Honor Claimed by Spook

PROLOGUE

SPOOK

The incessant ringing of a phone jerks me from a deep sleep.

I’m so fucking exhausted. The op last night was a clusterfuck of epic proportions, and more than once I wondered if I was going to make it out alive.

As it is, I’m babying a knife wound I had to stitch on the fly.

If that’s not enough, I’ve also been shot!

To be honest, I’m more worried about the knife wound than the scratch from the bullet.

It took everything I had to debrief my handler, and then I found the nearest hotel and fell into bed. I expected to sleep for at least the next three days before getting on my bike and heading home for a bit of R maybe if I’d had the type of upbringing he’d had, I’d have been content with that, but I didn’t.

I had this constant drive to prove myself.

I loved the club, the brothers, and the feeling of camaraderie, but I needed more.

While I never expected to be recruited by the CIA, I figure I’ll stay with them until I’m too old to handle the kind of operations they give me.

Slipping in and out of places and gathering intel comes surprisingly easy to me.

Living on the edge feeds the need for excitement that makes me feel alive.

I know this isn’t something I can do forever, and I do have a plan to get out. I also know Maverick is waiting for me to come home and take my place.

I’d done my prospecting in the MC, same as all the other brothers, I just did not do it the same way that other prospects did. Mine had taken forever as I’d had to do most of it while on leave from the military. I’d been a fully patched brother when the CIA had found me.

I know that the second I’m home, Maverick will want to start talking about how I’ll be taking up the mantle of Vice President of the North Dakota chapter of Saint’s Outlaws. It had been mine and Maverick’s plan from the start.

It wasn’t time yet, though… but soon.

***

The phone stops ringing, and I slide back into blissful sleep, only for it to start up again.

“For fuck’s sake,” I growl, sitting up. I switch on the bedside light and look at my work phone, but it’s dark. That’s when I realize it’s my other phone—the one used exclusively for club business. When it stops, then starts ringing again, I hurry to grab it.

Maverick is the only one with that number, and he wouldn’t call me unless it was urgent.

Plucking the phone from my bag, I answer, “Mav, what’s wrong?”

My ears are blasted by screaming, and it takes me a second to realise it’s a baby—or several. That’s how loud it is.

“The fuck, Mav?”

“Give me a minute,” Mav replies. The background noise gets fainter until it cuts off completely with the sound of a door shutting.

“Luca, you need to come home.”

When Mav uses my legal name, I know it’s serious.

My best friend, Travis ‘Maverick’ Wright, is usually a happy-go-lucky, laid-back kind of guy. Unless provoked, then a whole different person emerges.

This is not a happy Maverick on the phone with me.

“What’s going on, Mav?”

He hesitates, then asks, “Do you know Lola Chaney?”

I’m surprised he knows the name. She’s another agent, and we’d spent some time together over the years.

It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, with neither of us interested in more.

Lola was all about her career and climbing the ladder to the top.

I haven’t seen her in a while, though that isn’t unusual. That’s just how our lives work.

“Spook?” Mav presses.

“Yeah, Mav, I do. Why?”

“You need to come home man.”

“Okay, but why?”

He hesitates, then drops a bomb on me. Not one I expect, but it is one that changes my entire life.

“She dropped your twin sons at the clubhouse yesterday evening, with all the paperwork dotted and signed.” He pauses, exhaling softly before continuing. “She gave you full custody.”

My stomach twists, and black spots float across my vision. I sink heavily down onto the side of the bed, my legs seemingly incapable of holding me up.

“The fuck?” I whisper hoarsely.

Maverick chuckles, but there’s no humour in it. “Yeah, brother, that was my reaction. She’s a cold fish, that one. Surprised she didn’t freeze your cock off. I’ll hold the fort, but you need to get your ass home now.”

“Fuck,” I whisper again, running a hand through my hair in agitation, unable to comprehend what I’m hearing. “Twins?”

Mav chuckles softly. “Yeah, brother. Twins. No more than six weeks old, I’d say. I haven’t read the letter she left for you. I just checked that the paperwork was all good and had the lawyers look it over. There are also DNA test results. I’m assuming she has access to files.”

“Yeah, she does,” I mumble. “Okay. Give me a few days. I’ll let you know the earliest I can get home.”

Not that Lola was stupid. She’d know that DNA would be my first check. Lola was many things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. I knew she wouldn’t have dropped the boys on my doorstep if they weren’t mine.

“Okay, brother. Keep me updated.”

“Will do,” I reply. Then, as I am about to click off the call, Mav throws one last punch.

“Hey,” Maverick calls out. “By the way, she named them Mason and Reed.”

“Fucking hell, man.” My brain is going a million miles an hour as I think of everything I’ve got to do. “Let me get in touch with my superiors. I’ll try to get home as soon as I can.”

“Okay, brother.”

We end the call, and I’m still in shock as I find Lola’s number—or the last one I had for her—and call, only to find it’s been disconnected. I’m not surprised. She’s trained to go off-grid, if needed.

I guess I should be thankful she had kept my kids instead of getting rid of them. “Well, fuck, Mason and Reed huh? Okay. Well, at least they aren’t shit names. I can live with that.”

“Jesus,” I groan, pressing my fingers into my temples as I try to make sense of the last few minutes. With a sigh, I grab my other phone and I call my superior. “What do I even say? Will he believe me?”

As expected, they feed me a load of bullshit.

It takes me a couple of months to eventually get myself untangled.

Bullshit in general is predictable for any letter agency, but the kind of bullshit that I get is a very special kind.

It’s the kind that fucks with my ability to get home to two kids, dropped on my doorstep, who now depend on me.

Ultimately, they let me go with, quote, certain stipulations.

Stipulations I guess I can live with, if it means getting home to my sons…

man, that word sounds strange. Sons, I have sons. Two of them.

***

My brothers stepped up big time for me by caring for the boys for the few months that it took me to extradite myself from the CIA.

While Maverick took over the bulk of their care all the brothers chipped in to help with them.

They kept me informed of any milestones via pictures, videos, and calls.

It is what kept me going until I could get there with them.

When I finally make it home, the first thing I do is go in search of my sons.

I didn’t unpack or even order the prospects to wash my ride as I usually would the moment I got home.

My entire focus was on getting eyes on my boys as soon as I could.

My boys. Fuck, that still sounds so strange, but it strikes me that I am beginning to like the way that sounds.

I’d never thought about having children, but the moment I lay eyes on my boys, overwhelming love fills me. My chest tightens; like something has finally locked into place. I’ll never regret changing my entire life for them. They fill a space in me I never knew was empty.

Even with the sleepless nights and the worry when they’re sick; they are, hands down, the best thing that has ever happened to me.

***

Mason and Reed have just turned two, and Maverick has been pushing me to hire a nanny ever since they became more mobile.

It was becoming almost impossible to get any work done with them around.

I was constantly worried they'd hurt themselves if I took my eyes off them for even a second.

Whether they were with me or someone else, they deserved undivided attention.

When the boys were in someone's care, they had to be the only focus.

Besides, it’s not like I could really do my job with two toddlers following me around.

It’s also not fair to keep relying on brothers who have days off to watch them when I have club business to handle.

They never complain though. If the brothers or Maverick are busy then the prospects look after them for me.

It was so much easier when they were babies and not moving, but now they were walking and getting into everything, and I do mean e-v-e-r-y-thing.

I would have to make a plan to hire a nanny, as much as I don’t believe we will even find one.

I’ve even interviewed a few, but none of them are the right fit. Not only does a nanny have to be good with my boys, I also have to take the club into consideration. We can’t have just anyone around us.

Especially not someone more interested in fucking a brother than looking after my sons.

But to appease Maverick I tell him that I’ll keep looking and hope the right one turns up soon.