Reign (Skulls Renegade #1) Read online

  I had lost track of time when Reed suddenly got up as if he had remembered something. He began rummaging in his small closet and pulled something out, bringing it straight to me. It took me a moment to realize what it was, and my mind shot back to what he’d told his asshole brother who’d hit on me earlier in the day. I had no idea how he would have gotten such a thing without me knowing about it, but there it was. A leather jacket. It was my cut.

  “I wasn’t lyin’ when I told Kyle I had your cut here. You’re my girl, babe. My ride or die. I want every motherfucker out there to know that you’re mine, you’re the Ol’ Lady of Skulls Renegade MC,” he told me with his broadest smile. It meant so many things, what he was doing and saying, and my head swam.

  Being an Ol’ Lady is the equivalent of an engagement in an MC, or at least very close. That scared me to death. I loved Reed, and I wanted to be his Ol’ Lady, but I didn’t want to be engaged. Not yet. I had just gotten out of an engagement that ended in the worst way possible, or close to it. I suppose Richard didn’t die on me. Just his love did.

  Reed pulled the cut out in front of me, and I was amazed when I saw the back of the jacket. The emblem was different than anything else I’d ever seen on a cut before. Instead of it being a skull, for Skulls Renegade MC, it was half a skull and half a viper; showing my affiliation with both clubs. On the front, my patch read ‘Prez – VMC’ and ‘Ol’ Lady Prez – SRMC.’

  “Reed…” I could cry. It was so perfect. There was no way I could turn him down now. “Thank you. Thank you so damned much.” I wrapped my arms around him, and he held me close just the way I liked.

  “Anything for you baby.” And when he said it like that, the cut clutched between us, I believed him. Maybe it really didn’t matter that I was an FBI agent after all; at least not to him.

  ***

  We’d had a full night of life changing sex. And I know I’d told myself that a million times since meeting Reed, but I’d never had anything better. Sex with Reed just kept getting better. I couldn’t believe I had enjoyed sex with Richard because this was out of this world. What had I been missing all those years?

  Groggily, as the morning came along, I looked over and smiled euphorically. Reed was sleeping in with me. He was laying on his back, and I wrapped my arm around his torso. My head was lying on his chest, going up and down with his smooth breathing. He still wasn’t awake yet, and I wasn’t about to be the one to disturb him. I liked him just the way he was for now.

  A flash of light came into our room, breaking the nice moment. I cringed, and I groaned when the light got brighter. It suddenly all turned off, and I was brave and opened my eyes. Who was the hell disturbing us like that?

  I saw Kyle, staring at us. “Oh, my god!” I shrieked, causing Reed to shoot up out of bed. “What, what’s the – “

  “What the fuck are you doing in here!?” Reed brought the duvet up over my shoulders so that I was covered completely. Evidently, Reed had given the right advice about being around his brother. We were both in our birthday suits, and I’m sure he enjoyed the view.

  “Get out!” I yelled. Kyle just smirked, but he did as I told him. He left.

  Reed got out of bed and started sliding on his tight, black pants. “Reed, please just lock the door and come back to bed,” I pleaded, wanting a few more moments of peace before I had to face the fateful day ahead of me.

  “Sorry Siren, but I’m too worked up for that.”

  “Reeeeeeeed,” I whined. He shot a warning glare back to me.

  “Don’t whine to me, babe. You sleep, and then get up and wear that cut today. I’ll see you in a bit.” He kissed my forehead. “We need to figure out what exactly we’re doing with Jimmy today.”

  Ugh, that reminder. I almost forgot about him. For once in my life, I wish I’d forgotten about him. It would have been fucking great. I rolled out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. I turned on the shower, and it was steaming hot; just the way I liked it best.

  I did as Reed said, taking my time while he did whatever it was he was going to do to deal with that evil twin of his. How could such an amazing man be so closely related to that dick?

  I put on the cut over my clothes and went out to the living area in the clubhouse. Daisy stood next to the coffee pot, pouring herself a cup. “Can I get one too?” I asked, feeling like I could use several to fuel my day.

  Daisy jumped, then turned around to face me. She looked like crap, and her eyes were swollen. She’d been crying all night, or maybe fell asleep crying? I’d been that girl too many times, and that’s what she was today. I had to get to the bottom of why my best friend in that place was so down in the mouth. It wasn’t like Daisy at all to be anything but cheerful.

  “Dais’ what’s wrong?” She poured me a cup of coffee without a response. When she handed it to me, I pressed it to my lips, taking a sip of the warm liquid. I took a glance around the room. Luckily, it was just Daisy and me for now. Reed must have taken Kyle elsewhere to deal with him. “Is this about Kyle?” I asked more quietly.

  “Sometimes I hate how observant you are.” She took a pull of her own coffee and stared at me right in the eyes. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “Him coming back here just brought up a lot of old shit.” Daisy took a deep breath. “He has the fuckin’ nerve, coming back here after he just…left.”

  “It was a bad breakup?” Everything I’d known from the information I’d gathered pointed to that.

  Daisy just laughed at me. “I don’t even think ya can classify it as a breakup. There was no breakup; he just fuckin’ left.” She inserted quotations with her fingers for the word “break up.”

  “I never stopped loving him, the fuckin asshole. I was fine. I was totally fuckin’ fine with him being gone and it being what it was. Now he just shows up here? What the hell does he want? He gave the damn club away to Reed cuz he wanted none of it.” Daisy threw her hands in the air in frustration before leaning over the counter, looking a bit defeated. “Damn it! I was fine. I dealt with my shit and now – now it’s all comin’ back to me.” She shivered talking about it, and I put my coffee on the counter and took her into a strong embrace. Daisy sobbed, her tears sliding over my shirt. “I can’t b-be strong a-all the fuckin’ t-time. I just can’t, Elena.”

  “You don’t have to baby girl. I’ve gotcha.” In the last few weeks since I’d been there, I’d never seen Daisy cry, not even once. She’s a tough chick. Something must have gone horribly wrong if she was crying like this. I hoped that Reed got Kyle good for the both of us.

  ***

  After I had left Daisy in her room, I went in search of Reed. I was alone, which he specifically said he didn’t want. There wasn’t anyone in the club. Literally, no one was here. Odd much? But then again, Reed and Kyle were probably together. So, I was fine, right?

  From my discussions with Reed over the past day, I had assumed that my father was still alive. Both MCs were waiting on me to execute an official order or finish the job myself. Though, I figured the man probably had it bad where they were keeping him.

  With the single thought of him, my childhood memories came back to me in a flash. Shit. He’d taken so much from my mother and from me. In the end, he took her from me. That was something I was never going to be able to forgive him for.

  No matter how much I could try, I never would. Not after everything. So, if that made me a bad person, so fuckin’ be it.

  When I was, little I used to imagine that I had a normal dad. You know what I’m talking about; one of the dads who take you to soccer, to the movies. It was a beautiful imagination; my father was never like that. When my friend Sophie got presents, I got slaps to the face. And that was on a good day.

  I knocked softly on Reed’s office door, then opened it. Reed was behind the desk, wearing a look that could kill hundreds staring at his brother. As I suspected, he had pulled him away to deal with him, but I kind of wished there were more physical dealings going on than glaring.

  “You need to fix your shit with Daisy,” I told him point blank.

  Kyle turned to me as I came in with the most annoying shit-eating grin on his lousy face, “Mornin’ Irish.”

  Chapter 8

  Reed

  I watched as my new Ol’ Lady walked up to my asshole evil twin and slapped him hard across the face. I couldn’t help but smirk. She was so hot when she was in a bad mood like that, and Kyle knew damn well he deserved it. “If I were you I’d watch your damn mouth around my Ol’ Lady,” I warned him, nodding to the fiery look on Elena’s face.

  Kyle looked at her more closely, finally noticing the cut now. “What the hell kind of cut is that?” he asked, surveying the unique patch I had specially made for my beautiful Siren. She was my Ol’ Lady and the Prez of another powerful MC she inherited from her dirtbag father.

  “I’m his Ol’ Lady, but I’m also the Prez of the Vipers. Pretty sure that’s why he said to watch your damn mouth and listen to me. Like I said, you need to fix your shit with Daisy. I’ve never seen her like this, and I have half a mind to punch you in the damn balls right now for being such a piece of shit. But you’re Reed’s brother, so I’m going to give you one more fucking chance to act the right way.” Damn, Siren was pissed good today. It was going to be a great day to wipe Jimmy off the face of the earth, then. And then they could take it back to the bedroom and celebrate.

  I felt myself getting hard just thinking about it and shifted in my seat. “Do what she says if you wanna stay here, bro. I don’t know why the hell you’re here, and I have more important things to do right now than care. But you dropped this MC in my lap and disappeared, so you have no say any longer. And if you’re going to be here, you’re not going to be making my members cry or pissing off my Ol’ Lady, is that clear?” I glared daggers
at him, hoping I got through to the guy.

  Brother or not, I never had understood him. But he had been my father’s right-hand man and the natural go to lead the Skulls Renegade MC. Kyle dropped it in my lap a year after getting it and walked the fuck out if our lives.

  Kyle nodded and got up, getting in Elena’s face. I stood up with my fists balled up, ready to rearrange his fuckin’ face, but all he said to her was, “Sure thing, Irish,” before walking out into the bar, calling for Daisy.

  I gave a one-sided smirk before coming out from behind my desk and heading straight for my Ol’ Lady. Man, I never thought I was going to say that about any woman. Sure, I had been with plenty of chicks looking to get some from a Prez, but there had never been any woman that I thought could stand by my side. But my siren was damn tough as nails, and I knew it from the moment she walked into that bar like she owned the place that she was bound to be mine.

  I pushed Elena against the wall and planted one on her, letting my hand enjoy her thick thigh for a moment before pulling away. We couldn’t get lost in each other just yet. There was some business to take care of. “Good morning, Siren. I see you’re in a mood. Are you ready to put that to use on Jimmy?”

  Instead of anger, I saw her face visibly droop and knew that she was still haunted by that motherfucker’s existence. And she was no killer, but I was sure that the death of this asshole was going to turn her life around more than she could even imagine. And it was going to satisfy my burning hatred for a man I should have never had dealings with. It made me fuckin sick that this man tortured the woman I loved when she was just a child and dared to kill her own mother in front of her. There was a special place in hell for bastards like that, and he was going to figure that out real soon.

  “I don’t see any reason to wait any longer. Where are they keeping him?” she asked. Little did she know he had been holed up in the basement with 24/7 guard this whole time. That place was a padded-up torture chamber. Not even one of us above ground could hear him scream.

  “Grab your Glock and follow me,” I told her, leading her past the bedroom to grab the gun she’d kept hidden since she got there. I’d had my slight suspicions about her before; I wasn’t as stupid as people sometimes took me for. But it did take me by fuckin’ surprise when she used a badge to get us out of a ticket. She was something else.

  She tucked it away in the pocket of her cut, and I held my hand out to her. We were going to do this together, just the way we would do everything from now on. We were going to be unstoppable as the Prez and Ol’ Lady of Skulls Renegade MC.

  There was a little-known entrance into the basement through the laundry area; just a small little hole in the floor with some stairs leading down into the dark. But as we descended this time, it was lit up by the dim lightbulb swinging free in the very center of the room.

  The basement wasn’t much to speak of; just concrete and a water heater. We had a few pieces of junk down there. Otherwise, it was meant for exactly the purpose we were using it for now; holding prisoners. Seamus, Enzo, and Dmitri were all down there, taking a couple of lame shots at the old man who looked worse for the wear. Other than the shit eating grin he shot through his bloodied mouth at Elena, there was nothing recognizable about him. I had made sure he had been fed nothing but gruel and that he was being kept quiet and weak down there until Elena was ready.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t my little bitch of a daughter. Have you come to bust out my knee caps again, or are you here to be the little weakling you always were and set me free?” he asked, spitting up blood the whole time. I noticed his teeth had recently been kicked in.

  I went straight to the corner for a baseball bat and pulled out my own gun to train on him. “Leave the three of us the fuck alone now, guys. He’s all ours. Thanks. Oh, and Enzo, Seamus, keep a close, damn eye on Kyle, would ya?” The two men nodded, keeping their weapons trained on Jimmy until they were halfway up the stairs.

  “I’m here to watch the light go out of your fuckin eyes for what you did to Mom,” she told him point blank with gritted teeth. “I’m here to watch you pay.”

  Jimmy spit more blood and pus out at Elena, and I went at him with the bat. I cracked it only lightly against his shoulder. “I didn’t hit you any fuckin harder because I am pissed off, asshole. This is not going to be a fast job today, Jimmy. You see, it takes the worst sort of coward to shoot his own wife in front of their children and even more so to beat the shit out of an innocent little girl.

  Well, that little girl grew up to be my Ol’ Lady, and I’ll be damned if anyone hurts my Ol’ Lady and lives to tell the tale.” I was drooling with anger at this point, staring down evil incarnate as I swung the bat again, going for his already banged up knees.

  “Get the fuck up!” I screamed at him as he let himself fall over, looking more like an injured Santa Claus than the beast he had pretended to be for so long. But I knew his rep well enough to know that he was just a shithead hiding behind his MC.

  He followed my directions, but he did so, laughing maniacally through the pain.

  “Stop fuckin’ laughin’.”

  He was driving me insane, and it took all my willpower not just to end him right there. Instead, a cracked one across his other shoulder, snapping the bone. Jimmy faltered and screamed in agony for a moment, and I glanced at Elena, making sure she saw his pain. She deserved that.

  But then the motherfucker got back up to his knees like the sick cockroach he was and spoke his last. “I see how my little whore worked her way into your bed. You talk too damn much, Reed. Your father or brother would never have let an FBI agent in their midst.” Reed glanced back at Elena for a moment as her eyes went wide. “That’s right little baby, I’ve known for years that you’re a fuckin government snitch. I should’ve popped one right in your skull when I had the chance.”

  Elena didn’t hesitate, pulling out her Glock and getting him point blank between the eyes. He fell over with a thud, bleeding out onto the concrete. Elena dropped her piece as she sank to the ground shaking.

  Obviously, we had some shit to clear up, but first, she needed me. I wrapped my arms around her and rocked her back and forth until the shaking turned to tears. “He’s fuckin dead, Reed. He’s gone.”

  “I know, babe. It’s all over. He only has the devil to torture now.”

  Chapter 9

  Elena

  I paced back and forth in the Cincinnati hotel room that Reed and I had been holed up in the last 24-hours awaiting the phone call from the bureau. After the death of Jimmy and the way he had just thrown around the information about me being an agent, I knew I couldn’t fuck around anymore. Things were getting too deep and dangerous for me not to cut an official deal with the FBI for myself as well as the now two MCs involved. Kristie had urged me to come to Cincinnati immediately to square things away with her boss. Reed insisted, even after learning who I was, that he come with me for my protection. I couldn’t believe he was more worried about the danger of my double lifestyle than the possibly of me betraying him. Reed really was a diamond in the rough.

  “Come sit down, babe, and let me help make you calm,” Reed begged, not for the first time since we arrived. Something about the whole thing; leaving our seconds in charge and having my cover blown just put me on edge. His body hadn’t even offered much comfort; only a distraction.

  This time, though, I listed and sat next to him, letting him put his arm around me. “You do realize you were my target when I got into town, Reed. I could have put you in jail. You’re not pissed at me even a little?”

  “Siren, you risked your job and your life for me from the moment you let me have that damn sexy body of yours. You’re damn special, and I’m not letting you go so easily. Besides, you’ve always been on my side; you just didn’t know it.” I liked it when he teased, kissing down my neck. His dark facial hair tickled my skin.

  I laid back on the bed, letting his lips explore my face and my collar bone, trying to lose myself in his touch. It was easier than I expected at a time of such stress between the two of us. I had been so sure the moment he found out about me, moments like this would just be taken away.