Wanted by the Wild Card

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

WOLF

Control is a luxury when your livelihood is built on muscle, precision, and a multi-million-dollar front for a motorcycle club. And tonight, I’m entirely out of stock.

I stand in the center of the vast, echoing warehouse, the harsh overhead fluorescent lights casting long, jagged shadows across rows of floor-to-ceiling shipping crates.

The air smells of diesel fuel, metal, and cold coastal rain, a scent that usually grounds me.

Tonight, it does nothing to settle the low, dangerous hum buzzing beneath my skin.

I’ve spent the entire day drowning in spreadsheets, manifests, and logistics schedules, capped off by a heavy, closed-door meeting with Stryker.

The President of the Rebel Kings MC is losing his patience, and I can't blame him. The club is clean. King’s Logistics is our golden goose, the completely legitimate front that pays our taxes, employs the locals, and keeps the feds at arm's length.

But someone is playing dirty in our backyard.

The recent string of hijacked shipping lines and deliberate town vandalism has escalated from a minor nuisance to an existential threat.

We’ve managed to isolate a single, agonizingly vague breadcrumb: an unregistered, custom logo stamped directly onto double-walled shipping crates—crates that I know, with absolute certainty, originated right here inside this warehouse.

Someone is using our distribution network to move dangerous cargo under our noses. And as Vice President, every failure in these walls rests squarely on my shoulders.

I pace the concrete floor, my heavy boots echoing against the high steel girders.

At forty years old, I'm built like a fucking warhorse: hard-bodied, stubborn, and focused on the attack.

I narrow my eyes into slits as I scan the dark aisles from my office, running a hand through my perpetually windblown brown hair.

The day shift is over, leaving the wide expanse mostly empty.

Still, the threat lingers. In the silence. In the darkness.

A sudden, sharp metallic click shatters my inner monologue.

I snap back into the present, my hand reflexively dropping toward the waistband of my jeans before I catch myself. The heavy oak door to my private office, positioned on the elevated mezzanine overlooking the warehouse floor, swings open.

It’s eight o'clock on a Tuesday night. The day shift left hours ago.

I pivot on my heel, a harsh reprimand already forming on my tongue… and then my throat locks up. Air leaves my lungs in a sharp, ragged gasp.

Standing in the doorway is a young woman with warm brown eyes and a smile far too innocent for a place like this.

She looks like she’s stepped straight out of a fever dream and onto my oil-stained warehouse floor.

The woman is all soft curves and sunshine, with a figure that squeezes my heart into a vice.

Even though she’s only wearing a simple knit sweater, it stretches across her chest and clings to her generous hips.

A thick halo of rich, vibrant red hair frames a delicate face dotted with freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Her wide, brown eyes are luminous under the flickering fluorescent bulbs, fixed on me with a hopeful, tentative smile.

I can't breathe. My heart hammers against my ribs like a caged beast. An angel, my brain supplies before I can violently slap the thought down. And she’s way too damn young.

She looks twenty-two, maybe twenty-three at most. Innocent.

Untouched by the gritty, dangerous world I live and breathe in.

Every cynical, hardened instinct I possess goes into complete structural failure.

My gaze drags down the soft line of her throat, over the lush curve of her chest, down to her hips, and back up to those wide, trusting eyes.

A wave of possessive, territorial heat slams into my gut so hard it makes my head swim. It’s irrational. Sudden. Terrifying. And it goes against everything I’ve internalized about relationships in my forty years.

Family is a joke to me. My old man drowned his life in cheap whiskey and an endless rotation of volatile, mean-spirited girlfriends in a rotting trailer, leaving me to learn early that relationships leave you worse than they found you.

Locking your heart behind an iron vault is the only way to survive.

The club is my only exception. But this woman…

I’m so wildly out of whack that my defensive walls slam up with the force of a sledgehammer. I cross my massive arms and steel over my features, growling in a low voice, "Who the hell are you?"

The sweet smile on her face falters instantly. She curls in on herself slightly, taking a tiny, reflexive step backward.

A sharp spike of self-loathing slices through my chest. I hate myself the second the words leave my mouth. But before I can soften my posture, she catches her balance, pulls her shoulders back, and squares up.

"I'm Hadley," she says, her voice smooth, clear, and surprisingly grounded. "I'm the new employee."

I stare at her. My razor-sharp mind, usually capable of tracking forty freight routes simultaneously, grinds to a screeching halt.

New employee?

Hadley waves a small, delicate hand at me, stepping farther into my office. "Um... are you okay?"

I realize, with a sudden flash of heat crawling up my neck, that I’m standing there slack-jawed, staring at her like an idiot.

I’d forgotten about the night-shift data entry hire.

That isn't like me. I might be unpredictable and snarky at times, but I've always had a meticulous handle on the details and day-to-day workings of King’s Logistics. The club routinely posts night-shift data entry positions to help out college kids needing extra cash or local folks going through a rough patch. It’s a simple, mindless job of logging manifests and tracking inventory codes.

High turnover, zero risk. It’s a community lifeline.

But this woman?

My eyes lock onto her curves again. This gorgeous, soft, unattainable, and now totally off-limits woman, is my new night-shift clerk?

"You've got the wrong address," I grunt, barking the words out to hide the sudden tremor in my breath.

Hadley doesn't flinch this time. Instead, she reaches into her small shoulder bag, pulls out a folded slip of paper, and reads off the exact street address, the company name, King’s Logistics & Hauling, and the job title: Night-Shift Data Entry Specialist.

"This is no place for you to work," I say flatly, my green eyes narrowing. The warehouse is dark at night. It’s isolated. It’s no place for a soft, innocent girl to be sitting around until the sun comes up. She should be sleeping on a bed of clouds and rainbows or some shit.

Hadley’s smile remains firmly in place, but there’s an edge to it now. A challenge in those brown eyes of hers.

"Excuse me?" she asks politely, her tone dripping with sweet, deliberate cheer.

"I didn't realize there were physical restrictions on typing numbers into a computer screen.

Unless there's a heavy-lifting requirement for data entry I missed on the application?

Or are all the workplace regulations around here pulled directly from the 1950s? "

I blink. It takes my brain three whole seconds to realize I’ve just been dressed down and thoroughly reprimanded by a five-foot-four redhead in a pink sweater.

A slow, helpless grin tugs at the corner of my mouth before I can stop it.

So the little angel has some fire in her veins.

The thought sends a dark, dangerous thrill straight down my spine.

But beneath the amusement, my protective instincts are screaming.

The warehouse only keeps three or four guys on the graveyard shift for loading docks, and they're buried in the back bays.

A few other data specialists come and go during the night, working around whatever schedule they have, but Hadley would be the only one here all night.

The idea of her sitting up here alone in the quiet dark makes my blood run cold.

I can't fire her, not when she has the right paperwork, and certainly not after she’s just challenged me so brilliantly. But I don't know what to do about it yet.

"You'll be working in my office," I announce, my voice dropping an octave, authoritative and absolute. "And I'll be working right alongside you for the first few days." Why did I say that? Shouldn’t I want more distance between us, not less?

An awkward, heavy silence stretches between us. Hadley’s brown eyes widen slightly at the decree, her lips parting, but she doesn't object.

I need to do something. I need to give my hands a job, give my brain a task, anything to stop the relentless, pounding rhythm in my chest that roars mine, mine, mine every time I look at her.

"Time to get to work," I mutter, sweeping my hand over my office space.

I usher her inside the relatively small room, though it feels bigger thanks to the windows. The smell of my leather jacket and stale coffee dominates the room, but the moment Hadley steps past me, her subtle vanilla and rain scent takes over.

Clearing off my heavy wooden desk with a single, rough sweep of my arm, I knock a stack of old folders out of the way. "Sit."

Hadley carefully sits down in my leather executive chair.

She looks tiny in it, her curvy figure swallowed by the high back.

I step up behind her, hovering far closer than professional courtesy dictates.

My broad chest is inches from her shoulder as I lean over, reaching past her to hit the power button on the monitor.

The heat radiating off her body is unbearable. My jaw clenches so hard my teeth hurt. I keep my voice gruff as I point at the screen, walking her through the internal database, the logistics software, and the physical manifest logbooks stacked beside the keyboard.

"Login is here," I say, my voice husky, my eyes fixated on the delicate curve of her neck where a few stray red curls have escaped her ponytail. "You cross-reference the digital freight numbers with the physical bills of lading. Batch one is on the left. Any errors, you flag 'em."

"Got it," Hadley whispers. She looks over her shoulder at me, her dark eyes sparkling, her breath hitching as she registers just how close I'm hovering over her. Her breath tickles my lips, causing all the blood in my body to a particular appendage.

"Good," I rasp. I force myself to pull back, taking a large, deliberate step away from her desk. "I've gotta check... a thing. Work on the first batch."

Before she can answer, I turn and practically sprint out of my office, pulling the door shut behind me. Marching down the mezzanine stairs, I barge straight into the single-occupancy employee restroom at the end of the hall. I slam the door, lock it, and lean heavily over the porcelain sink.

Gasping for air, I slap the faucet handles open and scoop a handful of ice-cold water onto my face. I wash my neck, slick my hair back, and grip the edges of the sink until my knuckles turn ghostly white.

I look up into the spotty, cracked mirror. My dark green eyes are wide, blown-out, and manic. Water drips from my jawline onto my dark shirt.

"Get it together, man," I growl at my reflection, my voice a harsh whisper in the tiled room. "You're tired. You're stressed about the club. You've been working twenty-hour days."

I close my eyes, shaking my head viciously as her sweet face, her soft body, and that defiant spark in her brown eyes flash behind my eyelids.

"She's an employee," I sternly warn myself, pointing a wet finger at the glass. "She's an innocent kid. You don't do relationships. You don't do soft. You do your job, protect the club, and stay the hell away from her."

I dry my face with a paper towel, but as I stare back at my own reflection, a cold, terrifying truth settles deep in my chest. I'm lecturing myself, but it's already too late. I'm falling hard, fast, and at lightspeed for the red-headed angel sitting in my chair.