Possessed By Diesel (Damned Saints MC #5)

Chapter 1

Grace

“Make it convincing,” Malice grunts, dragging a hand through his gray beard. “Those Damned Saints seem to like piggy girls, so you’re perfect for this job. We’re going to make them pay. They ruined a good deal of ours. Put holes in my men. Now we collect.”

The words land in my gut and stay there, heavy and sour.

Piggy girls.

My gaze drops automatically, like my eyes have their own instincts now. Down to my hips, my thighs, the curve of my stomach under my sweater. Curvy. Soft. Too much in all the places Malice likes to sneer at when he’s in the mood to remind me what I am to him.

A tool. A debt. A joke.

He says I’m perfect for this job. Like seduction is just another skill I should have by now. But why would he think I could seduce anyone? I’ve never even—

I shut the thought down before it finishes. It doesn’t matter.

Malice is my so-called father, president of the Wolves MC, based in Black Pines. His voice lingers like the taste of old whiskey, something that burns and never warms you.

He wants me to seduce a member of the Damned Saints Motorcycle Club and bring back whatever information he needs for revenge.

He says it like he’s ordering parts. Like it’s nothing.

For him, it is nothing. Just another task to throw at a daughter who isn’t his blood.

For me, it is a cage.

My stomach twists so hard I think I might actually be sick. I keep my eyes on the floorboards, hoping he’ll get bored of looking at me.

He doesn’t.

He likes this. He likes how my discomfort makes me squirm, how my skin goes hot, how my pulse tries to crawl out of my throat.

Beside him, my brother John, the one the Wolves call Meatgrinder, presses his fingers into my shoulder hard enough to bruise. A warning delivered with skin and bone.

I flinch but don’t pull away. If I pull away, he’ll call it defiance. If I give him defiance, he’ll give me pain.

John leans down until I can smell beer and something meaner on his breath. “Don’t screw this up,” he whispers. “You know what happens when you mess up.”

My mouth is too dry to answer. I nod because nodding doesn’t get me hit as fast.

But my mind flashes, sharp and involuntary, to white hospital sheets and the ache of cracked ribs every time I tried to breathe too deep.

To bruised kidneys that made even the bathroom feel like knives.

To Malice’s laugh, like he’d paid for front row seats.

To John doing the work while our so-called father watched like it was a show.

When I woke up, John had leaned over the bed with a grin that did not belong in a hospital.

“Be more grateful,” he’d said.

“For what?” My voice had come out like sandpaper.

John’s smile had widened. “For what you got.”

“You put me here.”

“The Wolves take care of their own,” he’d said, like it was a blessing.

I’d stared at him, nausea rolling through me. “I’m not your own.”

John had laughed softly. “Not really.”

Now I can taste bile in the back of my throat. I swallow hard.

I’m twenty-four, but in this moment I feel like a little girl again, trying to curl into the corners of my old bedroom to escape my father’s fury.

Except this isn’t my father. Not by blood anyway.

Malice made sure to remind me of that the day he discovered my mother’s affair, as if her sins were mine to repay.

“I’m not going to seduce some biker.” My voice isn’t as defiant as I want it to be. It comes out thin, stretched tight. “You can’t force me to do this.”

I swore I’d never have anything to do with a biker. Not after what I saw. Not after the Wolves taught me what men like them do when no one is watching, what they sell, what they break, what they keep locked up until it’s time to cash in.

Malice’s hand slams onto the table. The crack of it makes me jump so hard my nerves sting.

“I can force you to do anything I damn well please,” he says, voice low and dangerous.

“You owe me. This club has kept you alive and fed, and that comes with a price. So you will get your ass over to their territory. Cry if you have to. Bat your lashes. Whatever it takes. Get them to let their guard down so I can take what’s mine.

” His eyes cut over me, measuring. “You’re a little pig.

But you’re a smart girl. You’ll figure out a way. ”

He looks at me like I’m a piece of machinery he owns. Something that should work because he paid for it.

My skin burns. I want to scream. I want to grab something off the table and throw it. I want to tell him I would rather die than go anywhere near the Damned Saints.

But that would only amuse him. He and John would laugh, then remind me of my mother’s betrayal. They’d say I should be grateful they kept me at all.

So I swallow my rage. I push it down until it turns to sludge in my stomach.

John squeezes my shoulder again. His voice drops into something almost affectionate, and that somehow makes it worse. “Do it clean, little sis,” he murmurs into my ear. “Do it fast. Bring back something good, and maybe we’ll let you breathe.”

My heart stutters.

“You mean it?” The words slip out before I can stop them. Hope is stupid, but it still tries to live in me sometimes. “If I do this, you’ll… stop?”

Malice’s grin is cold. “You’ll always owe,” he says. “But maybe you can lessen the debt. Now go.”

I leave the room on shaky legs, careful not to look back. I don’t want him to see the panic in my eyes. I don’t want him to watch it like a reward.

Outside, cold air bites at my skin, sharp and clean compared to the stink of the clubhouse. I climb into my car and clutch the steering wheel until my knuckles bleach white.

This mission is the last thing I want. Everything inside me is screaming trap.

The Wolves don’t want information because they’re curious. They want a war. They want the Saints bleeding. They want me to be the spark.

They want to use me like bait.

I start the engine. My hands shake so badly I have to press them harder against the wheel to steady them, to make myself look like a normal girl driving down a mountain road. My heartbeat bangs in my ears. I repeat the plan over and over, like repetition can make terror manageable.

Break down near their clubhouse. Lie about an engine problem. Say I need help. Try not to vomit. Try not to let my voice crack when I speak. Try not to get lost in the smell of oil and leather that will cling to them like a second skin.

I whisper to myself, “Get through tonight, Grace.”

It doesn’t sound brave. It doesn’t sound like a vow.

It sounds like a plea.

I’m halfway down the mountain when my phone buzzes. The sudden sound makes me jerk and nearly drop it. A message from Malice flashes on the screen.

Do not come back until you have something.

My chest tightens until breathing feels like work.

Turning back isn’t an option. Running isn’t either. The Wolves own everything between here and Lovestone Ridge. They have people everywhere, favors everywhere, eyes in places they shouldn’t. If I run, they’ll find me. If I fail, they’ll punish me until I’m not useful anymore.

So I have to pretend to play along.

I have to outsmart them quietly.

What they don’t know is that I’ve been practicing quiet survival for years. It isn’t a sudden genius. It’s pattern and pain and repetition.

Every time John laughs at me, I watch him. I memorize his tells, the way his smile changes right before he turns cruel.

Every time Malice orders me to clean blood out of the back room, I note what night it happens, what vehicles come and go, which men are jittery, which ones act like they’re already spending money they haven’t earned yet.

I track their habits the way you track weather, because weather can kill you too.

I hold onto information like a life raft. I survive by watching, by drawing, by keeping little pieces of truth hidden away in my sketchbook. It’s my refuge. When panic rises, I draw until my hands stop shaking. When I’m forced to smile, I draw later to remember what was real.

My pencils and charcoal know things my voice can never say.

My sketchbook sits on the passenger seat now, tucked under my jacket like a secret heartbeat. I’ll need it later to steady my hands. For now, I keep driving.

The road curves around pines and rocky outcroppings. The sun sinks behind the ridgeline. Shadows deepen, stretching across the asphalt like long fingers.

When I see the sign for Lovestone Ridge, my throat tightens.

The Damned Saints clubhouse is nearby.

My pulse quickens as I pull over onto the shoulder. The forest is dense here, a canopy of dark needles and quiet. I park beneath the trees and kill the engine. In the silence, I can hear my breathing. I can hear leaves shifting in the wind like whispers.

I know engines. Malice made sure I learned so I could work at the Wolves’ shop, so I’d be useful, earn my keep. I pop the hood and remove a small connector from the engine, a piece pocketable enough to disappear in my fist. Without it, the car won’t start. A believable break. Simple. Quick.

I wipe my hands on a rag. It just smears the grease around. I drag my palms down my jeans, staining the denim and leaving grit under my nails. In the car window, my face looks pale, eyes too bright.

I rehearse my lines under my breath. “Hi. Sorry to bother you. My car died. Can someone help me?”

My voice sounds wrong. Too sweet. Too practiced.

I swallow and try again. “Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.”

My stomach flips.

I should leave. I should get out and walk until my legs give out.

But the plan is to let them see me stranded. Wolves will be watching. If I deviate, John will know. John always knows.

I take a deep breath and straighten beside the hood, letting the cooling night hit my skin. The sky is a dark blue canvas speckled with stars. The forest smells like pine and damp earth. My boots crunch on gravel.

In the distance, I hear the low thrum of an engine.

It sends a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with the cold.

Bikers. Loud. Unapologetic. Free.