His One Choice

by Hunter, Ellie R

  His One Choice

  Ellie R Hunter

  His One Choice

  #5 The Lost Souls MC Series

  By

  Ellie R Hunter

  * * *

  Ellie R Hunter

  His One Choice

  * * *

  © 2019 Ellie R Hunter

  Self-publishing

  ellierhunter@hotmail.co.uk

  * * *

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

  * * *

  Cover Design by

  Tracie Douglas at Dark Water Covers.

  * * *

  Formatting by

  Rachael Tonks at Affordable Formatting

  Contents

  Also, by Ellie R Hunter

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Also, by Ellie R Hunter

  Incurable Hearts

  Perfectly Obsessed

  The Grace Porter Series

  To Live or To Die

  Four Fallen Souls Series

  Smile, Alice

  The Lost Souls MC Series: Biker Bait

  Biker Faith

  Biker Bound

  Biker Born

  Biker Saviour

  Biker Taken

  Biker Torn

  Biker Ruined

  Biker Salvation

  Sons of Lost Souls MC: His Father’s Son

  His Selfish Love

  His Ride or Die

  Her Crazy Life

  His One Regret

  It’s four am and I’m expecting the soft knock at the front door. Making my way through the house, I stop by the bottom of the stairs and listen out for any movements from the room above me. After a beat of hearing nothing, I’m satisfied they didn’t wake Harper and I head for the door and find Cas and my dad on the porch. The three of us head silently for the kitchen and we take a seat around the table. Each one of us look like we could do with a week of solid sleep and I burn to be lying next to Harper in our bed, her naked back flush against my bare chest as I hold her.

  “So, what couldn’t wait till morning?” I ask, kicking it off. “Because if you’re here to check up on us, save your breath, we’re fine.”

  Cas has been calling Harper regularly over the last few days and both my parents keep asking me how I’m doing, how she’s doing. It’s getting old real quick.

  “Son, you stabbed a man to death, it’s bound to leave a mark,” Dad murmurs softly, his eyes a full mix of concern and wariness. Cas watches me closely, but I keep my focus on my dad.

  “He tried his best to destroy my wife, I’d do it again.” I shrug and add, “Why are you here?”

  I haven’t given them any cause to show up in the middle of the night. Dad kicks back in his chair, it’s Cas who speaks next.

  “I don’t regret taking Ellis out, but the club needs blood. There are still too many Crows out there and we’re going to cull them, serve them up to the brothers. You, me, Sparky and the prospect aren’t going to rest until we’ve hunted every last one of them. I don’t care if they weren’t there that night, if they wear the patch, they’re dead men walking.”

  This isn’t anything I didn’t expect but the secrecy is starting to give me a headache.

  “Why the cloak and daggers? Shouldn’t we be talking about this at the club?”

  With a crackling sigh, Cas explains, “Because we’re going to give them to the brothers in one go, I don’t want this dragging out more than it has to. The club needs revenge and we’re going to make sure they get it. We’re going to exterminate their entire club.”

  “It’s going to be a blood bath,” Dad adds.

  Cas leans forward and rests his forearms on the table. “Leo will have his revenge, from what I’ve heard, there were three Crows who held him down while Ellis killed India. I want them found for him.”

  It doesn’t take me long to agree. Anything Leo needs I’m down to help him in any way I can.

  “I’m in.” No doubt about it, I can do this for my brothers and more importantly, I’ll do this for my best friend. That’s all they need to hear and they both stand. I don’t move as I look up at them both.

  “Will it be enough?”

  Cas inhales and sighs loudly.

  “I hope so.”

  JJ

  Harper has been tossing and turning, crying out and often shaking in her sleep for the last four hours. It was late by the time we returned to the club and made our way up to my room through the side door so no one would see us. She fought me from the second I said we were going to the clubhouse. She didn’t want to come here but we had nowhere else to go, not without being around people and me having to share her. After the last few days of not knowing where she was, how she was, or if she’d ever come back, yeah, I wasn’t taking any chances of sharing her. Only, when we walked into the room she fell on the bed and curled up into a ball. I tried lying with her, holding her, whispering she was safe now, but she shrugged me off and within minutes, she was asleep. I didn’t get it; she came straight to me at the Old Mill and clung to me as I wrapped my arms around her. She refused to come back because she feared I wouldn’t understand the decision she had to make, her fear nearly consumed her, even though I know it wasn’t her fault. For such a brief amount of time, she needed me and then she didn’t, she pushed me away like I’m not her fucking husband, the one person walking this earth she can rely on.

  As she slept, I took her boots off and made sure she was comfortable before chucking the clothes that were piled up on the chair onto the floor. I dragged it next to the bed and I watched her. The last time she said she was going to bed I kissed her goodnight and she slipped out. When Alannah told me she wasn’t in her room, I thought I wasn’t going to see her again.

  I’m still too hyped to sleep and I’m struggling to find peace while this tension is settling between us. I’ve been sitting here for over four hours, flinching every time she sobs in her sleep, not letting myself imagine what happened to her while she was with him.

  We were so tightly connected to one another coming back from Mercy and it makes me wish I had listened to her and stayed there like she wanted. Now, it’s like being back at square one with her, wanting to be around her but not knowing anything about her. Did her witnessing me kill Ellis change us? No, it couldn’t have, she asked me to do it. It’s this place, it has to be. I shouldn’t have brought her here. I take one last pull on the cigarette burning down between my fingers and pop it in the beer bottle on the nightstand. Dragging my tired as
s off the chair, I sit on the edge of the bed and gently nudge her.

  “Babe, wake up.”

  She comes to with a start. It takes her a moment to register it’s me hovering beside her. Her chest deflates as she sighs heavily with relief, but it only pains me more. Her mind went instantly to him. It’s his face she saw first, whether her eyes were open or not and it kills me to keep quiet and not voice what’s running through my mind, like asking if I’m right or not.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, the fear thick in her voice.

  “I’m getting you out of here. I shouldn’t have made you come when you clearly didn’t want to. I’m sorry.”

  I run the back of my fingers down her cheek and she softens and sits up, keeping the sheets around her shoulders. There is a chill creeping in the air and rain lightly begins to tap against the window.

  “Are we going back to Mercy?” I feel bad for dowsing the hope in her tone.

  “No, I meant, I’m going to get us a house in town. Get your ass up.”

  There was a house I rode by yesterday that had a for-rent sign on the front lawn and a little breaking and entering won’t count if I lay down a deposit and a few months’ rent a few hours later.

  She pulls the sheets down from around her shoulders and I sit back on the chair to give her room to pick up her jacket and boots. Only, she goes over to my drawers and picks out clean clothes and heads into the bathroom. She locks the door after her, and I’m left wondering, what the fuck? Harper has never hidden from me, not her body, ever. She’s not the shy type.

  I’m off the chair and knocking on the door before my brain catches my body up and I get nothing from her. I can’t hear anything from the other side of the door and I bang on it again.

  “What’s going on, Harper? Why are you hiding from me?”

  A strange, high-pitched laugh filters through and it’s so fucking wrong I’m five seconds away from kicking down the door.

  “I’m not hiding anything; I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Again, she sounds all wrong. I don’t recognise this Harper. This version of my wife is nervous, I’ve never known her to hold nerves around me.

  “Open the door.”

  My palms begin to clam up and my pulse thunders its beat with every second that passes. A shuffling noise and something falling to the floor has me stepping back ready to raise my foot when the door opens, and she steps out fully dressed in clean clothes.

  “What’s going on, babe?”

  “Nothing,” she answers too quickly, clearly lying her fine ass off.

  Cocking one brow, I wait for her to say something, anything that is the truth, but her lips stay firmly closed. She makes the first move and comes to my side, snaking her fingers through mine. She’s cold and I squeeze her hand in mine to warm her up. Tilting her head to get a better look at me, she asks, “Where are we going at this time? The sun is only just coming up.”

  Gently, I wrap my free hand around the back of her neck and softly squeeze.

  “You don’t want to be here, so I’m making that happen.” A small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth and she moves for the door, keeping her hand in mine.

  It’s quiet as we walk down the hall and hushed voices soon creep up from the bar as we walk down the stairs.

  Our dads are sat with a beer in the far corner and I’m surprised to see so many brothers are still up and sitting around the bar.

  Many sets of eyes turn our way and they all land on Harper shrinking beside me. Her hand trembles in mine and I regret not taking the side stairs out of here. Cas smiles our way and Zach pushes up out of his seat. He walks over and her trembles stop. She freezes and if it’s possible, she grows colder.

  “When did you get back?” he asks her. He keeps his distance but it’s not enough. She isn’t relaxing and her grip on my hand is deathly tight.

  “She called me last night and I went and picked her up,” I tell him, answering on her behalf.

  He nods. “Are you okay?”

  She keeps her mouth shut and nods.

  “She’s just tired, I’m taking her somewhere she can rest,” I tell him loud enough for every fucker here to hear.

  The door slams open and Leo barrels through, Rayna in his arms and her changing bag hanging off his shoulder. He wears the look of death quite comfortably and once he finds out what we did behind his back, he’ll be wanting our deaths carried out by his own hands.

  “You got me here, what do you want?” he grunts at Cas. That explains why there are more brothers here than usual at this time, Cas called them here.

  He stands and the brother’s hushed conversations fade out. I unlink my hand from Harper’s and wind my arm around her instead. I need her close to me, she isn’t slipping away from me again and I’m not letting anyone get too close to her. I will protect her, and I will not fail her again.

  Having the brother’s attention, Cas says, “Last night, Sparky and I took Ellis out to the Old Mill and we took care of him.”

  Anger simmers through the brothers as they look to one another to confirm they heard their president right; you can taste their confusion it’s so thick. My muscles are wound tight anticipating what Cas is going to say next.

  “What do you mean, you took care of him?” Leo asks slow and deep, taking a step closer to his dad.

  “He’s dead,” Cas informs everyone, and the place erupts into chaos. He steps further into the middle of the bar and raises his voice so he can be heard over the anger. “I called you all here at this early hour to tell you I killed Ellis and he’s buried where even the rats won’t find him.”

  Brothers descend into silence and they all stare at Cas. With every beat that passes, my muscles unwind with no mention of Harper’s name. He promised he was going to make this right for her and he’s following through. He doesn’t even look our way.

  “You killed him?”

  Leo’s disbelief knocks into me and I hold Harper tighter. “You bang on about how I need his blood to stain my hands and then you snatch the opportunity away from me, from Slade. Why?”

  Here it comes. The day I thought I’d never see, Cas lying to his son. “I decided to put him in the ground myself, so the club wouldn’t have any more blood on their hands.”

  With Rayna in his arms, Leo is struggling to keep his temper reigned in. He takes a deep breath and exhales so hard his cheeks balloon out.

  “That’s all?” he snaps.

  “I have to agree with Leo,” Pope chips in and pulls himself up to his feet. I didn’t see the old man was here. “This club heals on the blood of our enemies. Us brothers heal on the blood we take from them. Ellis was no different. I respect you, Cas, when you took the president’s patch, I followed you knowing you’d lead us to greater things and until this night, you’ve done just that.”

  No one interrupts the old timer as he shuffles closer to Cas. “You were wrong to take it upon yourself to end him. The cunt brought too much suffering to this club for you to take him out yourself. The club has bounced back from a lot before, but I’m not sure this time around.”

  The pair stand face to face and Pope doesn’t back down when Cas leans in and closes the space between them.

  “I never thought I’d see the day you lost faith in the club, brother.”

  Pope shakes his head, sadness sweeping over him. “Not in the club, Cas.”

  Harper gasps and Leos neck snaps in our direction. I have to get her out of here. “Where did you come from?” he asks, leaving no room for her not to answer.

  “That doesn’t matter right now,” Cas calls over. He backs off from Pope and slowly looks around the brothers.

  “Does anyone else have anything they want to say to me?”

  Zach is the only one who stands but he doesn’t say anything. With a quick shake of his head, he walks by Leo and out the door. Others soon follow and within a couple of minutes, we’re left with Cas, my dad and Leo.

  “Take Rayna home, son. We can talk once tensions have thinned.”


  “Right,” he murmurs, still pissed, but he too leaves and the silence he leaves is deafening.

  Harper steps out from under my arm and dries her eyes with her jacket sleeve.

  “You should tell him the truth, he’ll never understand any lie he hears,” she tells Cas.

  He turns on her and stones over. “Last night never happened as far as you’re concerned,” he tells her. “Are you leaving?”

  She looks back at me and I step forward.

  “We were going to look at a house in town. Now Ellis is dead, she doesn’t need to hide out here.”

  “Son, there are still Crows out there gunning for us.”

  “And I’m not stupid. This is what Harper needs.”

  I reach out and take her hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

  She doesn’t need to hear any more of this shit. Neither of our dad’s stop us and right this minute, I wouldn’t want them to find out what would happen if they tried. Trouble is hanging over our club, and for a beat, my wife doesn’t need to feel it hanging over her.

  The sky grows lighter as we ride into town and the past few weeks begin to fade. Riding hard, I weave through the streets and pull up outside the house I saw the other day. The for-rent sign is still up, and Harper perks up as I climb off my bike and hold out my hand for her.