Unlawfully Yours (Lawless MC #1)

31

“Any leads yet on Kit Lawson’s shooting?” I ask Ryan. After Myles told me that Tobias Grimes admitted to having a hand in the shooting, I’m more determined than ever to find something, anything to pin The Cobras to the crime.

“No, but we did get something on Brad Levins.”

“Really? What is it?”

“Autopsy took a little longer because the cause of death took a while to be determined. He didn’t just drown. He was already dead when he hit the water.”

Ryan pulls out a handful of photographs from a brown envelope and spreads them across the desk. “See this mark?” He points to a mark on the side of Levins’ head. “He was punched hard enough to knock him out and there’s a gash to the back of his head from where he hit the ground. But look closer to the mark on his temple.”

There’s a small circular indentation embossed in his skin. “What is that? It looks like a mark from someone’s ring?”

“Like a signet ring or something, right?” He pulls out another image, an enhanced close up of the mark. “What does that look like to you?”

“A… A snake.”

“As in The Cobras. If we can prove that ring belongs to one of Grimes’ crew, could be what we need to bring down their entire crew. Being linked to a murder isn’t a good look, especially since Grimes only just got out of prison.”

I brace my hands on the desk, taking in a deep lungful of air as I go light-headed, the picture in front of me of Levins’ temple and that indentation in his skin turning fuzzy.

I know exactly who owns a ring like that. I saw it up close and too fucking personal for my liking. My heart thuds in my chest as blood whooshes in my ears because that ring doesn’t belong to a Cobra. I wish it did, because the patch on the back of the man’s jacket who owns that ring doesn’t bear a snake.

It bears a skull .

My car skids to a stop, the tyres letting out a squeal as I slam it in park outside Lawless’ clubhouse. I didn’t bother to change out of my uniform before I left the station, I was too focused. Too angry .

He lied to me.

He looked me in the eye and fucking lied to my face. After everything we’ve been through together, everything I thought was true has come into question. Was any of what he said to me the truth? Was any of our time together real?

I climb out and slam the door closed as I make my way towards the building.

“Is Myles inside?” I ask one of the younger looking members I’ve never seen before as he fiddles with his bike or front.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he replies.

I burst through the door and the raw masculine scent is thick in the air, mixed with beer, cigarettes and the faint scent of cologne. I scan the room as every single head snaps to me, the room falling silent.

Jett and Killian are the only two I recognise amongst the half a dozen men in the room. There’s an older guy sat on the sofa across from me, his brows pulled tight as he takes me in.

One of them rises to the left of me and I don’t have to look at his face to know who it is, I can feel the hatred radiating off him as he nears me.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Hostility drips from Vaughn’s words. “You’re not welcome here, bitch ,” he spits, his face hovering inches away from mine, the look in his eyes is venomous.

I square up to him, just like I did in the hospital outside Kit’s room. I’m still not afraid of this prick. “Get out of my way, Vaughn.”

I turn to move further into the room but his hand wraps around my forearm, wrenching me backwards, though he doesn’t notice my other arm swing around until my fist collides with his face. Hard .

“Oh shit! ” I hear Killian chokes out as a collective gasp fills the room.

I’m as shocked as everyone else by my own strength, the force of the blow ricocheting up my arm. Sweeping his legs out from under him, I tackle him to the ground, my foot pressed between his shoulders blades and his arm bent backwards. He groans uncomfortably from the angle of his arm. I could break it so easily and I won’t lie and say I wouldn’t feel the slightest bit of pleasure if I did. Because I would. I’d enjoy it very fucking much.

My eyes catch the sovereign ring on the middle finger of his right hand, giving me further confirmation of what I already knew.

He killed Brad Levins.

I press more of my weight onto his back, leaning over him. “You ever touch me like that again, I’ll have your ass in jail quicker than you can blink. Lawless or not, I’ll make sure you rot in a prison cell.”

“Allie!” My head whips around to find Myles standing in the middle of the room. I’m not sure how long he’s been standing there, but judging by the way his eyes flick from me to Vaughn, surprise and concern taking hold of his features, it couldn’t have been for very long.

I release Vaughn’s arm and back away as Vaughn jumps to his feet. His face murderous as he takes a menacing step towards me.

“Venom, don’t you fucking dare,” Myles warns, pinning him with his eyes.

“You need to put your bitch on a leash, Prez ,” he sneers.

“And you need to back off like a good little lapdog just like Master told you,” I quip, sarcasm laced in my voice.

Out the corner of my eye, Kill slaps a hand over his mouth, stifling a laugh that threatens to slip through. Jett wears a smirk that tells me he’s impressed, the others sit in a state of shock, their eyes darting between the two of us, not entirely convinced they believe what they’re witnessing.

I turn back to Myles. He eats up the space between us and takes my wrist, dragging me down a narrow corridor before thrusting me into a bedroom.

“What the fuck, Allie?”

“ What? Did you not expect me to stand up to your bully boy out there? You can’t seriously be mad at me right now? Vaughn’s a brute and I won’t have it.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that,” he sighs, rubbing his forehead.

“And I don’t know why you’re so mad when you’ve been lying to me for weeks.”

“ I’ve been lying?” He scoffs, shaking his head, mumbling inaudibly under his breath “Who the fuck are you?”

I blink a few times, not sure how to respond to that. “What?”

“ Who are you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You know who I am.”

“What’s your father’s name? You’re real dad? What was his name!” he shouts.

“ Strong! Thomas Strong! Why?”

“Fuck…” He swallows hard, perching on the edge of the bed, scrubbing a hand over his stubbled jaw back and forth like he’s thinking.

“What’s going on?” I ask, waiting for him to explain what the hell is happening right now. “Myles?”

He rises from the bed and takes my hand in his, tugging me out of the room and back down the corridor.

Every two of my steps match one of his as I desperately try to keep up with his pace as he pulls me behind him. “Will you please tell me what’s going on? Myles! ”

“Ray, with me,” he says, dragging me into another room, closely followed by the older man I saw earlier.

The room is fairly large, a huge wide wooden table with a half a dozen or so chairs surrounding it. The door closes behind us and the two men turn to me.

“Allie, this is Ray,” Myles introduces. “Ray, this is Allison. Allison Strong.”

Shit . He knows who I am.

The older man’s eyes are soft as they search my face, widening with a recognition that I don’t share. His eyes flit over my face curiously. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he mutters, putting out a hand to steady himself.

What the hell is going on?

“Is someone going to explain what the hell is happening right now because I have no idea.”

Myles studies me, his face morphing from anger to confusion. “You really don’t know do you?”

“I wouldn’t be asking if I did.” That sickly feeling of being surrounded by people who clearly know more than you do curdles in my stomach.

Myles begins searching through a bookcase to the right of me, pulling out a photograph and dropping it onto the huge oak table that commands the entire room.

I lean over the table, getting a closer look at the photo. It’s a photo of four men, all in matching leather kuttes. Judging by the hairstyles, the photo must have been taken sometime in the eighties.

“There were four founding members of Lawless MC back in eighty-five. Four best friends. Jacob Lawson, Ray Compton, Marcus Carver and Thomas Strong.”

What?

My eyes lift to Myles’, my jaw dropping open. “My dad was Lawless?”

He nods.

“I had no idea.” I drop into the chair behind me as my knees threaten to buckle out from under me.

“What do you know about your dad?”

“Not much aside from flickers of images here and there. The only thing I do remember is watching him die. I was in the car, he was on his phone, trying to call my mom but she wasn’t answering. He told me to stay in the car and he got out, went across the street. Then the next thing I know, there are gunshots and my dad’s on the floor. I didn’t even think to look left or right as I ran across the road to him.” As I speak, the images are vivid in my brain, as if it only happened yesterday. “I pulled his head onto my lap and I—” My voice cracks as a tear slips free. “What do you know about my dad? And my mom?”

“Your dad was the best of us, a guy every single one of us hoped to be,” Ray says wearing a smile, but there’s a sadness there. “He was my best friend.”

I smile at that.

“Back then, Lawless were on good terms with The Cobras, mainly because of their leader, Christopher Grimes, Tobias’ dad. He was a good man,” Ray continues. “Tobias on the other hand was, is , a live wire, he was abrasive, abusive, manipulative. He was the VP at the time, though he thought he was the leader the way he acted.”

“Okay, but what does all this have to do with my dad?” I press. I’m all for a history lesson, but I want to know about my parents.

“Turns out Christopher had a daughter from an affair he’d had outside his marriage. Her mom had recently died and she came to Hillcrest to find her estranged family.”

Myles swallows thickly. “Her name was Amelia.”

Amelia? My heart stops. “No…”

“She’s your—”

“No!” I leap from my chair, cutting off Myles. “Don’t say it. Don’t you dare tell me that I’m related to him .”

Myles says no more, but deep down I know the truth, but it’s a truth I’m not sure I can handle.

Tobias Grimes is my uncle.

I feel sick.

“I don’t understand. I looked into Tobias, there was no mention of a sister.”

“Christopher was never named on Amelia’s birthday certificate, so there was no record of them ever having been related. She showed up not even a year before she met your dad at one of their parties,” Ray says. “Back then, us and The Cobras hung out from time to time, had some good times together. Tom and Amelia fell hard for each other the second they locked eyes. They were inseparable. Tobias was very possessive over his sister and he hated that she’d fallen in love with one of us. Within a few months, she fell pregnant with you. Christopher was ecstatic, but Tobias didn’t share that same excitement. After you were born and he and your mom got married, Tom started to distance himself from the club, being a part of it wasn’t as important to him as it once was, his priority was you and your mom, keeping you both safe.

“As Christopher became sick, it was increasingly apparent that his days were numbered and Tom and Amelia both knew what would happen once Tobias took over The Cobras, free to reign however he pleased. He’d go after all of you. So your parents agreed to leave, to go somewhere out of her brother’s reach. Christopher died sooner than they anticipated and Tobias unsurprisingly became President. They were set to leave with you that day when…”

“When he was killed,” I finish.

My head is spinning at a million miles an hour, so much information is making me dizzy.

“It was Tobias, wasn’t it?”

Ray bows his head, confirming what I already knew.

“Yeah.” Myles nods.

“I remember being on the floor, holding my dad’s head when a bike rumbled past. I’d forgotten about it until that day I arrested you when we first met. I saw The Cobras’ patch, the snake coiled around a dagger, it was the patch on the back of the man’s jacket who rode past. He was smiling, like he was happy.”

“Tobias has never been one for subtlety,” Myles comments.

“That’s why I came back here,” I say. “I came to Stillwater to find out what really happened to my parents. What do you think happened to my mom? She never showed up that day. Why didn’t she come?”

“Maybe Tobias got to her first?” Myles offers.

“Do you think she’s still alive?”

“I honestly don’t know. Nobody has seen her in twenty years.”

If she is still alive, what kind of life has she had? Is she happy?

I hope so.

“I can’t believe I never knew any of this.”

In the space of a few minutes, my entire life has been turned upside down and I don’t know what to think anymore.

“It’s what was agreed when you were adopted. Your adoptive parents agreed to never speak a word, to keep you from Stillwater and away from Grimes,” Ray says.

“You know Kate and Jeremy?”

“Tom and Amelia made me swear to never speak a word to anyone and for twenty years I haven’t to keep you safe. Kate went to school with your mom, they were best friends as children. Your parents made it clear should anything happen to them, custody was to go to Kate and her husband. They lived far enough away that it would be harder for Grimes to find you and as far as your mom was aware, her brother knew nothing about her friends growing up, they were the perfect option to keep you safe.”

“But if Grimes wanted to find me, with technology as good as it is, surely it wouldn’t have been that hard to track me down?”

“I had a friend from my army days who worked at the FBI. He managed to pull some strings to help hide you. Wipe all traces of you after your dad died. Got your surname changed after you were adopted and had your parents’ Wills destroyed so Grimes would never find you. Gave you a whole new identity so if he ever came looking, there would be no trace of you at all.” Ray goes to say more but his phone buzzes and he pulls it from the inside pocket of his cut-off denim jacket. “Damn, I’m being summoned.”

“Rita still got you on that leash, Ray?” Myles asks.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. It gets shorter and shorter every day.” Ray rises from his seat with a groan.

Myles snorts and I can’t help smiling.

Ray turns to me. “It is so good to see you again, Allison, even if you don’t remember me.”

“It’s good to meet you, and thank you for filling in all the blanks, it’s refreshing to have someone tell me the truth for the first time in my life.”

“You’re welcome, and I’m looking forward to getting to know you better. I could tell you so many stories about your parents, but it’d take hours.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have time on my side.”

“Take care of this one,” he says to Myles with a kind smile.

Myles closes the small distance between us and, taking me by surprise when he bends to stop a kiss to the top of my head. “Oh, I intend to.”