Tyrant (Satan’s Angels MC #1)

Chapter 13

Tyrant

I don’t like that Bullet had other clients at the range all morning. He was right that he couldn’t just lock them out or cancel on them without reason. I couldn’t go above and beyond with my demands. He assured me he’d spend all his time with Lark personally. It’s a high honor because he has a few of the brothers who work here with him, but none know their way around a weapon like he does. I would trust them with Lark, but not the way I’d trust Bullet.

For the past hour, I’ve watched him be beyond patient and careful with her. Lark was unsure at first, even with beginner handguns. She was scared, I could see from where I’ve been hanging back in the shadows like a first-rate stalker, but with Bullet’s coaxing and his calm demeanor, she quickly lost her fear and she even started enjoying herself.

The first time she hit the bull’s-eye on the paper target, she let out a cry of delight. Even with hearing protection on, that shout of pure delight and wonder attracted quite a bit of extra male attention.

Vigil and Steel are monitoring the other clients shooting. The explosive part of the range has to be specially booked and it’s expensive, so most people just bring their own weapons and have fun with targets.

A few guys in their early twenties were shooting targets until something else, or rather, someone else, came on their radar. There’s less shooting now and more checking out Lark than I’d like.

Still, I stick to the shadows back in the office, watching out the window. I never told Bullet what I was doing here, and he never asked. Everyone knows Lark is Raiden’s little sister. My connection to her would never come into question. I want to be here? I’m welcome.

These little fucks? Not so much.

At least, they won’t be if they can’t take their eyes off my woman. I don’t know them, but I’m going to make it my business to know every single detail if they continue to ogle her and nudge each other, talking not so discreetly.

Finally, one of them gets brave. He’s all swaggering, blond, blue-eyed bravado. Probably played football and fucked his way through all the cheerleaders in high school and hasn’t done anything with his life but live those glory days.

He’s got that clean, pretty boy, jock look that I’d like to make not so pretty with my fist.

Still. Control. I will damn well have control. The range isn’t my domain. Bullet will handle this accordingly.

Lark is finished shooting and I can tell they’re going to move on to something else. She removes her hearing protection, as does Bullet beside her. He frowns at the cocky fuckface for encroaching on their space and walking around during shooting. I can’t hear what he says, but the fucker shakes his head. He motions to Lark. I try to read his lips, but I’m pretty much shit at that. I can tell from the way her cheeks go pink and the way she shakes her head, that should be the end of it.

It’s not.

This prick can’t take a hint. He puts on his most charming smile and keeps talking. Keeps trying to ooze charm and let his good looks stand for himself. Lark isn’t impressed. Bullet figures she can handle herself and heads over to replace the gun and choose another. He’s only a few feet away. Lark is in no danger, but she wants to end the conversation. Pretty Boy doesn’t get the hint and reaches out a hand to try and graze her arm. She steps back, face confused and thunderous. She shakes her head and the fucker advances on her.

No goddamn way am I going to stand by and let that shit go.

I charge out of the office, the door banging so hard against the wall as it flies open that it sounds like a gunshot itself.

Pretty Boy’s group of friends has gone back to focusing on shooting. They all have hearing protection on, and they don’t see me coming, but Lark sees me. Her mouth drops open, shocked that I’m here. Bullet turns, takes one look at my face, and tries to step in the way, giving the little prick time to escape. He might have stood a chance, because it takes me a few seconds to brush off my club brother and get past him, but obviously the only thing this guy has going for him are his good looks. He doesn’t have a single working brain cell.

He doesn’t run, let alone even back down. He stares stupidly at me charging up on him, but that expression quickly morphs to one of sheer pain as I grab a handful of that golden hair and yank. He goes down, his legs buckling. He scrabbles at my hand, trying to claw me off. I gaze down at his eyes, popping out of his skull, glazed over with fear, but I feel no satisfaction.

“I’m removing this trash, Bullet. Right fucking now. Get his things, please, and see him out with me.”

Bullet shakes his head at me, but he does as I ask.

I literally drag the fucker through the gravel, over the strip of grass, and over to the locked gate in the fence. I’m not taking him through the office. Not when his feet are flailing all over the place, liable to make a mess.

I vaguely hear Lark scream my name, but I’m too far gone to stop. I wait for Bullet to get the lock open on the chain link gate and resume my dragging.

“What the hell?” Pretty Boy says. “Who are you, man? I didn’t do anything! Let go of me!”

I haul him up by his hair ripping a clump out in the process, the prick clutches at his head and screams like I’ve just beaten him half to death. I wish. But alas, he hasn’t really done anything to deserve having his face smashed in or his fingers broken. I might wish I could sit him down and subject him to a few hours of chains and hammers, but even out of my head at seeing him try to touch Lark, I know that there’s a limit and as prez, I set the boundaries and the laws, but I don’t cross them. Going off unhinged and acting in his own interests is something my father would have done.

“Who am I?” I growl into Pretty Boy’s face when he’s on his feet, blood trickling down his face from his scalp. “That just proves how stupid you are. You’re on Satan’s Angels MC property. That woman you tried to touch against her will? She’s one of ours. We ever see your face around here again, you won’t have much of one left, you get me?”

“I- I- I wasn’t doing anything. Just talking to her. I was just flirting. We were having a good time.”

“You were having a good time. Her body language was telling you to fuck off and you weren’t about to take a hint. Learn to listen.”

I shake the prick hard and release him, letting him stagger away. He goes beyond pale when he notices the blood on his fingertips. He points a finger at me even as Bullet brings out his gun, safely stored in its case. No doubt he removed all the bullets in case the stupid fucker got any ideas. “You’re a psycho, you know that? You could have just asked me to leave.”

“This was me asking you nicely.” I make the scoot motion with my fingers, heavy steel rings flashing in the sun. “Leave before I fill you in on what the not so nice version looks like.”

Bullet stands at my shoulder as we watch Pretty Boy scramble for his truck. It’s a big, shiny, jacked up vehicle, new within the last few years. Probably cost more than many houses in Hart. Spoiled. Entitled. He nearly loses control and hits a parked car as he careens out of the parking lot.

It’s not until he’s long gone that Bullet clamps a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“I agree that kid was a stupid little shit, but dragging him out like that? I’m going to get angry calls.”

“I’ll handle it,” I bark, still feeling half rabid. Part of me wants to chase that truck down, jump on the back, climb up, plunge a knife into the roof to can opener it like they do in movies, haul the kid out, and finish that beating.

“Prez? You’re practically frothing at the mouth.”

To prove it, I literally snap my teeth at the group of Pretty Boy’s friends hustling out of the range. They aren’t going to test their luck by sticking around. They want out of there and fast, with their hair intact.

Bullet is looking at me strange, so I give him a half truth. He saw me perilously close to losing my shit, and he’s right. It was basically over nothing. I have more control than this. In fact, I have impeccable control. I don’t allow anyone to rile me. I’ve actually infuriated most people by being so stoic.

“She’s Raiden’s kid sister. I know she’s not a kid anymore, but for as long as she’s in Hart, she’s under my protection. Would you let some shit like that touch your daughter? Your woman?”

Bullet just shakes his head again. He’s not much for words. He also doesn’t have a woman or a daughter.

He wears a black watch on his wrist, an ugly plastic thing that looks like it came out of a twenty-five cents machine. We’ve all tried to get him something new, but he loves it and now he waves it at me.

“Isn’t there a meeting you’re supposed to be at?”

“Not for another twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes was probably up twenty minutes ago, but I kept pushing the time back, wanting to watch Lark for just a few minutes longer. She was mesmerizing when she was having fun. My own personal siren. I was lost to her.

“Tyrant!” My club name on her lips says far more about how angry she is than the sound of her voice alone.

Seeing her stalking towards me, full of barely contained fury, reminds me why I’ve been consumed with desire for her for years. Lusting isn’t the right word. Not by half. It’s not just her body that I want. It’s that spirit.

Once, she lit up when I entered the room. Now, I bring out all the extreme emotions for her. There’s nothing level about how she looks me up and down out here in the parking lot.

Bullet clears his throat. “Got a few people still left in there to supervise until we resume our lessons.” He leaves me to deal with the mess I’ve made.

She looks way up at me, face tight with anger. “That was uncalled for, you know that already.”

“I—”

“Hold on. No.” She silences me quickly. “How could you do that? Why not just stick a ‘Property of Tyrant’ sign on my forehead?”

“Can I?” I drop my face closer so I can drink in the lovely scent of her body mixed with smoke and powder from the range.

She steps back quickly, her mouth a flat, unimpressed line. She knows that I was smelling her, and she can’t hide the way her own breathing just kicked up a notch. “What is wrong with you?”

“The list would probably be shorter—”

“You embarrassed me! I’m able to take care of myself, at least as far as light flirting from annoying assholes go. I’m so thankful for what you did as a club with our yard and for my mom, but this? Arranging with my brother to drop me off here and for goodness knows what other training? No. I’m not someone you boss around or make arrangements for. You have to talk to me first. And losing your shit over some douchebag? You need to dial it in. Immediately.”

It’s so hot how she’s no longer afraid to tell me how it is and how it’s going to be. Very few people might get to do that, but I’m so far gone for her that I’m not going to put up a fight.

She switches from anger to ice in an instant, her eyes clouding over. “There’s something else… something—what you just did—it made me think of Jordan Thatche.”

I didn’t expect to have this out now and not in a public place. I get my guard up fast.

“He disappeared,” she continues. “I heard about it, but it had been two years. I thought that you couldn’t possibly have been involved. Were you? Did you do something to him?”

A wicked, dark sensation writhes inside of me. I’m back in her space, fast. I don’t touch her, but the rapid movement shocks her. I whisper near her ear in a low, half-crazed growl. “No one touches you. I cut off his hands for trapping you and thinking he could touch you. Snapped his fingers off one by one.”

Lark pales like she’s going to be sick. Her legs give out and I snatch her up under her armpits, holding her upright. She’s ashen, but she needs to hear the rest. “Wasn’t jealousy or madness. I hired a PI because any fuck who corners a woman is probably sick and depraved and needs watching. He didn’t have a criminal record, so he was flying under the radar. My guy caught him trying the same thing again with some young, na?ve girl. Before he could do anything, the guy kicked the door in and knocked him out. He did the right thing and let the law have him, but you know how that goes. The law fails. There was no concrete evidence that he was going to harm anyone. We watched. We waited. The bastard was a predator. It took him over a year and a half to get brave enough to make his next move, but when he trapped a fifteen-year-old girl in an alley, we were done watching and waiting.”

“S-still.” Her teeth chatter as she sucks in air noisily through her nostrils. She can’t look at me even though I’m still bearing all her weight. “You’re not a vigilante. You can’t just decide who lives and dies.”

“Where you’re concerned, I can, and I will. No one will hurt you. No one gets to touch you. No one will even look at you the wrong way.”

“This alpha male shit might be hot to some other women, but I’m not into it. And Christ, Penny doesn’t need a male role model in her life who thinks it’s okay to maim, torture, and kill. That’s exactly what I was talking about when I said that—”

I should hear her out, but I just can’t. I’m too infuriated. “No one will ever touch you or my daughter, and she is my daughter. I’m not just going to be a role model. Not going to say after this or after that, Lark, because waiting on more pain for you and Raiden is just wrong. But whenever you give me the chance, I’ll be proud to claim her. I’m waiting on that day because it’s my honor and I want to be in her life. That’s not alpha male anything,” I pause, trying to gather my words carefully and not just run on anger. “And Thatche, do you have any idea what a near miss that was? I should have gone immediately when I got the fucker’s name and address and beat his motherfucking skull into pulp. I waited almost two years to prove to myself that I was doing the right thing. It never should have happened to you, and I made sure it will never happen to anyone else.”

I look into the twin mirrors of her eyes because I’m no coward, but I still flinch inwardly when I see disgust and fear.

“This is too much.” She looks like she wants to run all the way back across the country. I’m not going to let it happen.

“I come back because my mom is dying and everything is going to change. My dad will need family like he never has before. But my life? It’s changed so much I barely recognize it. Most of my friends have left and started lives elsewhere. Hart is a completely different place with you running it. I have no idea what I’d do for work here or how I’d support myself or where I’d live. I have a life back- back there. It’s not here. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She’s lashing out and I let her without stopping her this time. I hear her fear and grief. It’s a lot of change and it’s happening far too quickly.

We both know she’s staying.

She’s pissed at me and pissed off about the inevitability of death coming fast. It’s an enemy I can’t fight for her, but I can be there for her, even from a distance.

She shoves me away, standing on her own strength. “You said you’d leave me alone while I need it most. Please, just continue to do that.”

I’m not going to bristle with fury over that. I’m not. I wouldn’t like it if someone started ordering my life around. I can protect her quietly if that’s what she needs.

“I want your word. Promise me you’ll stop interfering with my life.”

“Lark… Penny is my daughter.”

“Yes, but I don’t know how I want to deal with that yet.” Her eyes devour my face, searching for a crack or a sign that I’m sorry for the things that I’ve done. She’s not going to find it.

“I’m a dangerous man and I was no less dangerous when you took me between your thighs and made me yours.”

“Then let me renounce you.” Her eyes glisten with unshed tears and her chest heaves. “I don’t want you, Gray. I don’t want Tyrant. I don’t want any of you.”

“Yeah? That so?” That’s straight up bullshit. I might have changed, but the Lark I knew wasn’t a liar.

Her jaw juts out and she dodges past me, ending the conversation by giving me her back. “That’s so,” she whispers in a half-broken sob, still trying not to cry.

She pulls her phone out and calls Raiden. She stands erect, pretending I’m not there while she waits. I let her, until I see Henry and Mabel’s sedan round the corner. I turn and head back into the office before Raiden can ask why I’m here and not at the meeting at City Hall or before he takes one look at Lark’s face and then at me and decides that he should beat me into the ground for upsetting his sister.

The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Lark. I hate seeing her cry. She’s struggling. She doesn’t need me to make things harder. Penny might be my daughter, but Lark’s sent a clear message. She doesn’t have to like everything about who I am or about club life, but she doesn’t trust me with our daughter. One day of redemption isn’t enough to prove to her that I’m not a monster. It’s going to take more than sorting out her mom’s gardens to do that.

I think she’d agree in the end that a predator getting put to ground before he hurt, raped, or killed a woman is maybe justified, even if vigilante justice is still reprehensible, but the murder of my father? Lark is never going to see past that.

She needs the truth, and I just can’t give it to her. Not yet and probably not ever.

The thought of losing her and Penny makes me wild. Choked. I can’t catch my breath. I want to punch the wall in this office and not stop until there’s nothing but studs left. I flex my hand and shake it out, resisting the temptation to even make a fist. I need to get it together and keep it together. That includes not turning into a wild animal and learning what it means to wait. I can’t just take what I want. All I can do is be here, the same man I always was, and hope Lark somehow sees me.