Mischief Mayhem (Steel Roses MC #4)

1. Verona

1

VERONA

“D o you believe in soulmates?” my friend and fellow MC princess, Ru, asked as she leaned over the pool table so she could sink her four ball into the corner pocket.

“I suppose.” I cleared my throat and winced as the familiar ache shot down the center of my chest. Instinct had me clutching the glass jar necklace that hung under my shirt, the one I wore at all times, the one that reminded me I was still alive. “Like twin flames? That kind of thing?”

“Sure.” Ru took a sip of her beer and nodded, her curly brown hair bouncing around her face as she moved. When she failed to put her next ball into a pocket, I took my turn, easily sinking my nine in the center.

“Maybe.” Taking a drink of my own beer, I ignored the throbbing scar that ran in between my breasts. “What about you?”

“I used to think it was bullshit.” She grinned, her icy-blue eyes sparkling under the shitty fluorescent lighting in the club as they sought out her fiancé, Saint, across the room. The dark-haired brother sat with some of the other motorcycle club members, drinking and laughing as my cousin, KC, talked. “But after everything that’s happened, I can’t deny it.”

“Please.” I rolled my eyes and sank another ball in the far left. “You’re twenty-three, same as me. Don’t you think you’re a little young to be talking soulmates and happily ever afters?”

She laughed, her cheeks flushing despite how open we were with each other. Once upon a time, Ru and I had been best friends. I was the president’s daughter, the proverbial princess of the Steel Roses Motorcycle Club, and she’d been born to the VP two months after me. We were raised in this chaos together, and even if we lost touch after high school, I’d never discounted her friendship.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she said, nodding toward the rest of the brothers, “to have one of them devoted to you, those alpha assholes.”

“I grew up in a house with four of them. I think I have an idea.” Being the youngest with three older biker brothers, combined with having the president as my father, meant I’d had to be tough, much tougher than the rest of the princesses and hang-arounds. Bear was the eldest, Castor and Pollux were the twins in the middle, and I came last. Our mom died when I was nine, leaving me as the sole girl, someone to be protected, the apple of their fucking eye. It had been fifteen years and my father still hadn’t moved on. I’d never even seen him with a hang-around.

“What about fate?” Ru brought the topic back as she tried to make another pocket, missing it.

“Maybe. My mom was a witch. She used to believe in magic.” Memories of helping her with her spells and rituals flooded through my mind as I lined up to pocket another ball. It bounced off the edge and scattered the others around it. Of course, magic hadn’t saved her in the end; she’d still gotten blown up by the MC’s enemies, the Caputi Mafia.

“You believe in magic but not soulmates?” Ru raised an eyebrow and moved around the table, tilting her head to the side.

No, that wasn’t true. I did believe in magic, the kind that linked two people based on spilled blood and experience, the kind that gave me an undeniable link to my found family. But soulmates might be pushing it.

“I don’t know what I believe,” I said, because that seemed easier to explain. “But I do know that settling down and getting married at twenty-three is stupid.”

“Hey,” she grumbled with a laugh. “I’m not married.”

“Uh-huh.” I chuckled and swallowed the rest of my beer, deciding to change the subject. “How’s the construction going at the Beacon?”

Her features dropped, and she ran her palm over her flushed alabaster face. “We’re almost there, thank fucking God. Hopefully, by St. Patty’s Day we can be back in the space.”

This past Thanksgiving, a former hang-around turned traitor had bombed the BDSM club where Ru and I worked. Technically, the MC owned the place, but Ru had been given a partial stake and a loan to renovate it. On the night of our grand reopening, the whole place exploded, nearly killing my brother, Pollux, and putting dozens more in the hospital. He’d been in ICU for weeks afterward, and only just recently started talking again after being taken off the ventilator. After that, the Beacon had been confiscated by the Feds, and once they returned the property to us, Ru had filed the insurance claim to rebuild. She had the stamina of an Olympic athlete. I would have thrown in the towel and sold the place by now.

“But with the insurance payout, I can finally get those marble countertops I wanted for the bathrooms, so . . . silver lining, I guess?” She smiled and set down her stick when Saint approached, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind before whispering in her ear. The public display of affection would have grossed me out if it wasn’t such an everyday occurrence around the clubhouse.

She, of course, had been right. These alpha assholes loved their women, and the more they loved them, the more obsessive they were about them. Ru turned in Saint’s embrace to wrap her arms around his neck while he grabbed her ass and nodded toward the exit with a devilish grin.

“See ya, V!” Ru waved before giggling and stumbling out into the frigid February air.

With Valentine’s Day tomorrow, the normally grungy clubhouse looked like love had vomited everywhere. My cousin, Selene, grinned at her husband, Thor, by the bar while Ru’s sister, Alba, walked over to sit on KC’s lap, leaning in so she could kiss his cheek. Some of the other old ladies mingled around, laughing with the old-timers, the ones that had been in the club since I was a child. Red hearts hung from the rafters and streamers weaved from corner to corner. It was tacky as hell, but at least no one was getting shot or murdered. So there was that.

I stood by the pool table, knowing I’d be alone for the first Valentine’s Day in years. I was proud of that fact and celebrated my single status. I’d gotten away from an abusive ex-client, I was back with my family, and ... My gaze caught on a dark stare across the clubhouse.

Hollywood— my eldest brother’s best friend and the club’s resident manwhore. He’d gotten his road name because of how beautiful he was. At six foot five, corded with muscle and tanned skin, Hollywood had the traditional square jaw and chiseled features that made both women and men swoon. I, on the other hand, lived to push men like him to their knees and hear them beg.

As soon as I made eye contact with him, he darted his gaze away, going back to his conversation with Bear and another brother, Wheels. Had he been staring at me?

I snorted and took a drink of my beer, grateful Hollywood had never been interested in me, not like that. Pick any number of the female notches on his bedpost, put them in a lineup, and they’d all fit a profile: paper thin, traditionally gorgeous, hopelessly devoted to inflating his ego. None of that was me. Sure, I was tall with legs for days, but my thighs had been built for crushing men’s souls, not appeasing their fantasies. I preferred my tattoos and raven hair with matching makeup. I liked people to know who I was as soon as they saw me, lest they form any incorrect opinions.

Besides, it wasn’t like Hollywood was my type, either. He was probably a dominant biker badass in bed—holding his women down, growling dirty words in their ears, choking them until they begged for air. While I loved a good rough fuck, I preferred to be the one doing the growling and choking.

Despite his namesake and the rumors floating around about his sexual prowess, I wasn’t susceptible to his charms. Sure, his dimples complemented his perfect teeth, and the fact his biceps were bigger than my thighs meant he could probably bench press me, but that changed nothing about how I treated him.

He was my brother’s idiot best friend, and except for one time . . . a long time ago ... nothing had ever happened between us. He didn’t even know that was me, and I planned to keep it that way.

“Hey, let me know when you’re ready to roll,” Wheels said, smiling as he passed me to head outside. Right after I’d gotten back from college, Hollywood had been assigned to be my bodyguard, but shortly after the bombing at the Beacon, Wheels had taken over. I never asked why, but I didn’t mind. The younger brother had an easygoing personality and mostly kept to himself. I appreciated that because while things were still being renovated during my day job, I relied a lot on my income from Alba’s camming website, Crimson — sort of like an OnlyFans—that she owned.

I nodded and glanced over to Hollywood again, watching as a hang-around approached him and put her arms around his neck. He shook his head and smiled, whispering something to her that made her pout and back away from him.

“Are you sure?” she whimpered.

He chuckled and tapped the end of her nose. “Don’t be like that, beautiful. It’s only a few more weeks.”

“But I want you now,” she whined.

He ran the back of his knuckle down the side of her cheek, clearly uncomfortable but doing his best to appease her. “You’ll survive.”

Christ, take no for an answer, lady.

I furrowed my brows and finished my beer while she crossed her arms, giving him puppy dog eyes. “You’re no fun now that you’ve taken a vow of chastity?—”

Surprise choked me as bubbles flew up the back of my windpipe and into my nose. My eyes burned, and I coughed, tapping myself on my chest to clear my throat. But that aggravated my scar, and I gasped, struggling to breathe.

Focus. Slow down. Inhale.

I’d noticed he hadn’t been sleeping around as much as he used to, but to cut sex out completely? Holy shit, that’s dramatic .

“You okay?” Bear asked, suddenly at my side with his hand on my shoulder.

I nodded and wheezed a quiet, “Yes,” before hacking again.

“You sure?” My brother’s dark brown eyes radiated concern, his curly hair falling in his face as he assessed me.

Nodding again, I grabbed the glass of water out of his hand and took a few swigs to settle my esophagus before handing it back to him. “Yeah, just ... it went down the wrong pipe.”

“Listen, I already have one sibling in the hospital; I don’t need a second one.” He smiled, and the movement lit up his entire face, making him look so much like our mother that my heart clenched.

My scar burned again, scalding up the center of my chest with the same agony it had the night I’d been shot. I’d been in the backseat of Saint’s truck when my family’s enemies attacked, and a bullet had gone through Hollywood’s torso into my sternum, where it lodged in my bone until I had surgery to remove most of it. I’d never get rid of it all. Fragments of that bullet, of that night, would be permanently embedded inside my skeleton until I croaked.

“Did you hear they’re discharging him soon?” I grinned. “I’ve got the space at my house to take him if you and Castor can’t.”

Thor and Selene had moved out a few weeks ago, leaving the whole place for me. When Wheels started babysitting me, he’d moved into the basement, but he mostly kept to himself. Having Pollux around wouldn’t be a hardship.

“No, Castor swears he’s got it. You know they have that twin telepathy thing.” Bear chuckled and shook his head before giving me a more serious stare. “You probably ought to check in on them from time to time.”

I laughed and agreed. Where Bear always had his head on straight, the twins had the luxury of living like carefree teenagers ... at least until the Beacon. When Pollux got out of the hospital, the three of us would take on the brunt of caring for him until he was self-sufficient again. With third-degree burns on fifty percent of his body and a healing wound from shoulder to groin, he should have died that night. I thanked whatever Goddess watching out for us that he hadn’t.

“Sure,” I said, nodding to our father in the far corner, whispering to the MC’s vice president and Ru’s father, Aris, who stood next to the road captain, Slip. “How’s he doing?”

Pollux’s injury had worn him down in addition to being the patriarch of this fucked-up found family. His hair had turned nearly gray and heavy bags sat under his eyes, a hint as to the last time he’d had a full night’s sleep. Being the president of the SRMC meant the crown lay on his head, and every casualty, every ounce of blood spilled, was the direct result of his action or inaction.

Imagine the pressure.

Bear sighed and took another drink. “He’ll be better once Pollux is moving around again.”

“Are you coming to the Valentine’s Day party tomorrow?”

My brother barked out a laugh and shook his head. “No, I’ve got guard duty, thank fucking God.” Before he could elaborate, our father caught his stare and nodded, gesturing Bear over. Pushing himself upright, he clinked his glass against mine and moved to walk away. “Take it easy, V.”

“You, too.” I watched Bear make his way to Dad and the other MC officers, and by the time I glanced back at Hollywood, he’d already disappeared.

* * *

“Jesus, you look like hell.” Castor whistled and walked closer to his twin, who had already situated himself in the wheelchair for our daily walk. He’d been stable for a few days now, and if he kept up his stamina, the doctors said he could leave soon.

“I’m still the handsome twin, and that’s all that matters.” Pollux grinned as Castor scoffed and took up the spot behind the wheelchair, playfully pulling our brother back to tip him over.

“How are you feeling?” I walked closer, examining the circles under his eyes and the sunken cheekbones. He’d lost at least thirty pounds since being stuck here, and the sooner I could get him home to stuff him full of cheap beer and pizza, the better.

“Same ole, same old.” Pollux flashed a grin as Castor pushed him into the hall. “Did I tell you the nurse gave me her number?”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I bet.”

“I’m serious.” He laughed and held up his phone to prove it.

“Did you tell her you’re a virgin?” Castor teased.

“No, but I told her you’re into cake-sitting,” Pollux joked. “Too bad for you, that’s not her thing.”

Castor threw his head back and guffawed. “Don’t yuck my yum, brother.”

“You’re both disgusting,” I cut in, knowing none of their insults were true, that they just liked to razz each other with the most degrading shit they could think of. I’d never disparage a person for their kink, even if they got off on the thought of watching people sit on cakes.

“Yeah, you’re the one to talk,” Pollux said, “Mistress Mayhem.”

Despite crossing a few boundaries, both Castor and Pollux had been there that night at the Beacon. Most of the club had. They’d heard about my domme impact play performance, and they knew what I did for my side hustle. It wasn’t like I kept it a secret, but it did make me pause when my family brought it up.

“You sound jealous,” I said. “Do you want me to tell you how I get men to give me money to treat them like I treat you two idiots?”

“No thanks,” Castor started.

“I’m good,” Pollux finished.

Twins ran in our family. Castor and Pollux were identical, whereas our cousins, KC and Selene, were fraternal, born a few years before them. My brothers had the same dark curly hair and brown eyes as Bear. Their facial features were more like mine and our father’s, and Bear looked so much like my mom, it hurt sometimes to see the similarity.

We walked for another half an hour, gossiping about our family and what Pollux wanted to do when he finally got the go-ahead to leave.

“Throw a big fucking party,” he said, wheeling his chair back into his room. “This summer, I want to ride to California and back.”

“Fuck yeah,” Castor said, giving the injured brother a high five. “You and me and the wide open road.”

I watched the two of them daydream about the future with whimsy in my gut, hoping they’d get to see it. Promising to stop by the next day, I said my goodbyes, met up with Wheels, and headed to Crimson headquarters to start my shoot for the day.

I’d never set out to be a professional domme, nor had I ever thought I’d make it this far in life. Losing my mother so young had instilled within me deep-seated anger issues I’d never fully work out. I used to take that fury out on myself and everyone around me, the scars on my wrists and inner thighs only hinting at the extent of it. It was the worst kind of sadness, the kind that ran bone deep and threatened to boil over every second of every day. During my darkest moments, I struggled to get out of bed, much less get dressed and go to school.

Dad had taken me to a number of therapists, but it wasn’t like I could tell them my father’s enemies had blown up my mother and they might do it to me so what was the fucking point in living? Everything seemed so meaningless, so mundane. Why even bother? Meds and yoga saved me. I learned how to redirect my thoughts, how to find an inner peace, an inner safe place where my demons couldn’t find me. It was only a bandage, of course. Depression was a disease that never went away, not really.

After high school, I’d wanted go to New York City, study art, and become the next Frida Kahlo. I’d gotten accepted to the prestigious program at New York College in Manhattan, but my father, king of the alpha assholes, refused to let me live so far away from home.

“We have enemies everywhere,” he’d said. “You won’t be safe.”

I, being a pigheaded stubborn shit, hadn’t listened to him. Against every argument he’d thrown my way, I’d gone to the big city on my own, and after a few months away from home, I quickly realized I had champagne tastes on a beer budget. I was trapped in an overpopulated city with no real career prospects, an expensive nicotine addiction, and a dream every other eighteen-year-old art major shared.

I’d been desperate for a long time ... so desperate, in fact, that when one of my roommates told me she dominated men at a local dungeon for money and asked if I’d be interested, I couldn’t find any good reason to say no. I grew up around three brothers and a gang of bikers—I’d seen my fair share of dicks and men pulling on them.

One of my first clients had been a man named Curtis, some down-on-his-luck investment banker that loved for me to humiliate him. Admittedly, the work made me feel alive again. It made me want to see tomorrow in a way that meds and yoga never had, never could. In a world where nothing felt like it was in my control, this one thing was, and I lived for that high.

I found out everything I could about the kink lifestyle, particularly about sex work within the community. After a few months, I went full time at the dungeon. When I wasn’t in school, I moonlighted as a professional domme and a bartender, and between those two things, I worked my way up. By the time I graduated, I’d been offered the general manager spot by the owners, but things with Curtis turned ugly.

He’d gotten possessive and jealous, and he wanted me to stop seeing all my other clients, to come live with him and be his full-time dominant. I didn’t love him, and aside from our kink relationship, I didn’t want any other kind with him. He’d started to stalk me, showing up at the dungeon during my shifts, only to hang out until I left so he could follow me home.

One night, he lost control and broke into my apartment. He beat me and nearly abducted me, and if I hadn’t stabbed him in the leg and ran, I could only imagine what would have happened. I couldn’t go back to that life afterward because he’d never leave me alone. Just because I was more dominant sexually didn’t mean he operated that way outside of kink. He was bigger and stronger in every sense, and I’d gotten away with my life by the skin of my teeth.

Wheels pulled up outside Crimson headquarters and parked next to Saint’s pickup. I spotted KC’s truck on the other side.

“Lots of Roses today. I’ll be fine for a while,” I told Wheels.

He nodded. “Cool. I’ll wait here.”

He could have gone out to do anything else, but he seemed content to fiddle with his phone while I did my thing. Like Hollywood, Wheels was gorgeous and got around like a one-dollar bill. He had deep umber skin and a bright shimmering smile that made others grin just by looking at it, and women loved him. Covered in tattoos, he matched every biker stereotype ever—beautiful and bloody and bad. But he took his role as my bodyguard seriously, and he respected his position in the club. He’d never cross a line with me, and I appreciated that the most about him.

I walked inside, admiring how the space had been transformed since Alba and KC first bought it. Instead of a concrete wasteland, an inviting foyer greeted visitors, complete with a furry pink wall and a neon sign with the company’s name and logo. KC hated it, but it was one of my favorite things about the place.

“Hey, V,” Alba called when I walked into the breakroom. She sat at one of the tables with her husband, drinking coffee while they went over reports laid out in front of them.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I leaned in to say hi and waved.

“Ru was looking for you earlier,” KC said, flashing his classic friendly grin. “She and Saint are filming down the hall, but you should check in with her before you leave.”

“Thanks.” I nodded and turned before Alba stopped me.

“Hey, how’s Pollux?” she called.

“Good.” I updated them on my visit, just as I did every day. They said they would swing by to see him on their way home, and I assured them he would love to talk about the hot nurse he planned to marry once he broke free.

“Are you coming to the Valentine’s Day party tonight?” Alba grinned expectantly, her wild blond hair curling around her head like a halo. KC called her Sunshine as a nickname, and with the way the light hit her through the window behind her, making her golden skin glow, I understood why. “We’re auctioning off a date with the single brothers. All the benefits go to Pollux’s medical bills.”

I remembered Ru saying something about that, and thankfully, I’d been kept out of the planning. The whole thing sounded ridiculous and objectifying, even if it was for a good cause.

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I said, taking a step back so I could go to work, “but not for the auction.” I had no need for a man in my life. Even if I’d always considered myself a mostly (read: regrettably) hetero-leaning pansexual, I wasn’t interested in dating women, either. It sucked to be alone on Valentine’s Day, especially when everyone else in the club was such a horny little hedonist, but I’d just gotten my first real taste of standing on my own. I didn’t want to jump into anything serious.

After I went to my room, I set up for my first client and changed into the black corset I planned to wear. I put my leather mask over the top part of my face and logged on to the Crimson platform to take live calls for the next few hours.

Sure, most people associated kink and domination with sex. In the best cases, it could be. But with most of my clients, it rarely went that way. They liked the degradation that came with hearing a beautiful woman tearing them down. One in particular liked me to insult him until he cried, saying it was the only way for him to have an emotional release.

I never asked why they sought me out, only tried to deliver on what they needed.

After that disaster with Curtis last June, I came home to the protection of my father, my brothers, and my badass biker family. No one from the dungeon knew my real name, no one except my roommate. I’d never given them any real facts about me, but occasionally, when I drove to work by myself or when I got a new anonymous client in my camming channel on Crimson, a shiver went down my spine the way it used to when he looked at me. There was something in an abuser’s stare when they directed it at their victim—something slithery and territorial and toxic, something I could never forget.

Curtis’s abuse caused a relapse in my depression. Sure, I put on the brave face when I first arrived home. I smiled and sneered and heckled the way I always had, but inside, I was crumbling. I started to believe I deserved what he had done to me. I remembered the horrible things I’d once thought about myself: I was worthless, no one cared about me, the world would be better off without me in it. Depression lied. It always did. But knowing that did not stop those thoughts from spinning. It was one thing to see my family and hear them tell me they loved me. It was another to believe it myself. Up until the day Hollywood took a bullet for me, I genuinely thought I’d be better off dead.

Whenever those thoughts reared up again, I clutched the glass jar hanging around my neck, reminding myself of Hollywood’s sacrifice. Whenever I let those dark thoughts creep in, whenever they fought for dominance in my mind, I remembered that night. I remembered how close to death I’d actually come and how hard I fought to stay alive, how hard Hollywood had fought to keep me alive.

The bullet reminded me there was at least one person in this world who would die for me, and I would never waste his blood again.