by Lane Hart
Screw him, his money and his life. I’d rather have nothing and the truth than all the money in the world and living a lie.
Chapter One
Maddox
Present day…
Teenagers have enough problems trying to figure out who they are. Throw in the added complication of having a part of me, half of me, that I knew nothing about and I nearly went insane on my fifteenth birthday.
The night I learned the truth, I beat the living shit out of Todd. He was so badly injured that he and my mom sent me away to military school for the next two years.
After I graduated, I couldn’t go back home. I had to leave, to search for the answers about who my real father was so I could finally find myself.
That’s why I set off on my own without a penny to my name when I was eighteen.
A search of the internet brought me to Emerald Isle and the Savage Kings MC, thanks to the memorial page for my father on their website. I figured if anyone knew who Deacon Fury really was, it would be these guys, since he was their founder and former president.
But once I was there and found out the current president and VP were my family, I couldn’t find the words to own up to who I was. Hell, I didn’t really know myself. So, I kept my mouth shut and listened and watched them, hoping to learn about the man I’d never get a chance to know.
It turned out the brothers in the MC were cool as fuck. I didn’t just want to know my relatives, I wanted to be one of them. I needed to become a Savage King. It was the only thing I had been certain of in my life.
The one person who found out my secret was Reece, the MC’s computer genius. He dug into my history when I was finally nominated to become a prospect. He took me aside after he did my background search and asked me about the name I was born with. I told him the truth and begged him to keep my secret. Not to deceive anyone in the club, but because I wanted to earn my patch on my own merits, not because of the man who unknowingly made me.
Thankfully, Reece agreed. He’s kept his mouth shut after I assured him I wasn’t here to make a claim to my father’s estate, the MC, or anything else I hadn’t earned.
And my sponsor, War, well, he took me in off the streets and was a helluva lot nicer to me than Todd ever was, without knowing anything but my second name. Over the last few years, War began to fill the place of the father I wish I had and the father I’ll never meet. He and the other brothers in the MC have made me feel like I’ve finally found the place where I belong.
So, whenever War calls, like right now, you better believe I fucking jump.
I toss down the hammer in my hand to pull my untraceable flip phone from my pocket.
“Yes, sir?” I answer when I quickly put the burner phone up to my ear.
“Where are you? Are you still on the island?” War asks, the usually calm man sounding frantic.
“Yeah, I’m just finishing boarding up the Jolly Roger, and then I’m gonna get inland.”
“Good. Great. I need you to do me a favor.”
“Sure,” I respond.
“I’m tied up, so I need you to take the club’s van and get your ass down to Wilmington to pick up my sister—”
“You have a sister too?” I ask in surprise. I’ve known the man for almost four years and he’s never once mentioned her. Which isn’t that surprising, I guess. War barely talked about his son before the whole Child Protective Services mess.
“Yeah, I have a sister, Audrey O’Neil,” he replies. “She goes to school at Westchester in Wilmington, and she lives in the Chatham apartments, number two-twenty-eight B. Got all that?”
“Yes,” I tell him, repeating it over and over again in my head so I won’t forget it until I have some pen and paper.
“Whatever it takes, get her inland, at least west to Raleigh or Cary, and keep her safe. She should have credit cards to pay for a hotel if you’re low on cash. Do this for me and I promise to slap that top rocker on your cut.”
“I’m patching in?” I ask in shock. “Seriously? It’s finally gonna happen?”
“It’s happening, kid. First, get my sister away from this fucking hurricane," he assures me.
“I’m on it. I’ll leave right now,” I say before I end the call.
Fuck, this job is one of my easiest since I start prospecting. Picking up some chick and driving her a few hours inland is nothing compared to disposing of dead bodies.
Oh yeah, I’ve done that for my patch.
Hell, I would do anything to finally get patched into the Savage Kings MC. It’s the only connection to my father I’ll ever have, and since I left home, well, it’s the only social life I have now, period.
…
An hour later, I’m standing outside the locked apartments, in the pouring rain that’s blowing sideways, hitting me right in the face, waiting for someone to come in or out of the fucking door.
The whole campus looks like a wasteland. They’ve placed sandbags all around the edges of the brick buildings, but the water is already halfway up them, covering the tops of my steel toe boots. Thanks to the whipping wind, an occasional piece of trash swirls around me. When I’m finally able to locate the right call button on the intercom for Apartment two-twenty-eight B, I hit it but get no response.
Finally, a chick comes running out of the building with a raincoat over her head and arms full of bags. She’s in too big of a rush to see me, or care when I slip through the door before it shuts. I take a second to relish the dry environment before I push my wet hair out of my eyes and trudge up the first set of stairs I come to. My soggy boots squeak and echo on the linoleum the entire way. The only other sound in the building is the faint hum of electricity from the fluorescent lights. “Two-twenty-eight B, Two-twenty-eight B,” I repeat over and over again once I’m on the second floor. Finally, I find the right apartment and raise my knuckles to knock.
Not a minute later, the door cracks open just an inch, revealing one-half of a pale, petite face, her single dark chocolate eye wide in terror…and a yellow kitten climbing up her shoulder.
“Can I help you?” she asks, looking me up and down while trying to keep the cat from escaping.
I’m one hundred percent certain there’s no fucking way this girl could be War’s sister. The dude is enormous and she’s…tiny, like no bigger than one of his tree trunk thighs.
“Yeah, I’m looking for Aubrey,” I say, then pause when that doesn’t sound exactly right. “No, shit, it’s Audrey, I think. Audrey O’Neil.”
“You sure about that?” the girl asks me after I stammer over the name.
“Yeah. Yes. Definitely Audrey. Maybe?”
“Well, I don't know who you are, so I can't give you information about...my roommate.” She hesitates, like she was going to say her friend or something else, but maybe they don't get along or whatever.
“Come on. I really need to find her, and the eye of the hurricane is coming up on the city fast!”
“How do you know Audrey?” she questions me.
“I don’t know her,” I respond. “Her brother War sent me.”
“You’re friends with her brother?” Her eye lowers to look at my leather cut in disbelief.
“Sort of, yeah. I guess you could say that.”
“Prove it.”
“What?” I ask in confusion.
Removing the kitten’s claws from her shoulder, she readjusts her hold on it and says, “Prove that you’re actually a friend of Audrey’s brother, and maybe I’ll tell you where you can find her.”
“Okay, um...” Thinking fast, I point to the flash on the front of my wet leather cut, the ones that say, “Savage Kings MC” and “Emerald Isle” underneath. “War is a member of the Savage Kings and I’m prospecting for them.”
“What’s the Savage Kings?” she asks.
“It’s, ah, it’s a motorcycle club. Hasn't Aubrey told you about all that?”
“Audrey,” she corrects, when I get the name wrong again. “And no, she’s never mentioned anything about her broth
er being in a motorcycle club. What else you got?”
Fuck, this chick is being difficult.
I pull out my burner phone from the inner pocket of my cut to call War, but it’s powered down with a black screen. The damn thing is dead, and I left in such a hurry I forgot the fucking charger. “Shit. My phone is dead, or I would call and let you talk to her brother. Can you just please tell me where Audrey is? I’m supposed to pick her up and get her out of town before the storm gets any closer.”
“No.”
“No?” I repeat.
“You don’t look very trustworthy, so you need to turn around and leave.” Now her gaze is lowered to the tattoos on my forearms, like they’re some type of heathen label.
“What? This is just a little ink. I'm totally trustworthy,” I tell her. “All I want to know is if Audrey is here or not, and if not, where I can find her,” I say, trying to look around her into the apartment.
“You need to leave before I call campus security,” the girl threatens.
“Good luck with that,” I reply, thinking about the roads on the way in. “There’s nobody on campus.”
“Guess we’ll see,” she counters.
Fuck, I’m really starting to lose my patience, and I’m not letting her call the rent-a-cops on me. I need to see if Audrey is in the apartment and if not, make this girl cough up the information, so we can get the hell out of dodge.
When a sudden, loud crash of thunder distracts her, I throw my shoulder into the door, causing the girl to stumble back enough for me to squeeze inside.
“Hey! Get out of here!” she says before she lowers the kitten to the ground to come at me. The cat scurries away further into the apartment while she presses her small palms to my chest and bicep, to try and force me back out. Her attempt is futile since I may not be a huge guy, but I’m a helluva lot bigger than her by at least a foot and probably seventy or eight pounds. Thanks to Reece’s training last year, I’m also a helluva lot tougher than I was a few years back.
I grab her narrow wrists in each of my hands and then spin her around, so her back is against the door that slams shut while I hold her hands above her head.
“Audrey?” I yell out. “Audrey, are you here?”
There’s no response.
“Okay, enough of the runaround,” I narrow my eyes and tell the girl I have pinned to the door. Her long, flowing dark hair is thick and wavy, hanging down to her waist, the strands almost the same color as her big chocolate eyes that are currently glaring up at me. “Tell me where the fuck Audrey is right now!”
The tiny girl scoffs indignantly at my “tough guy” approach. Guess it needs a little more practice. “Or what? You’ll hurt me?”
“No,” I huff, as I try to figure out some way to make her talk. I would never hurt a woman, especially not War’s sister’s roommate.
“Tell me or I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” she asks, defiance filling her brown eyes.
“I’ll…” Shit, what am I gonna do to make her talk?
Finally, I decide to threaten her with the only thing that comes to mind, since I wouldn’t physically hurt her.
Thinking fast, I transfer both of her wrists into one of my much bigger hands, then I lower my other hand to grasp her side. I couldn’t see what she had on through the crack in the door, but now I get an up-close look at her soft purple pajama pants and short-sleeve top that’s decorated with seashells and…lace lining the edges of the plunging V-neck. It hits me that she looks like a girl who is planning on settling in for a long Netflix binge instead of evacuating, like everyone else on the entire East Coast.
Strange decision, but she’s not my responsibility.
“Tell me, or I’ll tickle it out of you.”
“Tickle me?” she repeats. “That’ll never work. I’m not ticklish.”
I barely even flex my fingers, and she starts squirming against the door and laughing. Since the front of my body was almost pressed to hers to begin with, all the wiggling has her stomach rubbing against the crotch of my jeans. That's the moment my cock goes from strictly professional to well, what do we have here.
In his defense, it doesn’t take much for him to get excited. He’s been waiting twenty-one long years to sink inside of a woman and he’s starting to get rather impatient about my status as a virgin.
It’s not like I haven't had plenty of opportunities at the clubhouse, or a blowjob before, but the night Cynthia was cozying up to me about a year ago is the first time I’ve ever seen my own death reflecting back in someone else’s eyes. Reece’s, to be specific. I know he’s a dangerous son of a bitch who could easily rip me in half. From then on, it seemed like a good idea to steer clear of the club girls to avoid accidentally pissing off one of the members.
Now is not the time or place to be thinking with my dick either. I need to find War’s sister and get us the hell out of town before the storm closes in. It’s already raining cats and dogs out there.
“Tell me where she is,” I demand as my fingers continue to tickle the girl’s side, while trying to tell my cock to behave.
“Okay, okay!” she says over her laughter, so I finally relent, even though I don’t take my hands off of her just yet.
Chapter Two
Audrey O’Neil
There’s no way in hell I’m leaving the comfort and safety of my apartment while the worst storm in history rages around us outside.
I’m angry at my brother for not coming to get me sooner before the weather got bad, and then sending some…some random guy to haul me out when he knows how shaky and freaked out I get during thunder and lightning.
I was never a fan of storms before the one that killed my parents. Now…well, now I can’t help but think that one of these days, god is planning to take me out the same way. I’m only twenty-two. I’m not ready to die!
And if I don’t come up with something to keep this guy busy, he’s gonna try to drag me outside when I’m obviously safer here.
Despite how handsome and sexy he is in his bad boy leather with his full kissable lips, I’m not leaving with him.
“So, where is Audrey?” he asks, when I take too long to answer.
“She’s already gone,” I reply.
“Gone? Gone where?” he snaps, his hand tightening on my side in a not entirely uncomfortable way.
“She left, so what does it matter?” I lie.
“When? When did she leave?” he asks with his brow furrowed.
“This morning, on a, ah, university bus headed to Asheville.”
“Bullshit!” he says, his face still only inches away from mine. “Her brother wouldn’t have told me to come get her unless he knew she was still here!”
“Sorry, but she’s long gone,” I tell him with a shrug.
“Give me her number. Or call her and find out exactly where she is right now, so that I can follow her.”
“No,” I refuse. Using a phone during a lightning storm is like begging god to strike you down. I don’t want to be in the same apartment when that shit goes down.
“I need to use your phone! Mine’s dead. At least let me call War,” he begs.
“No.”
This time, his jaw falls open almost comically before he recovers and says, “You’re awfully little to be such a big pain in my ass!”
“You’re not supposed to use the phone during a storm,” I point out.
“Why not? Especially when it’s an emergency. And this, well, this is a fucking emergency!” He still hasn’t let my hands go, and now we’re so close, you couldn’t slip a piece of paper between us. “Only corded phones are dangerous in storms, not cell phones. And there’s a hurricane coming! If I don’t find this girl soon, everything I’ve worked for will be for nothing!”
“What have you worked for?” I ask.
“My patch.”
“A patch?”
“Getting the patches on the back of my cut that make me a member of the Savage Kings,” he explains.
“So,
you’re not a member right now?”
“No.”
“But Warren…Audrey’s brother is?” I inquire.
“Yes! He’s the one who can make or break my membership!”
“So, you’re saying that he has a lot of power in this motorcycle club?” I ask, since this is all news to me. I would think the guy is lying except, what reason would he have to do that? Warren must have been keeping this shit from me.
“Yes, War’s the Sergeant-at-Arms to the president.”
“What does the Sergeant of Arms do?”
“Jeez, you ask a lot of questions,” he grumbles. When I stare blankly at him in expectation, he finally sighs and says, “Fine, this is nothing you can’t search on the internet. The Sergeant-at-Arms is the one who is always packing heat. It’s his job to protect the president.”
“When you say ‘packing heat,’ you mean…carry a gun?”
“Yes,” he replies on an exasperated sigh.
None of this is sounding anything like my straight-laced, Army vet brother. He’s never hurt a soul! Even when he was in the military, he was just a mechanic, not the guy with a gun. Warren is kind and he takes care of people, especially me and Ren.
But if what this guy is saying is true, then maybe I don’t know the real Warren at all.
There must be a good reason why the state took my nephew Ren from him just a few weeks ago and refuses to give him back. And it can’t all be just because Marcie screwed up.
How long has Warren been lying to me? And what else do I not know about the man who raised me?
“Does he…does he like, kill people?” I ask in shock. “He doesn’t do that, does he?”
“What? I can’t tell you that,” he huffs. “And I’m not going to answer any more of your fucking questions. Either you can tell me where your phone is, or I’ll tear this place apart looking for it.”