Chapter One
Mimic
Present Day, Diamond Creek, Nebraska.
Slowly, I walked down the stairs. King had called church; it was the only thing that drew me from my room lately. That and my sister. Rose was relentless when it came to spending time with me.
I loved my sister, but the more time I spent with her, the more I feared she would find out who I really was. Having her in the clubhouse was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, I was so fucking happy to have her here. To see she was safe.
Now, anyway.
However, when I learned what had happened to her while she was living with Valhalla and Nyght Nymphs, I wanted to tear the world apart. It was one more thing that was that bastard’s fault.
And he was a bastard. Despite the world believing he was born into a loving family with two parents. No, he was the product of an affair. One no one knew about. He’d made sure I knew, though. He’d made sure I knew I was no better than he was.
An unwanted child born out of wedlock.
I’d believed his lies.
Believed him when he told me my mother didn’t want us.
That she’d told him where to find me. I’d believed him because I’d seen her leave with him willingly.
Rose and I were supposed to be hiding, only we sat at the top of the stairs and watched as he pushed her against the wall, kissing her and whispering in her ear.
I saw him smile when she nodded, and he took her hand as they left.
That was all I’d needed to see. She’d left us. It was easy to believe she didn’t want us, so I’d walked away and hid in the crawl space, leaving my baby sister in the hall.
Only now I knew the truth.
She hadn’t left us willingly. He’d taken her. He’d beaten her and stuffed her in a car and disappeared. Then, Rose and I disappeared.
Until he found me.
He didn’t know about Rose though, and I didn’t tell him. It was my job to keep my sister safe. I’d failed by getting caught, but I kept her safe by not telling him anything, no matter what he put me through.
At least I’d thought I had.
I pushed open the church doors and looked around the room at King and the officers. Somehow, I had been the first to arrive. I took my seat and waited.
“Alright, everyone’s here.”
I sat up straight. No one else was here.
Shit!
I thought he’d let it go. I should have known he wouldn’t. This would be when we discussed my punishment for killing Syrena without permission. I’d take whatever they decided. There was nothing they could do to me that I hadn’t already endured.
I sat straight in my chair and waited as King stared at me. I knew what he was doing. He was waiting me out. At least he was trying to. He could wait for a fucking year and I wouldn’t break. I’d been taught not to.
The sadistic son of a bitch and his father had trained me not to break under any circumstances. They’d made sure I could handle any form of torture.
“Do you know why you’re here, Mimic?”
“No, Prez.”
King sat back in his chair; his hand rubbed his chin. It was a tell, but not the one people thought. It was a diversion. I’d learned a lot from this man in the time I had been here. I laughed maniacally inside my head at the thought of what he had taught me without ever laying a hand on me.
George Stone could have learned a lot from King.
Most people believed King was thinking when he rubbed his beard. Considering his options, examining every angle. Except what he was really doing was sizing up his opponent. Namely me. He was trying to read me. He’d never get anything I didn’t let him have.
When King sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin, he already had all the answers he needed. He’d already made a plan. All I had to do was endure whatever it was. That was the easy part.
“Ghost is in Lincoln for the foreseeable future. We don’t know how long he’ll be gone. He’s with Sypher and Pippen. That means a spot has opened up for an enforcer.”
I didn’t move a muscle. But my mind was reeling. I didn’t understand what he was saying.
“Jack recommended you.”
This time, I couldn’t stop my head from turning toward Jack.
He was Sam’s old man. The woman who had become a mother to me.
She was the one person who knew the most, but even she didn’t know everything.
I couldn’t tell her. She’d never let me near Charlie or the babies if she did.
She’d never trust me again if she knew what I was capable of.
“Why?” I asked, not understanding what was happening.
I heard the words King said, but they didn’t make sense.
There were other men in this club who had been here longer than I had.
As far as they knew, they were more experienced in fighting than I was.
I was barely twenty-one years old, and I had lied to get into the club.
Jack shrugged. “It feels right.”
That was all he’d give me.
“We’ve already voted, and it was unanimous. It’s up to you to accept,” King explained, and I stared at him. My head turned to his right side, where his VP sat. My sister’s old man. He held my eyes and nodded.
“I accept.”
Jack passed me a new patch to add to my cut.
One that said, ‘Enforcer.’ I held it in my hand and stared at it.
A sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.
If they ever learned the truth, they would rip this away from me.
I would lose their trust, their respect.
I would lose my sister again. More importantly, I would lose my family.
The thought occurred to me that I should tell them the truth.
Tell them everything. But I couldn’t, not yet.
Not until I’d found him and wiped him off the Earth.
Not until I knew my sister was safe and would never be in danger again.
Once Dakota Stone was dead, it wouldn’t matter what happened to me.
It’d been three days since I’d gained the enforcer patch. Every time Sam looked at it, she teared up. She said it was hormones, but I knew better. She was proud of me. I didn’t deserve her pride. She didn’t know the secret I was keeping. The lie I’d held onto after the way I’d treated her.
I would lose her when she learned the truth. That loss might hurt more than losing my sister for a second time.
“Mimic!” Gunner called out from the other end of the room.
“Yeah?”
“I need you at the shop.”
“Okay, what’s going on?” I asked as I made my way toward him.
“Bruce called out. Got the flu or some shit. I can’t be there today, and I don’t want Indie there alone.”
Fuck!
Indigo Cambridge was a tattoo artist and piercer who worked for Gunner. And I owed her an apology.
I’d been avoiding the shop for months. On the day of my last appointment, I’d had an.
.. altercation with her. The first time I saw her, something lit inside me.
Something that had been missing. I wanted her.
The problem was, I’d mistaken her for my sister.
And that had made me angry. I refused to believe I was like him.
So, I’d lashed out and accused her of lying to Gunner about her age and lying to me about who she was.
I knew she was lying about her age. There was no fucking way she was twenty-six. If I had to guess, I’d say she was barely twenty, if that.
I’d learned a few things about myself since joining the club. One, I was a self-righteous prick. I’d lied about so many things, yet I continued to call others out on their lies.
I’d told myself my lies were to protect the people I loved. Her lies were selfish. She’d done it for a job.
The second thing I’d learned was, I had no self-control over my dick.
Not where Indigo was concerned. I didn’t sleep with the club girls.
I couldn’t risk my secret getting out. But if I were honest, they didn’t interest me.
I’d begun to think that I was broken. That years of torture and abuse had made me a eunuch.
But if I got within twenty feet of Indigo Cambridge—hell, just the sound of her name—my dick got so fucking hard I couldn’t think because all the blood left my brain and pooled in my jeans.
“For how long?” I asked Gunner.
“She’s got appointments all day.”
I groaned, thinking about spending the whole day with her. Watching her body move, inhaling her scent that filled the shop. I was in for a long-ass day, and I didn’t have time to rub one out before I went over there. Not that it mattered. My dick would be pushing against my zipper all fucking day.
“Got it,” I mumbled and went outside to my bike. It didn’t take long to get to the shop. Diamond Creek was a small town. I pulled up in front of Shadow Ink, Gunner’s tattoo shop, and watched her through the window for a moment.
She was so goddamn beautiful with her platinum hair and the tips dyed blue. The black cutoff T-shirt showed off her belly button piercing. Her ripped jeans molded to her ass, and I wanted to sink my teeth into the juicy globes.
I pressed the heel of my hand against my dick and prayed it would go down. Though spending the day with Indie, I didn’t see that happening. Not with the way she moved around the room setting up her station, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Most people would see Indigo and assume she didn’t have any secrets. I knew that wasn’t true. Women without secrets didn’t lie about their age. They didn’t have a fake ID to convince people they were someone they weren’t.
I saw the deception in her eyes. I saw the wariness hiding behind the bright smile and sarcastic remarks.
I saw her.
And now that I knew she wasn’t my sister, maybe she would see me. Once I apologized.
I swung my leg over my bike and walked to the door. Pulling the key Gunner tossed to me, I unlocked it and swung it open. Indie didn’t notice me at first. A classic rock station filled the room with music as she swung her hips to the beat and sang along.
She was comically off-key, but her sexy-as-fuck body made up for it. You almost didn’t hear the sound coming from her lips when your eyes concentrated on the way she moved.
She turned mid-note and froze, dropping the bottle of ink in her hand, letting it smash on the floor.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Bruce called out. Gunner sent me to watch over you.”
Her eyes widened a fraction before she narrowed a glare at me. “I don’t need watching over. You can leave.”
Her arms crossed over her chest, and she didn’t move to clean up the ink she’d spilled or the broken bottle on the floor.
I slipped past her and went to the closet. When I returned with supplies, I bent down to clean up the mess. “I don’t take orders from you,” I growled, angry that she didn’t want me here.
I couldn’t blame her. Our last interaction hadn’t been even close to civil. But I took orders from the club. She could take it up with Gunner.
“I don’t need you here.”
“You don’t get a choice.”
If I were smart, I would have apologized the moment I walked in. But well, when you grew up locked in a cell by assholes, you learned everything but manners when it came to others.
Sure, my mother had taught us the basics, but that was a long fucking time ago and frankly, I was hoping an angry, pissed-off Indie would deflate my painfully hard dick.
So far, it wasn’t fucking working.