Raiden (Satan’s Angels MC #2)

Chapter 3

Ella

A fter changing into tight fitting, ripped up jeans and a long sleeve black shirt with just about as much distressing along the sides and arms, I rake a brush through my hair and grab my makeup bag to head down the hall to wash my face and brush my teeth. Not all the rooms on this side of the club have bathrooms, though I never expected the Angels clubhouse to be a five-star hotel.

I get ambushed right outside my door by Lark, and she does not look the least bit pleased. Breakfast just got ten shades more dubious if we get there at all. Should I request a pass simply on the grounds that arsenic isn’t my favorite food?

I remember my vow to be kind. This is my new sister-in-law. Like… doubly. It’s really quite messed up.

Lark looks pissed right off that I married her brother. Though I’m not the least bit bothered by her bedding mine. Granted, I didn’t know anything about him until recently and she and Raiden appear close, so it’s not the same thing at all.

She crosses her arms looking like a bright-eyed little pixie in a floral dress.

“This is the part where you tell me to be good to your brother or you’ll come in the night and cut me and you’re perfectly capable of doing it because even though you might look like a little pixie fairy, you’re actually one of those mean, vengeful fae, isn’t it?”

Her scowl darkens. “I’m trying to like you for Tyrant’s sake, but it’s hard.”

I’m a grown adult woman and I will not spiral downward into rough biker humor. I won’t make a joke about shit getting hard . I rely on logic instead of snark. “If I’m the spawn of Satan, what does that make Tyrant?”

“A beautiful dark fallen angel. You on the other hand are just a trashy looking wannabe badass who thinks she can seduce my brother. Raiden’s smarter than that and so is everyone here. We’re not just going to—”

“Oh look! The boys are rolling out!” They had to exit this way, which is the one saving grace of getting trapped by the club’s queen. There’s no way that I could respectfully decline to have this boring and predictable conversation.

Lark whips around, scowling. Indeed my new husband, his club president, and Bullet are leaving, dressed in jeans, t-shirts, and their leather vests.

They’re either going on a serious run, which I know isn’t the case, going to knock heads together—also not true or I would have heard and no one would have planned something like that for the day after such a huge celebration when everyone’s too hungover to function—or the guns bulging out of holsters and waistbands are meant to be used at the range and they’re gonna try and shoot their hangovers away.

Given that Bullet is accompanying them, it’s a dead giveaway that it’s the latter. I’m just surprised that Bullet’s new best bud, Smoke, isn’t with them.

I clap my hands in real delight, so loud that everyone stops and turns to look at me. “You’re going to the range! Can I come?”

Raiden’s still hungover as fuck and clearly suffering. He winces at my chipper, over-the-top delight. My voice echoes in the hall, probably clanging through his skull. “Absolutely not.” He digs his fingers into his eyes again. I’m surprised he hasn’t scooped them out by now, he’s done it so many times this morning.

“Why not?” Bullet asks, as if he really doesn’t know. He looks hungover too, a little bloodshot and sweaty, but there’s nothing bullets and a target can’t fix.

I’m not sure what Bullet’s past was. He’s got an average build, which makes him look small in comparison to men like Raiden and my brother who are well over six feet. He runs a hand through his dark hair then drops it. His beard is thick and closely groomed to his face. I’d say he’s in his late thirties. I’ve tried my best to learn everything I can about these men. I know who has an old lady and who doesn’t. Who prefers club whores or who likes to go the strip joint and the bars owned by the club. Bullet doesn’t have an old lady, but I haven’t gathered any other intel.

“I was going to ask Smoke to ride with us, but he’s currently passed out on the floor,” Bullet says.

I mutter a curse under my breath. It would be too much to ask the guys who are supposed to have my back here to actually have it. Not when there’s weed and booze and club whores around to distract them and there was plenty of everything last night.

Whatever. They need to feel like this is home because for the foreseeable future, it is.

“I’ll get my gun.”

“Gray!” Raiden appeals to his prez as I duck back into my room.

I catch a glimpse of Lark’s lemon face and barely suppress a laugh. Not a mean one, but a laugh all the same. So far, just by existing, I’ve managed to piss everyone off to unthinkable levels.

Did they think I was just going to bail on the wedding after arriving here? It’s day eight and the hate is so much stronger than the past seven days I’ve been here, combined.

“Why’d you ask her to come? She’s not—” Raiden cuts himself off when I appear with my gun and holster. I wrap it around my torso, fitting it good and proper before I put my leather jacket in place overtop to hide it.

It’s the beginning of September and still hot here, but nothing like it is in New Mexico. I’m used to baking it out in leathers. Only idiots ride their bike without proper protection. It’s all fun and games riding in a t-shirt but get a serious case of road rash just the once, and you’ll be happy for the leather.

“Ready?”

Tyrant shoots me a hard look, Bullet grins, and Raiden would probably rather ride there upside down, getting his face worn clean off by the pavement than have me come, but tough taters for him.

Outside, we mount up. It’s not just men who get that true, hedonistic pleasure that comes from having a ton of power growling between your thighs. Being on a bike, owning it and the road, is almost a religious experience. I’ve been hooked since my first ride, my first lesson, the first Harley I bought myself. I’ve never had anything compare.

Before he kicks his bike to life, Raiden stretches out the brutal knots sleeping on the floor had to have left in his muscles. His t-shirt rides up, exposing a section of bronze skin and hard abs. I just saw him in nothing more than a towel, albeit a huge one, but somehow that sliver of skin hits me right between my thighs.

He slams his brain bucket on. The way he balances his bike makes those worn-in jeans do wonders for his rock-hard ass. He’s basically walking sex, but even that doesn’t distract me from noticing the golden slant of sunlight playing over the shadows on his face as he whirls his starts his bike and wheels it around.

Don’t any of his club brothers notice that he doesn’t smile and laugh nearly enough? Maybe it’s a recent development. The demons in his eyes say it’s not. But right now? There’s more light getting in than dark. He has that look on his face that so many other bikers get right before hitting the road. Even if it’s just for a short ride, it’s a freedom that nothing else compares to.

I suck in a breath and start my own bike to follow. Tyrant heads the pack, literally the golden child with the sunlight bathing him too, glinting off the ashy hair that flows out from under his helmet. He signals with his hand, that missing finger like a red flag right in front of my face. Even if I’d somehow been allowed to be involved in club business the night my dad and his men came to Hart, I couldn’t have stopped them from hurting my brother.

Tyrant carries power effortlessly. He doesn’t even have to try, and his men love him. Even in the midst of chaos, his world seems balanced. I have to admit how strikingly different his aura is from our father’s. Zale’s is more contrived, hard won through strength, blood, and violence. Even the way he’s addressed, while Tyrant is his club name, I notice that Raiden, his old lady, and a couple of the other men address him as Gray and he doesn’t seem pissed. It’s like he’s perfectly at ease with both facets of his persona—the outlaw MC president, and the man underneath.

Raiden follows Tyrant, but Bullet waves me ahead of him. I fall into line, riding through the quiet streets of Hart.

I think about how I want to approach my marriage going forward. I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t find my husband attractive. I’m an MC princess, but before that, I was a modern woman raised by another fierce warrior goddess soul. If I want to fuck my own husband, I damn well will and think none the less of myself for it.

I keep waiting for that slightly sick feeling to accompany thoughts of sex, but Raiden is nothing like the men of my past. Whatever I’ve experienced bodily and emotionally has no play here.

For once, the rumble of my bike between my legs is more of an annoyance than it is an enjoyment. It only enhances how empty I feel there. Raiden might not be so bad, but you shouldn’t sleep with the enemy. Then again, sleeping implies intimacy and trust. Fucking is an expenditure of energy that is often an absolute must to maintain sanity.

***

The range is situated out on the edge of the city, by Hart’s golf course. It’s pretty out here in a very different way from New Mexico. The air always smells like a forest, even in the city. The trees are all different and it’s obvious from the weather that there are mountains not so far in the distance. Even today, with the sun riding high and ruling a sea of blue, it doesn’t feel hot like it gets in Nevada, which is where I grew up and it certainly isn’t anything like the climate in Santa Fe, even though New Mexico has mountains too.

The range is all fenced off. There are outside targets, pits in the distance, and all sorts of things that are so much more delightful than just shooting at a piece of paper or cardboard. Burned out car husks and explosives happen to go wonderfully together. I imagine the office is more than just a building to get checked in, with lockers and paperwork. You can probably shoot in there too, given that Washington actually gets winter. It’s certainly big enough.

We don’t go into the office since we don’t have paperwork or check ins to do, and I guess accompanying the range’s owner means that you can skip the form filling. Bullet leads us through the main gate and locks it up. In some sort of silent agreement, he and my brother take the far lane, leaving Raiden with me.

Fuck, if that isn’t sweet. Who said bikers don’t have a sense of romance?

We get set up, eyewear and protective gear provided quickly by Bullet. Smoke’s going to be so pissed he missed an opportunity to shoot. I’ve never met anyone who loves weapons more than he does and that’s saying a lot considering I know quite a few guys down south turn into gleeful little boys when it comes time to use anything with a trigger.

I study Raiden’s choice of weapon while pretending I’m not. I really shouldn’t comment but I just can’t help myself. There’s something about my new husband that brings out the devil in me. Fitting, considering my new prez’s old lady thinks of me as Satan’s spawn.

“Nice Glock.”

Raiden wipes sweat off his brow. He’s paler out here under the sun. He should definitely have hydrated and had something to eat. Can’t imagine his head is doing anything less than getting set to self-destruct. Fuck, it’s almost like I care. I remind myself I’m not his real old lady and it’s of no concern of mine if he gets heatstroke or whatever.

“What’s wrong with a Glock?” His eyes bore into mine, his gaze steady despite the fact he looks like he was ridden hard and put away wet.

I push away the mental image that brought up and shed my leather jacket since I’m already sticky with sweat. The wind hits my soaked long-sleeve shirt, cooling me instantly. “Nothing, if you’re a cop.”

My husband’s jaw clenches and a flush of anger slowly creeps up his neck.

I palm my H&K VP9, squaring myself up with the target. I’ve been shooting for pretty much as long as I can remember. My mom would take me out to ranges owned by her friends and most of them got a kick out of teaching a kid to shoot and having her show up the grown men because she was good.

Everyone is behind me where they should be, I’ve got my protective gear on, so I’m good to go. I don’t want to do anything to piss Bullet off. He might never let me come back and then what am I supposed to shoot? Or should I say where?

I bite down on a grin as I unload all seventeen rounds—two extra, because I just got this gun last year and they updated some features recently. It’s overkill and the inner ring of the target is a shredded mess.

Raiden still has to taunt me as I click my safety back on and shed the gear. “Careful, princess, you might chip a nail.”

I glance down at my black nail polish then back up at him. “Fucking right I’m a princess, but it’s you who should be careful.” Tyrant and Bullet both have hearing protection firmly in place, so I go one step further than I know I should.

“Fucking excuse me?” Raiden hisses, crowding up on me.

I resist the urge to knee him right in the balls so he backs out of my personal space. Damaging my husband’s jewels probably isn’t a very wifely thing to do when he’s done nothing beyond being an asshole. Men out there that ever raise a hand to a woman or worse? They deserve to have them clean off, but that’s not this man. I don’t feel panic or disgust. There’s something about Raiden that screams that he’s honorable enough to respect a woman and kill any man who hurts her, even when he’s crowding in on me.

He notices me looking past him, watching my brother shoot. It’s his left hand that had the finger cut off. He can still do everything he used to do, including hold a gun. I wonder if Zale chose that on purpose? He wanted to make a point and send a message, not kill his own son. Satan’s Angels might think differently, but I know my father isn’t the monster they’ve made him out to be.

“Get close enough to your cunt father and you’ll have more to worry about than chipped nails.”

Ahh. We’re thinking along the same lines again. How quaint. “He doesn’t like traitors.”

Being witty and holding my own is one thing, but I told myself not to push too hard. Raiden’s rugged face goes scarlet. His dark eyes snap with an electric rage. I’ve pressed on a sore spot, and I know all about those. He looks angry enough to tear that office beside us apart with his bare hands.

The office, because he’d never truly lay a finger on me.

“Your father should do the world a favor and shoot himself in the fucking face then. He’s the reason I went to prison for five years. He made up the club’s mutiny all in his head. It was never a reality. He was jealous of his own son and the bond we had. Thought we had too much power and everyone liked us too much. He wanted to make sure one of us went away. He betrayed his club brothers and his oath, or is that not what you’ve heard?”

Inside, I’m reeling, but outside, I maintain my calm. I’ve had lots of practice. Being a woman in this world doesn’t leave a lot of time for public displays of emotion if you want to be taken seriously. I know how to be stoic. “I’ve heard that version, his version, and every single one in between.”

“This isn’t a version . It’s the truth. Your brother let Zale live when the club voted to put him to ground for his treason when they found out that it was him who set the whole thing up. Gray let him go, and on his word he was never going to return here. How does he repay that kindness? He comes back, calling it justice, and burns your brother’s house to the ground. He terrorized my sister and my niece and struck fear into the heart of every old lady and child that belongs to this club. They all had to be evacuated from their homes until we knew what the fuck was going on. He left Gray in some trapper’s cabin up in the mountains after torturing him for days, a fucking note stapled to his head. He had a doctor treat every single thing they did to him so they could do it all over again. He promised to keep him alive just so that the club could have their way with him for letting Zale live when he was told to take care of it. Gray truly thought he’d lost everything and everyone he loved. When I got those chains off him and put him in my truck to bring him home, told him he was still my brother, that we were all still behind him, he sobbed. Zale Grand did that to his own fucking son. That is the man you call Daddy.”

“I call him Prez too,” I retort lazily, but it feels like my chest is fracturing and my lungs are shot full of all those bullets I just put into that target. I didn’t drink last night, but I’m soaking my shirt with a cold sweat and my stomach is threatening to erupt. My father’s version of the events that led to him being ousted as president of Satan’s Angels MC was way different, and for a moment I wonder if I’ve misjudged these men.

“Raiden?” Bullet has noticed that there isn’t a whole lot of shooting going on over here and a fuck of a showdown. He motions for him to walk over. “Got a minute?”

My husband rolls his huge shoulders back in his black t-shirt, flexing the shit out of his leather vest. He curls his hand into a fist at his side, drawing my eyes straight to those numbers again. Twenty-two. I knew he’d done time, but I didn’t know what he’d gone away for.

That was something my father conveniently left out.

“Yeah. Coming.”

Bullet switches spots with him, either so Tyrant and Raiden can have their talk in private, or because the mounting tension is going to come to a head if he stays where he is.

As in, we probably look like we want to kill each other. At a range.

I don’t. I can’t look like that. I can’t look like anything . It’s easier to survive when you don’t have a weakness and people can’t get at you, so I’ve perfected it.

Raiden gives me his back, walking away with that bowed angel both protecting him and weeping for him. I feel betrayed in the worst way. What Raiden just told me wasn’t opinion, it was fact, and it was most definitely not the facts I’d heard.

How can I remain true to my dad and reconcile what happened here? What am I even doing here if there’s no justice to fight for? There’s peace because there needs to be peace, but I don’t know what my father’s plans are beyond that. I’ve always known he’s a dangerous and hard man—most one percenters are—but untrustworthy, dishonest, and a traitor?

That’s a heady revelation and I have to stand here pretending like the foundations of me didn’t just get an almighty shakedown.

I owe Tyrant, Raiden, and everyone else here in this club, everyone related to it and touched by it, an apology. That’s something I can’t do. It shouldn’t come from me anyway. I know that, but the guilt and the shame stay with me all the same, soaking into me and burning far hotter than the sun overhead.