Chapter 1
Megan - Day 1
“You must be lost.”
The rough voice boomed through my driver’s side window as I parked my white rental car. The voice came from a biker straight off a Hollywood set. His long black beard didn’t match his stringy brown hair. He stood well over six feet, wearing black jeans, a leather biker’s vest, and black boots. He leaned against his Harley with his ankles crossed, staring at me with curious amusement shining in his gaze.
As I peered through my windshield, my gaze swept the area surrounding what I assumed was their motorcycle club. The clubhouse sat far back off a quiet highway nearly surrounded by woods. Initially, I’d driven past the building that resembled a double-wide mobile home at first glance.
When I’d driven closer, I found that it was an old wooden homestead with peeling white paint that the bikers had turned into their clubhouse. “Club” was painted in big dripping black letters above the entrance door.
The dirty and unsavory looking bikers milling about all possessed similarly tall, muscular statures, wore jeans, and black leather vests that showcased their MC’s logo on the back. The logo was a fully armored knight, riding a steel horse. Instead of a sword, he carried a machine gun with two additional guns strapped to his back.
Inquisitive gazes zoomed in on me as I cut my engine and contemplated opening my door to approach the shabby white building. I was out of my element and freaked out by what I’d set my twisted mind to attempt with these bikers, but I didn’t have any other options.
After rolling up my window and exiting my vehicle, I slinked past bikers who stopped what they were doing to gape at me. My purse strap was my unsteady anchor as I gripped it in my clenched fist.
Two bikers, who had their heads under the hood of a big-wheel, blue pick-up truck, stopped studying the engine. Another one stopped shining the pipes on his big-boy motorcycle. Others, drinking beer and talking trash to each other paused their conversations. A group sitting under a tree around a picnic table stopped their drinking and loud talking, and their gazes locked on me.
All bodies outside the clubhouse stopped whatever they were doing to gawk at me. Fingers started to point, and faces frowned as I ambled closer to the club’s entrance on shaky legs. Open-mouthed expressions, pinched brows, and evil stares followed me as I reached for the door. Surprised, I hadn’t expected to make it that far.
The tremble in my body had grown so intense that I fought to keep down the sandwich I’d forced myself to eat earlier. Sweat drizzled down my back, and I was sure it was not the late June heat causing it. I was scared. No, fuck that. I was scared shitless, but my need to rectify a situation that loomed at my back was greater than my fears. Even as my heart threatened to punch the hell out of my ribs to break out of my chest, I was set to proceed with my plan.
I entered the club and prayed with each shaky step I took. The floorboards creaked under each of my wobbly steps and sounded like rolling thunder despite the noise of the group inside. The door didn’t close behind me because the group I thought I’d left outside held it open as they peeked into the club after me.
When I spotted the man I was searching for, I approached and called out to him. “Mr. Shark?” I asked in my normal, low, and passive voice.
“Who the fuck is asking?” The biker’s bass-filled voice questioned before he turned to face me. Now, facing me, his penetrating blue-eyed gaze locked with my gaping brown eyes. Eyes laced with distaste and alarming hate swept down and back up my body.
“My name is Megan Jones. I’m—”
“Speak up!” he snapped.
I jumped damn near out of my skin. The air around me grew thicker inside the dingy dive. The air-conditioning unit buzzed with life as voices quieted to a low hum. The whine of country music sounded from someplace in the background. It was just as hot inside this place as the ninety-two-degree Florida heat outside.
This was just what I needed. When the piercing, blue-eyed menace I’d disturbed raised his voice and told me to speak up, all eyes jetted in our direction from every corner of the large dusty room. It wasn’t hard to decide that the eyes that probed me belonged to a group that was not used to seeing the likes of me.
I cleared my throat and clamped my unsteady hands together. Murmurs and not-so-hushed voices sounded. The group was no longer talking about whose mufflers on their oversized trucks roared the loudest or how many times their motorcycle engines had been rebuilt. I was a much more interesting subject for them to talk about.
“Who in the fuck is this black bitch?” a voice called out over the crowd of about twenty, scattered throughout the bar.
“What in the fuck does she want?” another voice asked.
“Does she not know where the fuck she’s at?”
I did my best to ignore the questions being asked. An African-American woman walking into a known racist motorcycle club wasn’t something that occurred every day.
“My name is Megan Jones,” I announced again to the biker I’d presumed was Shark. I craned my neck up to see his bearded face. “I’m here on behalf of my sister, Jennifer. She took drugs from your club on credit and didn’t pay you on time.” I paused to swallow enough fear to keep talking as the menacing glare of the mean biker locked on me and seared me down to my quaking bones. “Your men chased my sister down and promised to kill her if she didn’t pay what she owed them. I’m here to see if I can pay for her mistake.”
The towering biker loomed. Middle-aged, he was bearded with a long scar over his left cheek. He didn’t say anything. He just stared, seemingly through me. His dark hair was cut low to his skull, which was unexpected since I’d lumped every biker into the long-dirty-oily-hair category. His deep-set, blue eyes bore flashes of the hard life he led.
His arms were a canvas for various tattoos that likely continued under the leather vest and black T-shirt he’d paired with well-worn jeans and black boots. I’d learned through studying this organization that the president of the August Knights Motorcycle Club was named August Knox IV and was called Shark.
He tilted his head and glanced around me, undoubtedly expecting more people to be with me.
“Sir, I assure you I’m alone,” I confirmed. My words sounded as shaky as my body was. “I want to make things right with you so that your men won’t hurt my sister.”
The tall biker glanced around without saying anything. He stood, staring at me, likely wondering if I was truly crazy enough to do what I was attempting to do. He took a step closer to me, and I inched back.