Exile & Lula (Crimson Guard MC #2)

Chapter Tallulah “Lula” Reed

TALLULAH “LULA” REED

Violence had lingered in the shadows of my life since before I was even born.

My mom was a kind, young woman struggling to retain her dignity in a cruel world.

My father was a monster, trapping young women into lives of prostitution and torturing dogs for entertainment.

He went to prison for the latter crime. No doubt, Bebe hoped his influence would be gone from our lives forever.

Yet, when I was three years old, his debts became ours to pay.

We were abducted by teenage thugs looking to pimp us out. Bebe tried to protect me. I still remembered when they hit her. My mom looked so ashamed when she couldn’t save her little girl. I felt shame, too. After all, why would bad things happen to us if we didn’t deserve them?

Before those thugs could sell us to repay Wolfman’s debt, Paxton Reed bulldozed his way into our lives.

The rowdy biker scared me like he did most people. His icy blue eyes and rough exterior promised pain. After Pax saved us from those violent thugs, he won my mom’s heart. I learned to see past his scary exterior to his big heart hiding underneath. Pax’s love made my life better.

Not long after Bebe and Pax married, we welcomed my first sister, Sabrina.

The athletic brunette took after Bebe and me in the looks department.

Vanessa followed soon after, looking like Pax with her light blonde hair and fair blue eyes.

Our family was complete after the birth of Roy.

He was a solid mix of our parents, inheriting Bebe’s brown hair and Pax’s blue eyes.

Despite my new dad’s job as an enforcer for the Little Memphis Motorcycle Club, I grew up with a solidly middle-class lifestyle. I was the first woman in my family to graduate from college, let alone attend law school. My degree allowed me to protect my family and our friends within the club.

Eventually, the original club disbanded after its president’s nearly fatal accident.

Pax and my uncle Ford followed Joker into retirement.

The younger members formed two new clubs.

Joker’s son, Tricky, created the LM Jokers with several members of the old Little Memphis club, including my ex-husband Jarred.

Meanwhile, my cousin, Clint, chose to create a club for the kids of the original members, male and female. I suddenly had an opportunity to ride with my brother, who by then went by the name Rowdy. Sabrina and Vanessa also joined the Crimson Guard.

I might have made an unlikely biker, but I loved being part of something tied to my family.

Most of my life was exceedingly normal. I worked on the top floor in an office complex in Little Memphis.

My days were spent attending meetings and court hearings.

I employed a staff of recent college grads and women embracing a second chance in life.

I lived in a gorgeous, custom-built house in the exclusive Sleepy Eye Community. Every morning, I enjoyed coffee at my kitchen table and admired my perfectly landscaped yard and the lake I shared with the many other families tied to the Little Memphis Motorcycle Club.

My daughter was a top student at her school, often doing advanced work.

Though many children might be distraught over having two homes, Dillon liked how she had the opportunity to decorate each bedroom with her changing styles.

The one at our home was cutesy and filled with her plushies.

The one at Jarred’s house in Little Rock was more mature as Dillon inched her way toward adolescence.

We lived a quiet, normal life except for my role within the Crimson Guard. I often joined their parties at the Sorority House, a large estate where the female members lived, including Sabrina and Vanessa. The male members, like my brother, owned condos at the Five Point Lofts.

I liked to consider myself tough. I’d gotten into brawls in my life. I knew how to use weapons. Though I was no longer the little girl waiting to be saved, I wasn’t reckless, either.

This was why I regularly brought security with me to court. Today, as I exited the elevator on the second floor of the parking garage, Stevie and Cher acted as my protection.

Besides the work I did for the aligned motorcycle clubs, I also offered pro bono assistance to women and children.

Most of them came from abusive homes with men who were none too pleased about my “meddling.” Several assholes had harassed me after court.

Once, a woman who lost her kids attacked me.

Though I’d held my own in those situations, Clint felt I needed additional protection.

Cher took the lead, like most big sisters tended to do. Her green hair hung loosely around her shoulders. Stevie’s pink hair was tied back in a ponytail. They wore baggy, black track pants and oversized white T-shirts. As licensed bodyguards, they openly wore their pistols in visible holsters.

With their wiry builds, the sisters didn’t look like much of a threat. In hand-to-hand battle, they tended to claw at eyes and bite like pissed cats. However, they were trigger-happy. With enough bullets, the sisters didn’t need to be built athletically like my sisters, Sabrina and Vanessa.

I followed after them in my black Michael Kors slacks and blouse. My heels clicked against the concrete ground. I was daydreaming about the work I needed to do later once Dillon was home. I hadn’t gotten anything out for dinner, so I’d need to pick up a meal on my way home.

Ahead of me, Cher stopped walking suddenly and signaled Stevie.

I scanned the partially filled garage before us.

An elderly woman and her caregiver moved slowly toward the elevator.

A middle-aged man smoked a cigarette near the open half-wall facing the city.

Two other men leaned inside the trunk of a sedan.

When Cher removed her pistol, I scanned the garage for the threat. Stevie mimicked her sister. We backed up toward the elevator. I reached inside my bag for my phone to warn Clint of possible trouble.

The first deafening gunshot echoed in the garage, startling me enough to drop my purse and briefcase. To my right, near the stairwell, a previously unseen man collapsed to the ground. His gun fell next to him.

My ears rang from the gunshot fired in this concrete box. The elderly woman and her caretaker had stopped moving and crouched. When they saw the man drop to the ground, they retreated toward their car. However, the men messing around in their trunk and the one smoking charged at the sisters and me.

Stevie shoved me back toward the elevator while she hunched down and fired at the smoking man. Her first shots hit him directly in the chest, yet he only grunted and staggered. Lowering her shot, she fired at his knees. As he hollered and dropped, Stevie ended him with a headshot.

As the two other men sprayed rifle fire at us, several car alarms began to blare. With the chaos, I could do nothing more than duck and pray for it to end.

The sisters remained calm, though. Cher shot at the two gunmen. They retreated slightly, firing wildly and sending bullets ricocheting around the cement structure.

As much as I wanted to remain clearheaded, an old memory, tucked away for decades, suddenly broke free. I was back in the mall parking lot with my mom. We were crouched as violent men opened fire, demanding revenge for crimes committed by the men we loved.

Frozen with fear, I could only watch as Cher eliminated the two men despite their high-powered rifles. The garage fell silent. My nostrils were tickled by the heavy stink of burnt gunpowder. I heard the fearful sobs of the elderly woman and her caretaker as they hid near their vehicle.

Gripped with panic, I couldn’t move. My fear felt like a boulder pinning me to the ground.

I rarely suffered from panic attacks. The last one was during law school when I was overwhelmed with courses and self-imposed expectations.

I flipped out and hid in a closet for an hour before Jarred called my family.

They rode to the rescue, forcing me to eat junk food and watch funny movies.

Today, as the panic gripped me, my family felt like a distant dream. Then, when I began to despair, I heard Pax’s voice in my head telling me it was smart to hide, just like he did when I was small and got scared at Chuck E. Cheese.

His voice calmed me. My muscles unclenched. I could reach for my phone to text Clint. Before I sent the emergency message, the elevator doors opened behind me and masked men flooded out.

The head asshole slapped the phone from my hand and yanked me to my feet. With my free hand, I flipped open my switchblade and drove it into his leg. While he grunted in pain, I elbowed him in the crotch and dove forward.

The sisters and I scrambled to find cover while the men chased after us. Cher fired at one man, hitting him in the hip. He toppled to the ground, hollering in pain.

Another guy rushed at Cher. He swatted away her weapon and shoved his own pistol against her temple.

“Calm the fuck down, or I'll drop this bitch,” the guy hissed at Stevie.

I prided myself on reading situations quickly. These men weren’t here for the sisters. They wanted to take me alive. If not, I’d already be dead.

I lifted my hands to signal for Stevie to calm down. “What do you want?” I asked the man holding the gun to Cher’s head.

“You’re coming with us. The only question is how many people will die to make that happen.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have come in so roughly, if you were hoping to handle things smoothly,” I said and glanced at the other men. “Are you planning to take me to the elevator? Is that where I should slowly move toward to keep everyone from shooting each other?”

His black ski mask hid everything except the man’s cold blue eyes. Gesturing with his jaw toward the elevator, he muttered, “Just shuffle your ass in that direction and keep your hands where I can see them.”

Nodding, my gaze flashed to Cher. She was signaling Stevie to make a move. I gave her a frown and shook my head.

“Stay alive,” I told her as I slowly walked toward the men at the elevator. “Let Clint deal with the next step. Just breathe.”

“Listen to your boss,” said the guy with the gun muzzle shoved against Cher’s temple. “No need for more bloodshed.”

Once I reached the men at the elevator, one of them yanked my hands behind my back and bound them with zip ties.

“Now what?” I asked the guy at my side.

“No witnesses,” he replied.

Cher broke free from the guy holding her and pointed a small gun she had kept hidden. He slapped at her weapon as she fired. The bullet tore into his knee.

Another gunshot rang out. This one was from his gun. I heard Cher cry out.

Though I thought of running, the men surrounded me. I was the key to their mission.

As the guy struggled with Cher, Stevie turned her weapon toward the men around me. Once I ducked down, she opened fire.

The man next to me dropped dead. Feeling brazen, I collapsed onto my ass and kicked at the men around me. My heels made contact, distracting the assholes as Stevie ran for cover behind a car.

“Fuck this shootout shit,” snarled one of the men. “We’ve got the bitch. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Another man yanked my heels off. He threw one and used the other to smack me in the face.

“I can break a lot of shit on you without killing you,” he warned before the elevator doors opened.

“We’re leaving!” announced the guy and yanked me by my hair into the elevator.

Two men dove inside just before the doors closed, but others were left behind. I tried to plan an escape as the lift moved down to the main level. Around me, the men argued over the ones they left behind.

I tried to give myself a pep talk. The gunshots would draw attention. Someone might have already called Clint or my dad. I just needed to find a way to remain in this location for as long as possible to allow my people to save me.

The doors opened, revealing three idling black SUVs. Another argument occurred as the men fought over whether to leave the rest of their team.

When the man holding me tried to shove my body into the SUV, I lifted my feet and planted them on the side of the vehicle. A short struggle took place before he dropped me.

With no way to brace myself, I landed hard on my tailbone. Still, I scrambled away, even attempting to crawl under the SUV. I needed to delay our departure, so my family could ride to my rescue.

On the second floor, more gunfire rang out. The men stopped arguing.

“We’re leaving,” said one of them and dragged me by my hair out from under the SUV.

My feet scraped along the ground as I fought to remain limp. Finally, he lifted me.

Just before he shoved a bag over my head, I saw Cher drop from the second floor and collide with the concrete walkway. Without thinking, I moved in her direction.

The man kicked out my knee and sent me skidding on the ground. He lifted me quickly and heaved my body into the SUV. Another man shoved the bag over my head while the first guy zip-tied my ankles.

Pinned to the floor, I flinched as the men piled into the SUV. The vehicle jerked forward as their feet kept my body trapped.

Though I was never an overly negative person, I also refused to embrace silly hopes. That’s why I assumed Stevie and Cher were dead, and a world of pain awaited me when this SUV arrived wherever it was headed.