Page 2 of Wild Ride
He turns his head, looking over his shoulder at me. I recognize him. But before I can say anything else, hot pain slices through my shoulder and my body is catapulted backward as I land on my ass, then my back slams against the concrete floor.
I hear more gunshots.
Then the man, who I somewhat recognize, walks up to me, stands above me, and aims the barrel of the gun at my face.
He’s going to shoot me while I’m down.
And he does. Shifting his aim, this fucker squeezes the trigger, hitting my other shoulder. He doesn’t get a third round off, though. I lift my hand and pull my own trigger, except I’m not a little bitch—I shoot that fucker in the face.
No fucks given.
When his knees give out and he crumples to the ground, I don’t just forget about him. I make sure that he will never, not fucking ever, come back from this. He doesn’t, and he won’t. Fuck him.
Rolling to my side, I use every ounce of strength that I have in my shot shoulders and sit up, then stand to my feet before I hover over his body and fire two more bullets into his chest. I watch his chest.
“Bullet, he’s dead,” Shade grunts.
Turning my head, I look over my shoulder to my president, who appears no worse for wear. “Took that bullet that was no doubt meant for me,” he grunts.
Jerking my chin, I clear my throat. “You’re my president. Protect you with my life.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t fucking deserve it.”
I look at the man who is more of a father figure than my own dad could ever be. Shade is everything to me. He is the only man who has ever given a shit about me, the only person who has taught me what it means to be a man.
“Yeah, you do.”
My words are final. Because to me, that’s precisely what they are. Finite. This is the man who deserves everything. He’s fair and decent. We don’t have many rules in the Club life, but Shade follows all of them.
The most important one is that family is everything.
Everything.
“Now,” he murmurs, “let’s figure out who the fuck these assholes are, call some prospects to clean this shit up, stitch you up, then get you some booze and pussy. What a fucking night.”
He’s right.
What an absolute fucking evening.
The rest of the night goes exactly as Shade laid out. We figure out that those fucks were from a small-time organization trying to gain some clout—they failed.
The prospects make the bodies disappear, along with the truck, then they clean the shop and put everything back to rights before Shade takes me back to the clubhouse, where the doctor is waiting to stitch me up. I get started on the booze, and the minute the last stitch is in place, I’ve got a whore on her knees blowing me.
The night might have started out like shit, but it ends with me coming down a bitch’s throat, so all was not lost.
CHAPTER ONE
DAKOTA – 30 YEARS OLD
PRESENT DAY
The envelope stares at me. I can’t help but wonder if it will physically hurt me when I touch it… if I touch it. I know it can’t actually harm me, at least not physically, unless it gives me a paper cut, but still, it’s scary as hell and ominous.
I pick up the envelope then set it back down again before I attempt to go back to work. I’m a virtual assistant for a high-profile real estate agency. I handle all of their social media posts, schedule appointments for showings when someone contacts them through the website, answer all of the emails or send them to the proper agents, and respond to all of the social media comments.
For someone who doesn’t have a high school diploma, I am doing so much better than I thought I would after I leftWillamette Haven. Luckily, the day I left, I wasn’t entirely on my own.
An ex-member of the commune, Briana took me in. She gave me a place to stay and helped me enroll in a few classes to learn about graphics and marketing. Then she gave me my first job. She had been working at a digital marketing agency, and the rest is history.
