Chapter 1
Chapter One
VANNA
“You have to give them credit,” my assistant, Bria, said as she looked over the new graffiti over the front of my shop window. “They have neat writing.”
I rolled my eyes. This was the last thing I needed for my business. I’d only just gotten the last bout of vandalism wiped off my windows and now here it was all over again. I wish I knew who it was and what their problem was.
I’d been the proud owner of Bleeding Hearts Ink, a tattoo shop that I poured my heart and soul into once I broke away from my father and brother’s watchful eye at the Hollow Saints MC.
I loved the club, and I loved the men I grew up around, but I needed a little more than to be the club princess who scared everyone away from dating her.
A girl had needs.
Pulling my phone out, I caved, and did the one thing I swore I wouldn’t after leaving. I was calling for help.
With my savings severely being depleted with the cleaning jobs and repair jobs I needed to undertake with every act of vandalism, shit had to change, and I needed help.
Stepping away from Bria, I dialled my brother, Vinny or “Vice” as he was known by the club. He’ll always be Vinny.
“Yo.”
“Seriously? You answer your phone like that?” I replied immediately.
“What did you expect, a royal welcome?”
“Whatever. Can you come to the shop?”
“Ahh, why?” he asked, and I could hear the hesitation in his voice.
Rolling my eyes, I responded. “Let the woman down and come help your sister.”
He chuckled. “It’s not like that. You know I would, but I’m away, sis.”
“On a run?”
“Yeah. What’s up? You don’t usually call me like this.”
It was true. I tried to keep my own business my own, but even I knew when I needed help, and the MC could help with this.
“Never mind. I’ll sort it out.”
“V…what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“My shop was vandalized. It’s the…third time this month. I need the MC’s help.”
He was quiet, and I knew he was sorting through what I’d just said. Bria was looking over the graffiti, probably finding the beauty in the paint, while I waited for my brother to speak.
“If you’re busy, it’s all good. I’ll just call the cops again.”
“Why didn’t you call us after the first time, V?”
I didn’t want him to take over, tell me running the business away from the MC was dumb, and I couldn’t handle it.
“I…look, the cops are going to turn up soon, I’ll call you later,” I lied. “Be safe.”
Hanging up before I did something stupid, I moved back over to Bria. She was just getting off the phone.
“Who was that?” I asked her.
“The cops,” she answered. I held back the groan.
“Why did you call them?”
“Ah, hello?” she said, waving her hand at the front of the store. “This isn’t normal and it’s the third time. This is insane.”
“Yeah but now we can’t go inside,” I told her. “And it’s vandalism, so they’ll take forever.”
Bria’s smile died a little. She’d been trying to help. “Ah…shit…didn’t think about that. I spoke with the same guy as before. What was his name? The hottie.”
I smirked. “You mean the hotshot who wanted in your pants?”
Bria rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
“Go and get us some coffees,” I told her. “It’s going to be a long morning.”
“Lucky we were only coming in this morning to do admin, huh?” she said with a smile.
Lucky. Yeah. After the last two incidents, my clients had all but dried up.
We were almost in the red financially. If I lost many more, I’d have to pack up my pride and joy and head home with my tail tucked between my legs.
Bria headed down the street to our favorite café to grab our coffee order while I waited on the bench outside my shop.
For a month, I’d been trying to figure out who would possibly have a problem with me to be ruining my business like this.
I wasn’t in competition with the other tattoo shops, in fact, I often went to them to get my own ink done.
I didn’t have any acrimonious clients who were upset with me, as far as I knew.
My head was raised when I heard the car pull up.
I looked over and sure enough, there was Detective Marshall.
His eyes were moving over the new artwork on my windows and a frown graced his features.
Out of the two men who had been sent to take our statements, he was the only one who I found was taking it seriously.
I wasn’t sure if that was because he had a thing for Bria or not, but I didn’t mind him.
When his partner, Detective Oswell, got out of the car, the attitude shifted. He looked like he didn’t want to be here and I knew for a fact, he didn’t.
“Ms. Marsden,” he greeted me while Detective Marshall took in the vandalism up close. “Another attack. Seems you have quite the problem.”
I hated this motherfucker.
“Biker trash,” he said, reading the graffiti now splayed across the entire span of the window.
The sound of a motorcycle was loud behind me, and I knew that my brother had sent one of the club members to come and help me.
I didn’t turn back to see who he’d sent, because Detective Fuckface was currently looking at me like I was the problem and it was pissing me off.
“Perhaps, if you didn’t consort with undesirables, you wouldn’t have this problem. ”
“What did you just say?”
Before I could respond, I looked up at the man who had spoken. My heart hammered in my chest as I looked over at my brother’s best friend, and the current Enforcer for the Hollow Saints MC, Noah Christensen, better known as Devil.
And the one man who had ever held my heart, and who had broken my heart when I was nineteen.
That was nine years ago and I still wasn’t over it.
Detective Oswell turned and visibly gulped at the imposing height and build of Devil. He scared everyone with his wide shoulders, muscular torso and six foot five height. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea he was here now.
Detective Marshall chose that moment to come over and rescue his partner. “I’ve taken photographs and notes from the outside, Ms. Marsden. Have you been inside?”
“No,” I replied. “Last time we got in trouble for going in before you got here.”
Marshall smirked a little, while Oswell moved as far away from Devil as possible. Smart man. He looked murderous as he kept his eye on the portly detective. I didn’t even think he’d noticed me standing there.
Typical.
“Could you open up now and we’ll walk through together.”
I nodded, pulling the keys from the pocket of my hoodie and headed to the door.
I felt him behind me, rather than heard him.
He still hadn’t addressed me or even looked at me, and I was aware of the heat of his body behind mine.
For a brief moment, I let the familiar feel of him wash over me.
I’d always felt so safe with him around.
I slid the key into the hole and pushed the door open, turning the lights on to see if there was any damage inside.
The front part of my shop looked just as it had yesterday.
Both detectives moved around the space, looking at each window and heading down the hall.
Devil followed them, checking the windows himself.
My eyes wouldn’t move from his ass, tight in his black jeans and strong thighs. God, he was sexy. Built like a God.
Bria chose that moment to rock up with our coffees, her eyes shooting toward Devil with an appreciative grin.
“Since when did you call the club for help?” she asked, a knowing smirk on her face.
“I called my brother but he was on a run, so he sent Noah.”
“Noah?” she all but squealed. “As in the ark?”
I rolled my eyes. Bria didn’t know much about MC life, other than what she reads in her smut books. “Noah as in the name his mother gave him at birth. His road name is Devil.”
“Ohhh, that sounds hot.”
I rolled my eyes again. Devil disappeared into my office down the hall and something propelled me forward, to follow him, while the detectives trailed through the bathroom and back rooms.
My office looked just like always, organized chaos, well to me anyway. To others, it would look like a cyclone hit it. I knew where everything was, that was the main thing.
“Noah.”
He turned to look at me, those dark green eyes blazing on me like he was mad.
“You didn’t have to come. I told him to leave it.”
“Why didn’t you call us after the first time?” he asked me. “Three times, Van?”
“Just go, Noah. I can deal with this with the cops.”
“The cops who don’t give a fuck?”
I shrugged. “You know what they’re like.”
Devil turned his back to me, looking at the window and pushing on the pane. The window opened freely and immediately I moved over to it.
“This been broken for long?” he asked me.
“No, it…fuck–it wasn’t like that.”
I looked around my office for anything out of place but it looked just like it always did. Moving to my drawers, I went through them but everything was in its place.
My eyes shot over to the wall, and the bookcase. Fuck. No one should know about this. I’d never told a soul, other than my brother, but he would never tell anyone. I moved over to it, and pulled it back to reveal the mini safe I had installed in the wall.
The lock was opened.
Opening the door, I saw my savings were gone, and so was the paperwork I kept in here. I slammed my fist against the wall.
“What is it?”
Devil was beside me then.
“What did they take, Vanna?” he asked me.
I could feel his breath on my neck, and it was causing goosebumps to alight over my arms. He was right behind me, and it felt like my brain was playing tricks on me, thinking it was a safety thing, when in actual fact, he was going to try and take over my life, just like my father tried, just like my brother would when they found out.
His hand moved to the wall on the side of my head, and his other hand spun me to face him, pushing me against the wall. I could smell his aftershave, his distinct scent of leather, whiskey and smoke.
God, it was heady, and it was sending signals to my crotch.
“Vanna.”
“I had some documents in there, and some cash.”
His eyes moved to the open safe. “Money still in there?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I haven’t counted it, but it looks bundled still.”
“What paperwork did they take?”
I didn’t want to tell him. I wanted him to kiss me, to bridge the gap between us and take me like an animal, because I knew about him. I knew he liked it rough. I’d heard the rumors that you were never the same again after a night with him.
“Vanna, I’m not going to ask again.”
I looked into those dark, molten eyes and I knew I’d tell him everything, because he was Noah.
He was the guy I’d been in love with since I was eighteen, since I’d met him, the guy who protected me from others, who spent nights talking me down from the ledge of my depression, the one who swapped out my whiskey bottles for water and painkillers for the morning when I needed to stop drinking.
He was also the one who kissed me and then turned me down when I was nineteen. The one who had broken my heart and dated someone I knew from school to get me to stop paying him attention, hurting me so I would stop talking to him.
He felt it like I did, but he was bound by some invisible bond to my brother. He wouldn’t go there with me and I just had to deal with it.
That was when I started to veer away from the clubhouse. No one saw me as a woman there, only Vinny’s sister and my dad’s daughter.
The untouchable.
It didn’t matter that I was an adult and I had a body that they salivated over.
Although keeping away from the club was hard, in our small town, everyone seemed to get scared when they would turn up in my life, so boyfriends didn’t stay long.
“Vanna.”
“Just paperwork, for the shop, for…my house, my passport.”
A thunderous expression stole over his face. “They took your passport and paperwork for your house and shop? Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know, Noah. I don’t know why anyone would do that or who would target me, hence why I’m annoyed and called my brother.”
“Well you got me now, princess,” he said.
“Don’t call me that.”
He pushed off the wall, a smirk on his face. “You’re coming to the clubhouse.”
“Ah…no I’m not.”
“Vanna, someone is after you, and until we find out why or who it is, you’re under Hollow Saints protection.”
“You can’t just decide…”
“I could call your dad and tell him,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’ll come out of retirement for this.”
I hated him.
I fucking hated his guts for this, because I knew he would. He’d call my dad out of retirement to come back to the club to make me obey. He was the only man who would ever have me obey, and he knew it.
“You’re an asshole,” I spat.
“I’m what you got, princess. Deal with it. Get your shit and let’s go.”
He was making his way to the door when I felt a white hot rage bubble up inside of me. “I have a business to run, Noah. I’ll come by tonight.”
He stopped. His back straightened, before he turned to me. “Cancel your appointments or I’ll do it for you. Until we find out who is targeting you, princess, you’re mine.”