Odin’s Treasure (Saint’s Outlaws MC: Devil’s Cove, CA #1)

Chapter One

ODIN

“Look who the fuck finally rolled in,” Ghost, president of the Mother Chapter, boomed from across the bar.

My head came up, and a smile spread across my face.

Dash and I had been on the road for the last three weeks, checking in with almost every club from Boston to Milwaukee. We even carved out time to pop in and see the Bastard Saints while we were in their neck of the woods, too.

Ghost pushed off the bar as we approached. “Odin.”

“Ghost.”

I shook his hand and bumped my shoulder against his.

Ghost turned to my best friend. “Dash.”

“Prez.”

They clasped hands and did the same bro hug before Ghost lifted two fingers at the prospect behind the bar. “Get these assholes a beer.”

The kid, who must be new because I’d never seen him before, grabbed two ice-cold Modelos from the well and twisted off the caps before sliding them across the bar.

“Thanks,” I murmured, tipping it back and draining half the contents in one pull.

Damn, that’s good.

Ghost watched me over the rim of his whiskey glass. “So… How’d it go?”

Dash’s eyes twinkled as he leaned one hip against the bar. “We stopped in to see the Bastard Saints in St. Louis. Pee Wee’s wife tried to shoot his ass.”

Ghost eyes went wide. “Bullshit.”

“Hand to god,” Dash said, holding up his left hand.

I nodded. “He finally divorced her ass and got remarried.” I still couldn’t believe it.

“And he’s re-married with another kid on the way,” Dash added.

Ghost shook his head, looking just as shocked as we had when the Bastard Saints VP had shared his happy news with us. “I never thought I’d see the day Pee Wee would kick Diana to the curb.”

“Pretty sure the pigs had a hand in that.“ I chuckled.

Smiling, Ghost took a sip of whiskey. “Good for him.”

I grunted my agreement.

Pee Wee deserved some fucking happiness. Diana trapped him in that marriage and made his life miserable for years. The manipulative bitch knew exactly what she was doing when she got knocked up and forced his hand. It was about damn time he’d finally gotten clear of her and found something better.

Ghost set his glass down on the scarred wood. “How’s your ma and the kid?”

Dash snorted into his beer.

Glancing over at my best friend, I flipped him off. He’d been listening in like the nosy bastard he was when Ma called a few days ago.

“Ma’s great. Reid, on the other hand, is on my shit list.”

Ghost barked out a laugh. “He’s sixteen. That’s pretty much his job, isn’t it?”

That was everyone’s reply to my kid acting like an asshole.

He’s a teenager. That’s what they do.

“Odin’s about to kick his ass.” Dash smirked.

He wasn’t wrong.

As soon as I got home, Reid and I were going to have a Come-to-Jesus. I would put up with a lot of bullshit because kids would be kids; however, I would not tolerate anyone giving Ma a hard time.

Knocking back the last of his whiskey, Ghost pushed off the bar. “Follow me to my office. There’s something I want to talk to you both about.”

Dash glanced at me and popped a brow, the look on his face asking what the fuck.

I shrugged. I was in the dark just as much as he was.

Rolling off the bar, we followed Ghost down the hall to his office.

He moved around his desk and sat, motioning for me to the door. “Close that, would ya?”

Turning, I pushed it closed, then dropped down into the chair across from him.

“So…” Dash said, planting his ass in the chair next to mine.

Ghost steepled his hands under his chin, his eyes hard as he glanced between us. “While you were gone, a problem came to the club’s attention.”

Dash and I shared another look. We’d checked in a half-dozen times over the last three weeks. Maybe more. Nobody had mentioned any problems.

“What problem?” Dash asked carefully, voicing what I was thinking.

Ghost’s expression went dark.

Fuck. That look usually meant he was about to flip a fucking table or shoot someone in the face. “Moody.”

My brows slowly rose as I tried to connect the dots. “As in the President of the Devils Cove chapter?”

Ghost’s nostrils flared. “That’s the fucking one.”

Devils Cove was a small town in SO-CAL about twenty miles North of Tijuana, and the president there was Moody. He was a fucking dickhead. Dash and I had been down there a couple of years ago, and it’d taken everything in me not to knock that fucker on his ass.

Dash’s brows went up as recognition hit. “How’s he fucking up?”

Ghost’s angry eyes narrowed to slits. “The mother fucker got in bed with the fucking Cartel.”

I froze with my beer halfway to my mouth. “O-kay?”

Ghost’s head looked like it was about to explode. “The motherfucker is trafficking kids.”

What. The. Absolute fuck?

I glanced over at Dash, whose eyes were as big as saucers. He couldn’t believe what Ghost had just said either.

The cartel wasn’t the issue. We were 1%ers. We didn’t conform to society’s rules. We did what we wanted, when we wanted, how we wanted.

Someone needs killing? Okay. Gotta break a few laws for the good of the club, no problem. Guns? Drugs? That was business. But we also lived by a code, and that code was crystal fucking clear.

Women and children were off-fucking-limits. That was non-negotiable.

Ghost pounded his fist against the desk, ripping me out of my thoughts. “I want that mother fucker tossed in a deep fucking hole while he’s still breathing.”

I nodded, thinking that sounded like way too easy of an out for the cocksucker, but Ghost was the boss.

“He’s done. So are his fucking followers.”

Dash nodded immediately. “Good.”

“No argument here,” I agreed.

Ghost held my gaze. “Knew you’d feel the same way.”

I set my beer on the edge of his desk and leaned back in the chair. “So you want us to be the messenger?”

We’d just gotten back to Boston, and I was so tired my fucking bones hurt but if he wanted me back on the road to go strip the patch off that sick son of a bitch before I put a bullet between his eyes, I was game.

“Not exactly,” Ghost said, rubbing the scruff on his jaw. “I want you to go there and take over.”

I sat up straight. “Come again?”

There was no way he was talking to me. I’d been a nomad since Larissa died ten years ago, going where the club needed me. I didn’t have an issue doing the jobs nobody else wanted to do. But taking over a club? That was way, WAY above my pay grade.

Oblivious to my head spinning, Ghost kept on talking. “Devils Cove is a fucking gold mine.” His eyes hardened again. “Or at least it was until that rat bastard started doing dirty deals with the cartel. I wouldn’t doubt that he’s selling our shit to them right under our noses.”

My brows pulled together as my mind went to Devils Cove.

The compound sat on 126 acres in Southern California.

Orange trees spanned out in every direction as far as the eye could see.

It was the perfect cover for their operations.

The Devils Cove club shipped arms all over the country under false bottoms of orange crates. It was a foolproof setup.

“If you want me to be the messenger, fine. I got no problem handling that. But I don’t have aspirations of leading a club. I don’t think—”

“There’s nobody else, Odin.”

I cut my eyes to Dash. I mean, there was someone else.

My best friend’s eyes went wide as he lifted both hands. “Hell, no. Not it.”

Not opposed in the slightest to throwing his ass under the bus, I threw back, “You’re just as capable as I am, asshole.”

He shook his head. “I don’t like paperwork.”

I just stared at him with my mouth hanging open. Was he even being serious? There was a helluva lot more to being P than just paperwork. “You’re a special bird, ya know that?”

“I have my moments.” He shrugged.

Ignoring our bullshit, Ghost continued, “Club needs a man it can trust out there. Not some slimy prick who goes against everything we believe in.”

I stared at him for a long beat.

Fuck.

He knew the kind of man I was. I’d served in the Special Forces. So had Dash. Honor, even among sinners like us, was everything to us.

I blew out a heavy breath. “If I do this, and that’s a big fucking if, I want men I know I can trust at my back.”

Ghost smirked like he knew he was about to win a battle. “It’ll be your club. You do what you want.”

That was good to know because if I took him up on his offer, I was going to clean fucking house in Devils Cove. We lived by a code. All of us. And that meant that Moody’s crew hadn’t made a single peep that things weren’t on the up and up.

“Give me a few days to think it over,” I said, scrubbing my hands over my face. I was fucking exhausted.

Ghost waved out a tattooed hand. “Take a few days to talk it over with the fam.”

Draining the last of my beer, I pushed to my feet. “I’m gonna head out.” There was a lot to think about, and I couldn’t do that at the clubhouse. I needed to go home, grab a shower, and get some fucking sleep before I waded into the pros and cons of uprooting everyone’s life.

“You know,” Dash said, throwing a leg over his sled once we were outside, “I’ve always thought you’d make a solid P.”

I shook my head as I planted my ass on my seat. I’d never once entertained the thought of being more than what I was now. I loved the freedom of hopping on my sled and going where the wind took me.

Putting down roots somewhere other than Boston, while I wasn’t completely opposed to it, had never been something I’d given much thought to.

“That’s good to know because if I agree to do this, you’re going to be my VP.”

Before he could utter a single word about it, I fired up my Dyna, twisted the throttle, and pulled out of the lot laughing my ass off.

Pulling into the driveway behind Ma’s Explorer, I cut the motor and smiled when the front door flew open, and Ma came out smiling. “You’re home!”

“Hey, Ma.”

She made her way down the steps, her pace much slower than I’d remembered when I left, and threw her arms around me.

I pulled her tighter against my chest and breathed in the scent of BENGAY and soft cloud fabric softener.

“You look exhausted,” she said, pulling back to study my face. “Have you eaten?”

I grabbed my bag from my saddlebag. “Not since Rochester.”

Her eyes lit up. “Did you stop and visit with Riddick?”

“I did.” Dash and I were itching to get back to Boston, but when we’d seen the exit for Rochester it was a given we had to stop. While not a charter to our club, the Saints were long-time allies, and in our world, with as many enemies as we seemed to make, you needed strong allies.

“He’s such a handsome young man.”

My nose wrinkled. “Ma.”

She just shrugged. “I’m old, not blind, honey. Now come inside and let me feed you.”

Following her inside, the silence hit me. “Where’s Reid?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her forehead crease with concern. “Well…”

Her reluctance to rat my kid out was noble, but if he was doing shit he shouldn’t, I need to know. “Ma?”

Her shoulders shrugged as she pulled a skillet from the cabinet and set it on the stove. “He’s been hanging out with a bad crowd.”

That had my attention. “What bad crowd?”

“Uhm…”

Jesus. This was going to call for alcohol. Opening the fridge, I grabbed a beer, cracked the lid, and sat at the kitchen table.

Glancing up from the meat she dropped into the cast-iron skillet, she said, “The boys who hang at the corner.”

My brows snapped together. The only boys who hung out at the corner were fucking low-life pushers. They sold bottom-of-the-barrel dime-baggies like they were big shots.

They weren’t.

“And he’s been skipping school.”

Fuck.

“And he’s missed curfew twice this week.”

My fingers curled around the beer bottle.

The fact that he’d been giving my mother shit pissed me off more than the school thing. Ma had helped me raise him since the day Larissa lost her battle to breast cancer.

I pulled in a breath processing her words. She’d been holding shit down here on the home front when I had to go on runs. And he was acting like an asshole?

Fuck that.

“I’ll have a word with him,” I said, voice flat. “Straighten him out.”

Ma stirred the meat, refusing to look at me. “Wade.”

“What?”

She finally turned. “He’s getting older.”

“Know that.”

“And I think,” she said carefully, “you need to be around more.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling pressure settle between my shoulders.

Something in me broke when Reid’s mom died. It was like I couldn’t breathe without Larissa. So I hit the road. Told myself the club needed me, and that Reid was safe with Ma.

“Son—”

I looked over at her then, and really saw her.

The exhaustion around her eyes. The weariness that she was trying and failing to hide.

It was time to make some changes for all of us.

“How do you feel about California?”