Chapter 1
Bane
Present day
The clubhouse bar is a shitshow, like usual.
Which is fine with me. This is how we roll. Rugged, dark with a tinge of filthy. This is my family and what I was raised to defend and protect.
The Havoc Guardians. A motorcycle club, and not the riding kind, where ninety-nine percent of the members are law-abiding citizens.
We’re one percenters. Outlaws and villains, according to societal laws.
A brood of criminals, but we’re a brotherhood and family.
My closest family members are Ash, Army, Pix, and Digits, and I’ll go to the grave protecting them and this MC.
“Want another, Bane?” Breaker, a Brother who bartends regularly at the clubhouse, asks. When I nod, he slides the nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniels toward me.
I tip it back to finish it and swivel on my stool to survey the bar. My eyes fall on the fucking mayhem in the far corner. And I do mean fucking.
Tawny, one of the Bunnies—also known as the Club Pussy, the women who willingly and voraciously provide pussy-on-tap—is on her knees between Toxic’s spread legs and is about to take his dick out of his jeans.
Before I can shout at them, Ash's gravelly voice cuts over the music. “Not in the fucking bar. Take it to your room, Toxic. And glove up for fuck’s sakes.”
Our Prez, scowls from the doorway. Ash's dark blonde hair is thick and mussed, and his blue eyes are narrowed on Toxic.
Ash took over when Zeus, his dad, was killed.
He, Army, Pix, Digits, and I all were raised here at the compound, and we had a very early and very graphic ‘sexual education’.
I lost count of how many times I walked around a corner and came upon people fucking.
When Ash became Prez, he put in some changes, so it wasn’t a free-for-all orgy—we keep that for Hedon, our sex club.
He wanted to cultivate the family loyalty and bond in our MC, and to do that, you need the Old Ladies—our version of wives—and kids included.
Which meant no sex out in public. Ash’s order about using condoms is because he’s a wise businessman.
With how much sharing of the Bunnies is done, if anyone got an STI, that shit would spread like wildfire and could impact our workforce.
“Sorry, Prez.” Toxic hauls Tawny to her stilettoed feet. He grins as she palms his dick inside his pants as they walk out.
Ash stalks toward me, a scowl etched onto his face. The silver rings on his fingers catch the overhead lights—they’re his version of fashionable brass knuckles to pulverize his enemy’s face.
“What’s got your balls in a twist?” I ask, signaling Breaker for more Jack. He slides another bottle down the bar to me, and I crack it open and pass it to Ash.
He takes a long pull from the bottle, then turns, pressing his back against the bar counter and surveying his kingdom. That scowl is etched deep on his brow. He fists the neck of the bottle.
I bump his shoulder with my fist. “Spill, brother.”
Ash’s jaw works before he turns again, so his back is to the bar, and I do the same. Breaker knows to keep his distance.
“Cutt is causing shit,” Ash growls.
Cutt is Ash’s piece of shit cousin. We both want to put the fucker in the ground; however, we need an ironclad reason. Otherwise, Cutt’s dad, Thunder—one of the older members of our club, or the old-guard as we refer to them—would raise hell. Politics are alive and well, even in an MC.
“He’s hitting the coke hard again.”
Cutt is volatile on the best of days. When he’s strung out on blow, he’s a fucking psychopath.
“This could be our gift horse,” I say, and Ash side-eyes me with a grunt. “He’ll fuck up sooner or later, Ash, and we’ll get what we need to bury him.”
He takes another pull of Jack before handing me the bottle, signaling Breaker over, and grins. “What’s with the peach fuzz on your face, kid?”
Breaker laughs, rubbing his jaw. He’s no kid, though; he’s a full-fledged Brother and in his mid-twenties.
His two younger brothers, Sten and Tyr, are Prospects, waiting to earn the right to be patched into the MC.
But Ash likes to mess with Breaker—he and his brothers, and their sister, Slade, were MC brats and had spent much of their childhood here at the compound.
With us being a bit older, we had watched out for them.
Their family history is tragic—not that many of us don’t have our own dark stories, but theirs seems to have that extra fucked-up cherry on top.
Their dad, Wolf, was a decent Brother but a piece of shit father and Old Man.
He refused to keep his dick in his pants and fucked the Demon Spawn leader’s woman, thinking it would be ‘hilarious’ to mock the weak gang’s leader.
It wasn’t Wolf who paid the price for that shit brained decision, though—the Demon Spawn went after Tyla, Wolf’s Old Lady, and Slade was unfortunately home at the time as well.
Ash was Prez then, and as soon as we caught wind of the threat, we raced over to Tyla’s home.
It had been too late to stop her from being gang raped, but we saved fourteen-year-old Slade from that fate in the nick of time.
Ash had been the one to haul the gangbanger off Slade and slit his throat.
Rather than traumatize young Slade, it was like it had imprinted on the two of them—almost like Ash was the protective father Slade never had, and they grew close with that father-figure bond.
But Tyla couldn’t recover here after what had been done to her, and she had left San Francisco, taking Slade with her.
Breaker and his brothers had left with them to help get them settled, but returned to the MC.
Ash had booted Wolf from the mother chapter of our club. He couldn’t strip his patches because he hadn’t technically broken any of our laws, but Ash was done with his bullshit. One of our smaller sister chapters in the Midwest took him in.
That was six years ago. Since then, Tyla died of an overdose, and Slade has been MIA for the past four years.
I know it weighs heavily on Ash, wondering what happened to her, but that’s nothing compared to Breaker and his brothers wondering where their youngest sibling is.
But they’re also bitter, feeling that Slade abandoned them, mostly Tyla.
Destiny, one of the Bunnies, saunters up to the bar and pulls my thoughts from the tragic history running through my head. Even though she knows not to waste her time with Ash, she rubs herself like a cat against him. “Hey, gorgeous.”
Ash isn’t what you call pretty-boy good-looking—we razz Army, that’s his MO—and even if Ash wasn’t the Prez, he would still be catnip to pussy. However, he never plays with any of the Bunnies.
Destiny turns to me, licking her lips. Her bright red lipstick is smeared slightly, and her lashes are thick and unnaturally long. Her fake tits, which one of the Brothers had paid for, are falling out of her barely-there shirt, and her shorts show more ass than they cover.
Destiny’s bare ass makes a forgotten memory rise in my mind.
One where Slade was a skinny young kid, and she had come barreling around the corner of the clubhouse and ran right into me, bouncing off me like a pinball.
She was laughing and her green eyes were lit with vibrant light and mischief.
A shriek followed, and Slade burst out laughing.
“It’s not my fault! She should cover her ass! ”
Then young Slade had sprinted off, and a Bunny had come around the corner with a board glued to her ass.
“What are you smiling about, big daddy?” Destiny presses closer.
I glare, hating when Destiny or any of the Bunnies call me daddy.
“My mouth’s empty, Bane.” She drags her long acrylic red nail down my cut, then over my VP patch. Her other hand runs along the belt in my jeans. “Let’s solve my empty hole problem by slipping your monster dick in there.”
I’m tempted. Not because I’m into Destiny or any of the Bunnies, but because, yeah, that pussy-on-tap thing is hard to ignore.
Before I can answer, there’s a commotion at the front door of the bar, and one of the Prospects, Jimmy, runs in.
Both Ash and I are instantly alert, and I push Destiny aside. My duties as VP and the club always come first over any pussy. Jimmy stares at Breaker, eyes wide, and his mouth looks like a fish out of water, gasping for breath.
“Spit it out, man,” Ash demands of Jimmy.
Breaker frowns, putting down the bottle of tequila he had just opened.
“Breaker…” Jimmy gulps. “There’s someone at the gates. Asking for you, Tyr, and Sten. She says… She says she’s your sister, Slade.”
Breaker is momentarily stunned, then he plants a hand on the bar and leaps over, running for the door.
I grab the back of his neck and haul him to a halt. “You can’t just go running to the gates, Breaker.”
“You think someone’s trying to lure me out there, to take me out?” he demands.
Well, the thought had crossed my mind. Ash, too, from the looks of it.
“Has Digits flagged anything that suggests there’s a threat to me or my brothers?” Breaker grits in frustration.
Digits, like Ash, Army, Pix, and me, is on the Council, and we each have various roles to lead and protect the MC. He’s our resident tech-hacker and oversees our security and surveillance.
“No, but that doesn’t mean you just race out there without caution,” Ash snaps. “Slade has been MIA for four years, and suddenly she—or someone saying they’re her—is here. That doesn’t make you suspicious?”
“We’ll check the front gate cameras,” I say. “Let me call Digits.”
Tyr and Sten burst into the bar, skidding to a halt right before slamming into us.
“Slade.” Sten sounds pained.
I pull out my phone to call Digits, who spends most of his time with computer equipment. Once he answers, I don’t even get a chance to speak.
“I heard,” he says. “I’m sending you and Ash the picture from the front gate cameras.”
Our phones buzz as the notification lights up the screens, and I open the image Digits sent from one of the high-power cameras.
There’s an older Jag sitting outside the gates, and a short, small-statured woman stands beside it.
She’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and boots made for riding bitch on the back of a hog.
Short, choppy brown hair frames a face with delicate features that has an emotionless expression. I study her eyes—big and green.
“It’s Slade,” Breaker confirms as he looks at my phone. Both he and his brothers are ready to bolt out the door.
“You do as we say.” Ash gives them a hard look.
“Come on, man, it’s Slade,” Sten, the youngest of the brothers, argues.
“Who has been MIA for years,” Ash grits. I can see how he wants to race out himself to find out if it's Slade and where the hell she's been, but the MC’s safety comes first. “Why is she here now?”
“We’ll find out when we go talk to her.” Sten has the balls to face off with his Prez.
“Don’t forget your place, Prospect.” Ash’s face is clouding with anger, so I step in—because right now, I’m the most impartial and level-headed.
Placing a hand on Ash’s shoulder, I say to Slade’s brothers, “We do this our way. Ash is right; we don’t know why Slade is here, and if there might be a threat to the club.”
Breaker and Sten look ready to argue further, but Tyr shoots them a dark look. “Prez and VP are right; know your fucking place. The MC is our family. Don’t fuck this up for us.”
Tyr has the biggest chip on his shoulder about their sister ghosting their family.
Finally feeling like we have them under control, I jerk my chin toward the door. Ash gives me a side-eye look that’s grim and dark. Neither of us is sure what’s waiting for us at the gates, but I can’t shake the feeling it’s nothing good.