War Diary of a Biker Queen

1. Nyah

NYAH

Dear Diary,

It’s amazing how quickly you can go from dinner guest to prize in a death match.

“Whose baby is it, Nyah? The fighter’s?”

MacGregor’s mocking question rang in my ears, but nothing blocked out my screams. Lynx’s and Dax’s shouts. The cruel laughter from the mob soldiers spread around the dining hall in a Scottish castle I never should have stepped foot inside.

And the entire time, Luca Guerra, the Mafia prince whose arms I’d been in mere hours ago, just stared at me with those piercing brown eyes full of my betrayal.

I’d lied to him. Hid this pregnancy. He’d taken punishments for me and now he knew the truth.

I was pregnant with another man’s baby and trying to save us both by making the Guerras think it was of their blood.

My stomach sank.

I’d just been doing what I’d had to in order to survive. In order to keep the baby I couldn’t give up because it was a part of me and Dax, the man I loved.

Luca was just supposed to be a tool to get what I wanted.

So why did the hurt in his eyes cut so deep?

I opened my mouth. To say what, I didn’t know.

He cut me off with words I never expected to hear him say. And words we both knew weren’t true. “It’s mine,” he said loudly. “Nyah’s baby is mine.”

Every head in the room swiveled in Luca’s direction.

And then in his father’s.

With me still firmly on his lap, his viselike grip unwilling to let me go, MacGregor laughed. A deep chuckle of pure amusement came from his belly. “Well, fuck me. This just got interesting.” He looked at Luca. “Ye trying to steal your old man’s lass? Ballsy.”

Luca only had eyes for his father though. He stared at Carlos’s fingers wrapped so tightly around MacGregor’s blade his knuckles turned white.

It would take Carlos seconds to run it across my neck or plunge it into my chest. I had no doubt MacGregor, holding me down, wouldn’t stop him. And Luca wouldn’t be quick enough.

If he even wanted to save me after everything I’d done.

He shouldn’t want to.

And yet he was trying.

“You kill her,” he said to his father, “You kill your grandchild. And you wage war against your son. Choose carefully.”

Carlos choked on a laugh. “You already declared war when you slept with my fiancée, son.” He cocked his head, studying him across the table. “How long?”

Luca stared back at him without so much as flinching. “Does it matter?”

“It matters.”

Luca blew out a long breath, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“From the moment you dragged me back to Providence. I had her virgin pussy wrapped around my cock the very first night she arrived. Ask any of the staff.” He stared down the table at Lynx.

“Tell him. Tell him how you’ve had to stand outside my bedroom door and listen to her moan my name for months now. ”

Lynx shook his head. “What the hell are you doing, Luca?”

“Tell him so he knows if he kills her, he kills the future heir of the Guerra dynasty. Probably the only one he’s ever going to get.” Luca sat back with the full confidence of a man who was bred for power.

And yet, I saw the tremble in his fingers before he buried them beneath the table.

He knew full well what was playing out here was as good as a death sentence.

Lynx looked at me, but I no longer had any idea what I was supposed to do. I wasn’t sure if Luca was trying to save me or if he had the biggest death wish of any of us in this room.

Something flickered in Carlos’s eyes. He lowered the knife and turned to MacGregor. “This is clearly a family matter that needs to be dealt with in private. We’ll be leaving now.”

I was one-hundred-percent on board with that idea. I was under no illusions I would be suddenly worshipped as the mother of Carlos’s grandchild, but getting the hell out of this room would at least alleviate one threat.

The man beneath me, with his arms wrapped around me so tight it hurt.

At his father’s word, Luca nodded grimly and tried to leave the table. Dax, Lynx, and the rest of Carlos’s entourage all tried to do the same.

MacGregor’s short fingernails dug into my wrist, his voice bellowing out over the top of chairs being dragged over stone floors. “Do ye forget whose table it is you’re seated at? Sit down. All of ye.”

Neither Carlos nor Luca moved.

Tension crackled in the pure, still silence.

“Sit. Down,” MacGregor repeated like he was speaking to toddlers.

Luca was the first to lower himself back into his chair. He had no choice, MacGregor’s men surrounded him, guns drawn, no options given.

Luca was just smart enough to see it.

Carlos stared at his enemy with open hate in his expression. He was the last to sit, but eventually, he did.

MacGregor had all of us and he knew it. This was his table. His castle.

His game.

He pulled me closer on his lap, inhaling the scent of my hair.

“Thank ye. Was that so hard? To act like gentlemen at the dinner table?” He shook his head but didn’t wait to continue.

“Ye Americans have no manners. Now as I see it, three of us here have a claim on the lass. Carlos as her fiancé. Mini Carlos over there as her apparent baby daddy. And me, owed a financial debt from her da.”

“What’s your point?” Carlos asked impatiently. “What grand suggestion do you have to resolve this so the evening can be over? Because frankly, I’ve had more than enough of your hospitality for the night.”

So had I.

MacGregor shrugged. “Ye came here for a fight. Let’s have one.”

Luca raised an eyebrow, the picture of cool, calm arrogance that was nothing like the man who’d touched me with such warmth and care on the plane. “You’re going to get your fists bloody?”

MacGregor snorted on his amusement and stroked his fingers over my bare thigh. “Nae, lad. My days of bare-knuckle fighting are long behind me, and I suspect your da’s are too. That sort of behavior is for lads. Men don’t need to lower themselves to brawling.”

“No?” Luca asked. “You just like to watch then?”

MacGregor stared at him. “Don’t you?”

There was an undercurrent to the question that you would have had to be deaf not to pick up on.

All I could think about was Lynx watching the way Luca had taken me on the plane trip here.

Despite Luca’s claims of having me every which way for months, the only time we’d truly been together was earlier that day.

MacGregor hadn’t been lying when he’d said I smelled of sex.

I smelled of Luca.

But Lynx had watched it all. Every plunge of Luca’s body into mine. Every touch of his fingers against my skin and mine on his.

Lynx had liked it.

I had liked it.

MacGregor finally let me go, shifting me back to my seat between him and Carlos.

He clapped his hands together. “We pick proxies. A man each to fight on our behalf. Winner takes all. Including the woman.” He challenged Carlos and Luca, daring either of them to disagree with him.

“Luca, as the prettiest of the group, ye can pick your man first.”

Carlos opened his mouth to argue.

But Luca just folded his arms across his chest and spoke over the top of him. “Dax. I pick Dax.”

I snapped my head in his direction, then shook it. “No.” I didn’t want Dax fighting. Not for me, or for anyone else. That was why I’d come here in the first place. To make sure he wasn’t hurt and left for dead in some Scottish alleyway with nobody to even notice but the morgue.

Nobody listened to me. I looked to Lynx, but even he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Excellent choice.” MacGregor stroked his short beard, eyeing the cluster of men who all waited on his command. “I pick Barclay.”

The biggest man I’d ever seen in my life stepped forward from the wall of guards there to do MacGregor’s bidding.

He had to be at least six seven, taller even than Lynx.

His eyes were beady, his face puffy. His expression held about as much emotion as a stone, his gaze narrowed in on Dax like he was something that needed to be studied.

Dax was a good fighter. There was no doubt about that.

But I didn’t want to find out if he was good enough to beat Barclay. I didn’t want any of this. “Stop,” I begged McGregor. “This is ridiculous. If my father owes you money—”

MacGregor cut me off pityingly. “Don’t worry yourself, lass. As soon as there’s only one left breathing, we’ll all go on with our dinner.”

My mouth fell open. “One left breathing…”

He patted me on the head. “Wouldn’t be much of a fight if the losers could walk away now, would it?”

Horror swirled in the pit of my stomach. “That’s…” I was having trouble forming words because all the ones I needed to say made me feel sick to my stomach.

“Barbaric?” MacGregor supplied. “Brutal? Fucking entertaining to watch?”

“Psychotic,” I choked out.

MacGregor had clearly grown tired of me. “Carlos. Your pick. Make it good.”

Carlos contemplated each of his men.

Enzo, Carlos’s younger brother, leaned in, his snake eyes narrowing on me as he whispered something in Carlos’s ear.

They both looked at Lynx.

Carlos pointed at him. “Bodyguard. You’re up.” He turned to MacGregor with a nod of agreement. “Last man left breathing wins.”

This wasn’t happening. I couldn’t contain my scream. It ripped from my body, echoing around the room. “No!”

Because there was suddenly no winning this match. Even if Dax and Lynx worked together to take down Barclay.

One would have to kill the other.