years and my early twenties looking after an alcoholic mother who was descending slowly into a dark abyss that I couldn’t drag her out of.
She died of alcohol poisoning, a few days after my twenty-fourth birthday. I was too depressed and too guilty to get out of bed for weeks on end. When I eventually did, I had two options—to either break the mould and make a life for myself that would be different from my mother’s, or go right down the rabbit hole that she had found herself in.
I chose the former. I got myself a job at the diner and I signed up for community college. I kept my nose down, stayed away from trouble as best as I could and had started saving money. I wanted to move out of this neighborhood, I wanted to pass the exams and get a degree and hopefully get a real job. I wanted to be able to walk into a classroom and look at the bright eyes of kids who were eager to learn and I was eager to teach them.
But now, I was sitting on the couch of my one-bedroom apartment, too afraid to even stand up. This could ruin everything. This could get me killed.
I was cold, and I wrapped my arms around my body as a chill ran down my spine. All my plans were beginning to unravel. That biker man had seen me, he knew that I had seen him. Did he also know that the cops were in my apartment? Men like him didn’t trust witnesses to stay quiet, they needed to wipe them out completely. How was I supposed to leave my apartment now? Would I ever be able to stop looking over my shoulder?
I rocked myself, still clasping my arms around my body. I winced every other second from fear and paranoia. I felt like I was always being watched, like I had nowhere to go. How would I go to my shifts at the diner? How would I go to class? I’d have to drop out, I’d lose my job—how was I going to pay rent?
There was a knock on the door and I jumped off of my couch. This was it, they had come after me! They were going to shoot me to silence me. The knocks became louder and harder while I stood frozen next to the couch.
The banging on the door wasn’t going to go away. Stealthily, I walked towards the door. I could feel myself shaking like a leaf, my lips were quivering and I was trying to not burst into tears.
Slowly, I looked through the peephole and I saw the man standing on the other side.
He was tall and muscular and rugged. He had a leather jacket on, sandy blond hair tied in a ponytail, and a sandy blond scruffy beard. I stepped away from the door with a jerk. I didn’t have to look again to know that this guy belonged to a MC too. The biker had sent him to take care of business. He was going to shoot me. He was going to kill me.
Chapter 3
Rodeo
Hugh told us that there was a witness, and he also told us that she was refusing to talk to the cops. From the moment he told us that, I knew that I wanted to get to the bottom of this. I was going to get the information I needed from her, and then I was going to hunt the fucker down and kill him.
I didn’t need anybody’s help with this, I was capable of handling the situation myself. I didn’t think there was much to do. Hugh said that she was a young girl who seemingly lived by herself, it was going to be an easy task for me.
Hugh had given me her address, he said that it was also the site of the shooting. When I walked into the apartment building, I’d seen the fading chalk marks of Fred’s body. I had to grit my teeth to stop myself from pounding my fists into the pavement.
I was raging mad. I was furious at everything, at the world. Fred was the last man in the MC who deserved to die. I would have taken a bullet for the man if I could have saved him.
The Dark Legion was going to have to pay for this. I was pumped enough to kill every man or woman who stood in my way, but for starters, I was going to kill the man who shot Fred.
I was standing outside the apartment of the woman who Hugh said was the witness. I had been banging on the door. If she was inside, she hadn’t made a sound. I banged on the door again. Hugh and his pansy cop friends hadn’t been able to get her to talk, so I was going to do it for them.
“Open up!” I growled and banged on the door again. I had been standing outside, banging on the door for several minutes and there wasn’t even a squeak from inside.
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