Shielded By Maverick (Steel Rebels MC #12)

Chapter One

Viv

The knock comes at midnight. Quick raps on the door that send me scrambling off the bed and rolling underneath on the dirty motel floor.

My heart races as I peer out, waiting for the door to burst open and for Rick to storm in. Any moment now. Knowing my mother’s boyfriend, he’ll probably start kicking at the door and yelling until I either let him in or risk disturbing everyone in the motel.

How did he find me?

Oh my God, did he follow me to the motel?

Or did the lady at the front desk sell me out?

I gave her the last of my cash, telling her to call the room if anyone other than my brother came looking for me.

And when I called Knox this afternoon, sobbing and asking him to come get me, he was certain he wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow morning.

He asked me to wait for him, and I agreed to be patient.

I’ve waited for ten years. What’s one more night?

A whimper slips out of me when the knock comes again, my heart pounding in my ears. I know I should get up and look around for something to use as a weapon for when Rick does storm in, but…I can’t make my body move. I can’t think beyond the fear choking me, and the truth is, I’m tired.

Tired of fighting and hiding.

Isn’t it enough that I’ve spent my entire childhood and teenage years trying to take up as little space as possible, staying as quiet as a mouse and doing everything that was asked of me?

I got a part-time job as a waitress when I was fourteen, so I wouldn’t have to stress my mother with the task of taking care of me.

I was good. No, I was perfect. As perfect as a child can be to the people who raised her.

And now, stuck in a dingy motel with only a backpack full of whatever I could grab as I fled my mother’s house…I’m back to being that terrified child who hid under beds to escape reality.

I drop my forehead to the cold floor to tune out the sound, the way I used to do as a kid. Whenever my mother would fight with whatever boyfriend she was with at the time, my big brother would place his palms over my ears to shut out all the noise.

“Close your eyes and count to a hundred, Vivi,” Knox would tell me. “When you’re done, it will be over.”

It was never over. I could still hear the shouting and the cursing from the next room, but having my big brother around always offered me a sense of peace. Now, I only have the memory of his words to comfort me.

I haven’t seen Knox in over a decade.

Ten years ago, my mother grabbed me and fled Chicago in an attempt to hide from some bad people she owed money to. She left Knox to deal with the wolves alone, and in doing so, robbed me of the one person who ever truly cared for me.

It wasn’t until years later that I got to hear my brother’s voice again on the phone.

Under strict supervision. Before I got my own phone, Mother was always present for our calls, making sure I never went off script or revealed what city we were in.

Knox wanted custody of me, but our mother wouldn’t hear of it.

I learned to accept it. To adapt. Hearing his voice and knowing he hadn’t paid for mother’s sins with his life was enough.

Knox promised to get me away from her as soon as I turned eighteen, and I had a plan in place to travel to him myself after my birthday.

Except, the moment I announced that I was leaving, my mother caused a scene and Rick stole all the money I’d saved up, saying I owed them rent for all the years I’d leeched off them.

It didn’t seem to matter that Knox had been sending money for years to support me. No, they just took it all.

Years of savings…gone in a flash.

And now, with Rick on the other side of the door, escape feels like a far-fetched dream.

Close your eyes, Vivi. Count to a hundred.

“One, two, three—”

“Hello?” Knock. “Is anyone in there?”

“Seven, eight, nine—”

A knock. “Vivienne?”

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen—”

“Vivi?”

I stop, my head whipping up so fast I knock it against the metal bedframe. “Ow,” I whimper, rubbing the spot. No one calls me Vivi but Knox. I don’t even think Rick knows my actual name. To him, I’m just “brat” or worse.

“Vivi?” The voice is gentler now, but it sounds nothing like my brother’s. Still, it soothes something in me, and before I know it, I’m pushing out from under the bed and tiptoeing to the door. The first thing I see through the peephole is a black jacket and not much of the man wearing it.

“Knox?” I whisper, my voice small even to my own ears. I’m afraid to hope. To open this door and be greeted by Rick or one of his drinking buddies. I would never survive the night alone in a motel with them. I just know it.

Leaving was bad enough, but I stole something from Rick’s bedroom on my way out—a locked box that he keeps on his nightstand—and I shudder to think of how he’d punish me if he catches up to me.

“Vivienne?”

The voice is wrong. “You aren’t Knox.”

“No, I’m not. I’m your brother’s friend, Kyle,” the voice on the other side of the door says. “He sent me to come get you.”

This could be a trick. “Knox didn’t say anything about sending anyone.”

“It was a last-minute decision,” he says. “He got into an accident this afternoon and didn’t think he’d make it in time.”

My heart leaps at that. “W-what happened? Is my brother okay? How badly is he hurt?”

The voice turns reassuring. “He fell off his bike and ended up with a few bruised ribs, a broken ankle, and a banged-up knee, but no major injuries. He can’t exactly drive a car at the moment, but he’ll be alright.”

“Are you sure?”

“It feels weird talking to you from the other side of the door,” Kyle says with a slight sigh. “Can you open the door for me, Vivi? And then I’ll tell you all about it.”

I start to open the door but hesitate. “How do I know you weren’t sent here by Rick?”

He scoffs. “Your mom’s boyfriend? Fuck that guy. Knox made it sound like he’s a real piece of work.”

Well, that’s one way to describe the man I’ve spent five years of my life trying to hide from. “Did Knox really send you?”

“Told me to protect you with my life,” he says, his voice easing the tension in my body, but not completely. “I know you don’t have an ID and can’t fly to Chicago, so we’ll have to go by road. I’ve already rented the car and we can leave right away…” He stops, adds, “If that’s what you want.”

I bite my lip. I’m so close to getting my freedom. Do I really want to risk it by trusting a strange man just because his voice is warm and soothing?

“Call him,” I whisper, fingering the holes in my sweater.

Silence. “What?”

“If my brother really sent you, I want you to prove it.”

“Okay, no problem,” Kyle says agreeably. “He wanted me to let him know the minute I found you anyway.”

A tinge of guilt over inconveniencing my brother sets in, but the other option is blindly trusting a stranger and letting him into my motel room.

There’s some shuffling and I hear the ringing of the phone. I don’t realize he’s put the phone on speaker until my brother’s voice breaks through.

“Kyle,” he says in a deep, mature voice that’s a far cry from the young man he was when we were separated. “Did you find her?”

“Sure did, but she won’t let me into her room until I can prove you sent me. You’re on speaker.”

“Smart girl,” Knox says from the other end, pride heavy in his voice. “Vivi, you can trust Kyle. He’ll keep you safe. Kyle, call me when you get my sister the hell out of that city. Someone should have met you at the airport with a little gift. Did you get it?”

“Yeah, I got your present.”

“Get to Vegas. Pope has a care package ready. You know what to do if anyone tries to stop you.”

The call ends and there’s a bit more shuffling as Kyle puts the phone away. “Now will you open the door for me?” he says hopefully.

I nod before realizing that he can’t see me from the other side, so I offer a quiet, “Okay.” I unlock the door, slowly pulling it open.

I see the boots first.

They’re worn, black leather boots, scuffed at the toes and laced up tight.

My gaze travels upward, taking in his dark jeans and a zipped black jacket.

I can’t help but notice the way his shoulders fill up the leather, the way his arms flex as he shifts, or the ink peeking out from the edge of his collar, a dark swirl against the pale skin of his neck.

And then I look up.

Christ, he’s handsome.

He’s also much younger than I thought he would be. Somewhere around twenty-five by my estimate. I’ve always been good at the age thing, but then again, I could be wrong. There’s a certain hardness, an intensity in those deep emerald-green eyes that speaks volumes of a kind of maturity and…danger.

Of experience.

I swallow hard when they land on me, gasping at the sudden shift in the air between us. Kyle. What a simple name for a man with such depth in his gaze.

The rest of him is just as surprising.

The next thing I notice about him is the color of his hair. It’s like a flickering flame of vibrant red, so stark against his skin, which is pale, almost translucent, like he doesn’t spend much time in the sun.

The freckles under his eyes should soften his look, but there is nothing soft about this man.

Not even the red hair, pale skin, or freckles.

Those hard green eyes cancel out everything else.

They terrify me as much as they excite me, and I suddenly have the urge to straighten my hair and check my face for any tear lines.

Darn it. He’s handsome. So handsome, in fact, that I find myself blushing from all the attention he’s giving me. Thank heavens for the shadows and the dingy motel lighting or I would have a hell of a time explaining my reaction to his appearance.

“Vivienne?” he says in a warm voice with hints of gravel. “Are you okay?”

No.

I’m the furthest thing from okay a girl can get.

I just escaped a home I’ve shared with my mother and her perverted boyfriend for five years, set up camp in some dingy motel with suspicious stains on the walls, and now I’m tempted with this taste of freedom.

It’s so close I can almost taste it, and yet I’m afraid to hope.

“I’m fine,” I say instead, moving aside to let the man in before shutting the door behind him. “And you can call me Viv. Can we really leave now?”

“Yes. Your brother is very worried about you,” he says, his back turned to me as he walks around the small room, though there’s not much to see. “He would have come for you himself if he hadn’t gotten into the accident.”

“What does he look like?”

Kyle turns around to look at me, surprise clearly written on his expression. “You don’t know what Knox looks like?”

I look away.

Right, because what kind of sister doesn’t know what their brother looks like? But the last time I saw Knox, he was twenty-four and I was only eight. “I don’t remember,” I say, running a hand through my hair.

“He looks like you,” Kyle offers. “Well, not exactly. He’s older, bigger, grouchier, male, but still…you. Same eyes and hair. Same face.”

“Really?”

“Well, the man’s not one for taking photos but I’m sure I can dig up something from my gallery,” he says. He’s unzipping his jacket to grab his phone when I see what he has tucked in his waistband.

“Y-you have a gun?” I whisper, eyes wide in alarm as I take a step back. “Why do you have a gun!”

“For protection.”

“Protection?”

“Just ignore it,” he says with a dismissive wave before scrolling through his phone.

“Ah, here it is.” I’m not sure if he’s just unbothered by the fear and shock written on my face, or if he’s trying to distract me from the gun.

“This is the picture we took at the last club cookout. See the guy hugging the chick with a bob?”

Slowly, I glance down at the phone he’s all but shoving into my face, and yes, I notice the guy he’s pointing at.

Along with the other twenty or so men flanking him.

All dressed in jackets and wearing scowls that scream of danger even from the picture alone.

I also notice the patches on their jackets.

I don’t remember much from my childhood outside the moments I spent with my brother—mostly of him trying to protect me from the fighting adults—but I remember the reason we skipped town.

The men my mother owed money ten years ago.

The men who instilled so much fear in her that she had to grab me and run.

“The Steel Rebels,” I say with a chuckle that wheezes out of me.

How could I forget the name when my mother is always screaming about how they ruined her life?

And now, my big brother is part of that group.

Has he always been? Did those monsters kidnap him or brainwash him into working for them?

They must have, otherwise Knox would never associate himself with them!

“Ah, he told you about us, didn’t he?”

“W-what?”

“Your brother,” he says, and I wait for the part where he tells me that my brother is with the group because he owes them a debt or something.

It makes no sense that Knox would be with those criminals, but Kyle’s next words shatter that fantasy.

“He’s the vice president of the club, so I bet you know plenty about us already. ”

“Vice president?” I mutter, paling. Christ, Knox isn’t just a part of a criminal organization, he freaking runs it!

I turn to Kyle and suddenly, the steeliness in those hard eyes makes horrible sense. No one gets involved with the Steel Rebels MC and stays unscathed. I should know. My whole life was uprooted because of them, and it seems my big brother is now one of the leaders of that horrible gang.

For the first time since reconnecting with my brother, I question whether I’m simply trading one hell for another.