I can smell the hookah right next to the bar, the hints of chocolate and mint floating through the air. You would think the mixture of the different types of smoke would stink, but they don’t. They mold together like a fine chocolate, layer after layer, offering something more interesting than the next. Then again, maybe that’s the drugs talking. It’s right here in this moment that I know what Rage gave me, X, ecstasy. He has me testing the product. Bastard.
I glance around the room, trying to figure out who the courier is. Who gave him this shit…? I know for a fact he isn’t buying from the cartel. He and Ramirez have been fighting for ages apparently, sworn enemies of each other. I act like I don’t hear diddly squat, but I do. I listen, because information will help me in so many ways. If I was smarter, I might use information to help me get out of here. Hell, maybe I’d have used my body at this point with one of the boys, and we could have plotted my escape. I’m not some bitch from a fairytale, though. There is no escape.
There is only one thing.
Death.
I plan on meeting the Grim Reaper as soon as I can, after all, being a Reaper is in my blood.
Chapter 2
There is no such thing as failure. There are only results. -Tony Robbins
Damon
Somehow, I manage to make it back to my room without picking her up over my shoulder and slamming her down onto the bed below me. Every fucking day that passes is a test. She tests my limits constantly, and tonight, Rage saw me staring. I fucked up, but that goes unsaid.
She is a fucking vision, the golden goose. Rage knows what he has, even if he doesn’t truly understand it yet.
I’ve been here for a while, and from the first day, I noticed her. I don’t know her entire story, only that she had been with Rage for years before I showed up. Not sure how long, and I bet if I asked she wouldn’t have the slightest clue either.
I have information on her, information that makes Kitten valuable beyond belief.
I take off my cut, setting it down on my bedside table. Next comes my shirt and jeans, and after I’m stripped bare, I slide into my bed and stare up at the ceiling above me.
Years.
I have been here for fucking years and have come up with next to nothing.
A trojan horse for my father, Roman Raines, AKA the half-brother of Rafael and Alejandro Ramirez. Our ties with the cartel are strong, as they should be. After all, what is life without your familia? I’m reminded of that constantly, we make sacrifices for the family, the family comes first. After all, I should understand that more than anyone. Are my brothers and sisters asked to do my father’s dirty work? No. It’s just me. The eldest, the one of which who holds the most responsibility.
We aren’t Ramirez’s. My father tells us that all the time, we are Raines. I have a tough time understanding why he works for his brothers, how his MC somehow turned into this, into me working undercover and finding out where the enemy is purchasing product. He wouldn’t have trusted anyone else with it, so he sent me.
When he sent me, I practically came in blind, knowing almost nothing. It wasn’t until I was over a year in that I knew Rage and my father had a past. A night of hard drinking caused Rage to get sloppy, he spat out information from years ago that my father didn’t fill me in on. It didn’t take me long to put together that my father left, with more than half of the brothers that were with the Demons of Hell, it’s when he founded the Brotherhood – the MC I grew up in.
The moment I discovered that, I knew that this wasn’t business. This was personal. It was exactly the reason my father didn’t send anyone else to do this job. He wanted to make sure it was done right and followed through. When I was done here, I would ruin them, and he knew that. I’m like my father in a lot of ways. Rage won’t know what hit him.
I lay here waiting for the sandman to take me. This happens every night, where I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. My mind constantly running, not allowing me to rest. All I can think about is how there is so much more to do; the only thing I want to do is finish this. I need to get to work.
Tomorrow, though.
Only so much can be done in one day.
***
“Papa is going to be furious when he finds out you came here today. Someone could have followed you, you know that! Don’t you?! How could you be so careless? Hmm? How could you?” I watch my sister, Amara, closely. She looks just like our mother; fair skin, long auburn hair, and somehow her personality is all our father; reacting first and using her brain second. She’s right. I probably shouldn’t have come here, and yeah, someone could have followed me, but what my sister forgets is that I’m careful. I’m not a rookie, I know what I’m fucking doing.
“I needed to get out of there. You don’t understand how it is.” I needed to get away from her, that’s what I should have said, but then my sister would know there was a problem. We’re Raines. We don’t deal with problems.
“No, you’re right. I wouldn’t understand because Papa doesn’t give me nearly as many opportunities as you. He chose you to do this. He fucking chooses you for everything. There are more of us, you know, not just you, Damon, on your high and mighty horse.”
I scoff.
There is nothing high and mighty about the pedestal my father puts me on. I would give anything for him to give Amara, Rose, Ashton, or Lyon the attention that he gives me. There are five of us, and he acts like I’m the only one here.
“Do you think I asked for this shit?” I snap at her, waiting for her response. I lift myself off of the couch in her apartment, walking past her coffee table and pacing next to her island. “I didn’t fucking ask for any of this. He put me there. He told me to go, so I went.”
“Oh, what a good little soldier you are. Should I give you a round of applause?” she grumbles, clapping her hands together.
“Stop being such a fucking bitch, A!” At this point I’m yelling. She knows every exact way to piss me off. Sometimes, I wonder if she does it on purpose. “You’re just pissed because he doesn’t choose you for anything. You want to know why? It’s because you fail him, every single time.”
Amara’s face goes ghost white.
Fuck.
I shouldn’t have said that.
Shit.
“You are just like him, you know… you want to say that you aren’t, constantly fighting it, but at the end of the day, when you’re not getting your way, you are just like him. You hurt people, using their feelings against them. All you are is Roman two-point-oh. How do you like hearing that, dear brother? Does the truth sting?”
“I am nothing like him,” I firmly tell her.
“You are exactly like him, don’t kid yourself.” She walks past me into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of tequila from the counter top, pouring herself a shot and handing me another.
“I’m not like him,” I hiss, taking the shot back, the alcohol stinging my throat as it goes down.
“You’re infiltrating a club for your own personal gain, you’re exactly like him.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said –“
I cut her off immediately. “I’m not in this fucking club for any other reason than to give Dad what he wants. He wants to know who the Demons are buying their drugs from, it’s not the cartel, and I’m so fucking close to finding out where and who is supplying them. The Demons are expanding where they’re dealing, which poses a threat to all of us. If our uncles suffer, we suffer, or do you not remember that? Oh, and let me enlighten you a little bit, Dad didn’t exactly give me all of the fucking information when he sent me there. He left out big pieces of information, baby sister.”
Amara watches me. I know what she’s thinking, she thinks I’m fucking with her, that I pulled a lie out of my ass and am feeding her with it. Our father says time and time again that we are Raines, and while we are, we also have the Ramirez blood flowing through our veins. Our loyalties will always lay within the familia. I might be in the club because Rage is fucking with cartel business
, but let’s not be naïve, I’m here to finish my father’s war.
“Have you ever wondered how Mom got that scar, just below her chin, the one that crosses down her neck, into her shoulder?”
I wait, and when Amara doesn’t speak, I continue.
“Rage held a knife to her throat and did that. He was trying to kill her. She was pregnant with you when that happened, and you want to know how I know? Because Rage fucking told me. He told me so much about our father, how Dad left and started the Brotherhood. We haven’t even hit the tip of the iceberg. I’m just wondering what else Dad hasn’t told us.”
“Papa is going to right the wrongs that were done to us, to our family, and to every brother that was fucked with by Rage and his insane schemes. He’s a sociopath, a sociopath who still has one of the largest clubs in America. You know what Papa is doing, right? We’re not just squashing Rage’s drug supply, or the business threat to the Cartel. We’re going home, and we’re taking back what was rightfully ours. I mean, c’mon Da’… who do you think the Prez is going to be after we slaughter them?”
I stand there, staring at my sister who has an evil snicker spread across her face, a replica of our father, down to his mannerisms. She claims I’m just like him, when she hasn’t even taken a look in the mirror.
“If you think he doesn’t share things with me, you’re insane, and in case you’re wondering, it’s you, big dummy. Papa is giving you what’s yours. You just have to take it, no distractions. Just get the job done.”
No distractions. Yeah fucking right.
I have a pretty big fucking distraction, and her name is Kitten. I’m supposed to be watching her, but not in the way that I am.
Here Kitty, Kitty Coming Soon from E. Knox.
Previews
Cherished
(The Clans #3)
Willow
I had a simple life, or at least, I thought I did. I left England as soon as I could to escape my father and his lifestyle that always seemed to follow me. He may have been the head of a Clan in the Romanian Mob, but his bastard daughter wanted nothing to do with it. After I lost my mother, and my boyfriend I didn’t see a reason to stick around, so I left.
I ran as far away as I could, to the furthest end of the earth that I could have. I started over, I became who I wanted to be, who happened to be a bomb ass pastry chef.
Everything was simple – until one day it wasn’t.
The moment I saw the hot guy who started renting the business space next door I knew I was in trouble. The thing is, I didn’t have any clue how much trouble I’d actually be in.
If I knew then what I know now, things would have turned out a lot different.
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I had one job, one objective – protect Willow Kim-Adame at all means, with any means necessary.
She was my job, a means to an end.
I’ll protect her like I was told, I’ll do the job, even taking a bullet for the girl.
She tries to disobey me with every step, determined to make my job the hardest I’ve ever done.
I can’t help but be attracted to her spirit, her determination to make things go her way.
I wasn’t supposed to like her, and I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to fall for her.
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Caprice
I left because I had to, my father was selling me off to the most dangerous man in the world like I was a prized pony. There was already so much taken from me at the hands of my father, and I would allow nothing else to be ripped from me – especially my future.
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Everything was working out great for me, that is, until Sergei found me.
I just never anticipated Liam Mackenzie coming to bat for me.
He knew Amber, he never knew Caprice.
Now he’s got us both.
Liam
From the second she walked into my bar and asked for a job I knew she was special. Something about this southern girl caught my eye. It didn’t take me very long to discover that she was hiding something, her awful accent was proof of that.
It turns out she was far rarer than I could ever imagine.
When her world came crashing down around her, I was the one ready to pick her up. It didn’t matter that she was off limits, or that she was forbidden in every sense of the word. I’d find a way to make her mine, and I did.
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Braelynn
God of Hotness, that’s what they called him. It started as a joke when we were in high school, my friends making fun of the ginormous crush I had on my brother’s best friend, Jude.
The joke was on them when the hottest guy in school started dating me. Who knew that my crush would turn into my first love?
Our love had an expiration date, and we knew that more than anyone.
While our love prevailed, our lives ripped us apart.
I’m back in town for my 10th year high school reunion and who do I see but the God of Hotness himself? The years may have passed, but my feelings sure as hell haven’t. The man sparks a fire in me like no one else ever has.
I made a huge mistake in letting him go. There’s no way I’ll let him slip through my fingers again. I’ve been searching for something that I’ve only had with him. It’s just taken me that long to figure out the problem.
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Elizabeth Knox, Scarred (Demons of Hell MC Book 1)
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