Bullet steel reapers mc.., p.1
Bullet (Steel Reapers MC Book 1), page 1
Bullet
Book One in the Steel Reapers MC
Zahra Girard
Copyright © 2023 Zahra Girard
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Epilogue: Madison
Epilogue: Bullet
Foreword
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Prologue
Jackson
Four years ago
Covered in grease, in sweat, in the stink of exhaust, I meet the devil on my doorstep.
He says, "You're not worthy of her."
Those words raise my eyebrows, because that’s not something you hear every day. But I’m not surprised. Because the second the one who says that pompous phrase to my face shows up in the parking lot of my dad's garage, I know he is going to be trouble. Not just because of the look of his face, which on its own is a full-on provocation to bloody violence, but for the guns in the hands of the two barrel-chested bruisers walking in lockstep behind him.
Until this moment, I've been happy. No, more than happy—excited, proud, and in love. Because she's supposed to arrive soon and there's an important question burning in my heart. A very important question.
But I have a sinking feeling that's no longer happening. And that has me in the type of mood that could lead to those gun-toting bodyguards having to make some brutal decisions.
"Yeah, I know that already," I respond. "Know you're not worthy of her, either."
Which is true. She's worth more than either of us combined. Easily, without question.
"Oh, I know her worth. Know exactly what I paid for her, and I will get every cent of value out of her." He chuckles as if I should find it funny, as if it's not the creepiest thing I've heard in a long time, as if I don't want to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until the veins in his eyes burst and he's spitting drool and blood all over my grease-stained hands.
"You're the fiance, right? Alexander Covington?"
He nods, folding his hands casually in front of him as he stands beside me, eyes on my father's garage in a way that makes me want to puke up last night's pizza—pizza that I enjoyed with her—right at his feet. All over his loafers. Hell, I'd puke on his fucking perfectly pressed, immaculately creased pants, too. Then, if those gorillas weren't standing behind him, I'd bury a fist in his crotch—because a man like him doesn't deserve a fair fight—and then tear his throat out. "I am."
"Took you long enough to find out about me. For all the things she says about you, she never called you out as being stupid."
He laughs. It's not an actual laugh. It's a self-satisfied imitation of a laugh that makes me sick. "Oh, I knew about you from the beginning."
"You've been letting the woman you love run around with another man this whole time? What, you been away on a four-month business trip?"
"I don't love her. I just own her." He says it so casually, like it isn't fucking mystifying that anyone could say that about Maddy Sinclair. Just thinking that name puts more of a jolt in my heart than all the adrenaline in the world. "She's a means to an end, and your little fling was just a convenience for me."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"She's been very well behaved since she met you. You've kept her happy. Docile."
"Funny that I'd want to keep someone I love happy. Funny that it sounds like that concept is fucking alien to you."
"Watch your tongue," he says. A small inclination of his head is all it takes to make one of the gun-toting gorillas step forward.
"Watch yourself," I respond. "You're on my property."
"Your father's property."
"Either way, I'd be within my rights to beat you and your two babysitters until you're bleeding and begging for mercy."
"You know who I am. You know if you touch me, hell like you cannot even believe will rain down on you and everyone you love."
"So, why are you here? If you're going to ask for tips on how not to be a fucking psychopathic asshole, forget about it—you're a lost cause, so get the fuck off the property."
"I'm here because I found out she loves you," he says. It's slow, halting, as if that single word—love—so hates him it rebels against being formed by his tongue.
"Yeah, I love her. Is this going to be a man-to-man thing where we fight for her affection? Because I'd love that. Call off your dogs and let's settle this."
"I also know she was supposed to meet you here today."
"Was?" I blink. Maddy is due here in less than two hours, just before sunset.
"Obviously, things have changed. Because you're going to change them. I know she is hoping to run away with you. That can't be allowed to happen." His tone is both gloating and maddeningly businesslike. As if he's proud of something mundane, like getting a good price on caviar or whatever the fuck rich people like him care about.
"Oh, it can't, can it?"
"Not unless you want me to send Victor in to visit your father. Not unless you want your family home foreclosed on. Not unless you want every friend and loved one you have within the entire state to meet with considerable misfortune. Not unless you want her to get hurt. You see, I have someone watching her right now, though she doesn’t know about it, largely because that man is watching her through the scope of a rifle. I came prepared, Jackson Reid; I've made it my business to know everything about you ever since you put yourself in my business; I know every name, every address, everything there is to know about everyone you care about."
"What do you want?" I say, my teeth grind as rage fills my gut and my fists clench. In my mind, I wonder if I can get to this asshole and rip his throat out before his bodyguards can make a move.
As if he can read my mind, the rich man nods to Victor, who begins walking slowly toward the entrance to my father's garage. There's a radio playing inside the shop, loud music spilling out the open bay doors—Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast, one of my dad's favorites—and my dad won't hear a damn thing until it's too late because he's listening to the music at the appropriate, deafening volume.
"I said: what do you want?"
Still, the rich prick says nothing. Just smiles malevolently at me while his bodyguard walks even closer to my father's shop. In just seconds, Victor will be inside and my dad—the only family member I have, ever since my mom died years ago—will be dead. Murdered without even a chance to defend himself. His blood will pool to mix with oil and grime on the concrete beneath the 2009 Toyota 4Runner he's currently got up on the lift.
Victor stalks forward. His gun is no longer held in a limp grip at his side, but in a ready grip, his finger hovering over the trigger.
"What do you want? Tell me," I say with a harsh, harried voice. "Tell me what you want."
Still no answer.
Still Victor moves forward.
In just a blink, my father will be dead.
"Please. Tell me what you want."
He laughs. It's not happy, not joyous—it's mocking. It fills me with more hate than I've ever imagined. I don't just want to kill this man; I want to torture him; I want to make him scream and cry and beg just for me to finish the job. I've never felt this way about anything before—the hate I feel for this man, for Alexander, is as strong as the love I feel for Maddy.
It's agony saying that one word—please—but it’s worth it because it makes Victor stop.
Alexander allows himself a second to gloat. To stare down at me how only someone like him, someone raised with all the money in the world and none of the fucking humanity, can manage.
It makes me feel small. Petty. Murderous.
"I was beginning to wonder if someone as low class as you even knew that word. Good boy." He chuckles.
"So, what do you want?"
"It's not what I want. It's what I demand, Jackson Reid. See, I bought Madison Sinclair—she's mine. Not to share, not unless I choose to share her, but to possess wholly and completely. That can't happen with you around. So here is your choice: either leave town immediately, permanently, and do so without a single word to her or anyone you know, or you can watch me slowly tear apart the lives of anyone you’ve ever cared about."
"You want me to disappear without a trace? To let everyone think I'm dead?"
"This is your choice. I'm perfectly happy to torture and kill you and everyone you love. I just want you out of her life."
Alexander goes quiet then, watching me with that smug smirk on his face.
I go quiet, too. Thinking. About a lot of things: about whether I could kill him in time; about whether I could make enough noise over the sound of the radio to warn my dad; about whether anything I do would even matter against someone with as much wealth and influence as Alexander Covington—but mostly I think about her: Maddy. Her smile, her brilliant mind, her hopes, her dreams, her love. Could I bear even the risk of anything bad happening to her?
No. No, I can't.
"Disappear?" I say again. Not so much a question to him, but to myself. Can I really do it? It'd be better than putting all the people I care about through the worst that Alexander and Victor can imagine, but not by much. Everyone I love, everyone that loves me—especially her—will be left with that painful question: why? Why did I disappear? Why did I leave so suddenly, so painfully, without even having the decency to say goodbye?
They'll always wonder.
They'll always hurt.
And, eventually, those that hurt the most will have that feeling turn into hate. Like Maddy.
Eventually, she'll hate me.
Alexander knows this; he’s counting on it.
He smiles, as if my thoughts are clearly written on my forehead. "Disappear. Or suffer."
I have no options; he knows it; I know it.
But it doesn't make it any easier to say the words, knowing the hurt that I'll inflict on so many people. Especially her.
As my lips form those words, two certainties settle in my heart. First, that I will never stop loving her, no matter how much time passes.
And second, that my hate for Alexander Covington will never die.
"I'll disappear."
Chapter One
Madison
In a vast sea of people, I am drowning.
Drowning while surrounded by excitement, ambition, potential.
Drowning because I am absolutely terrified of the future.
Everyone here is about my age—all young and nervous, all with brighter futures than mine. Some aren’t as young as me; there’s a handful of people in their thirties and forties who also mingle among us, but my eyes gloss over them; it's the two older women in their sixties that catch my attention. They stand out from the crowd with their confident presence, even if they're distracting in the way they chat with each other. In fact, they seem to be having a better time than anyone else here. One of them wears a dazzling smile as she chuckles at something the other says and she holds a bubbling glass of champagne in each hand. Meanwhile, the dean drones on with his outline of how the graduation ceremony will go.
For me, it will be wonderful and terrible.
It is a new beginning, and an ending in the most awful way. Today’s event is only practice, prep work for the actual graduation, but I still feel as anxious as if I'd been asked to give the commencement speech and then shoved out on stage, seconds later, naked. With my parents in the front row, gleefully live-streaming it to everyone I’ve ever known, half the East Coast, and all my future employers.
I shudder just thinking about it.
And shrivel inside, thinking about what my mother's reaction would be to seeing my tattoo. It's in a place that she'll never see, except in those terrifying nightmare visions where I'm stark naked.
But if she ever should ever learn of it, the repercussions would never end.
"You okay? You're buzzing. Like you're some ghost about to blip out of reality," says a voice to my left. Elena. My best friend.
"I'm fine. Just really excited. I can't believe graduation is just a month away," I say. "Now, shut up. I have to pay attention to the dean's notes. He's announcing the marching order, so it's important."
"Bet you anything it's alphabetical. It's always alphabetical," says a voice to my right. Ashley. My other closest friend.
My friends, Elena Rivera and fiery-haired Ashley Miner, flank me on each side, radiating energy and anticipation. No, they're more than just friends—they're my greatest supporters and as close to me as my family.
As the dean wraps up his relentless, important droning, Elena leans over to my ear.
"Drinks later?" She whispers.
From my right comes Ashley. "Definitely, you're doing drinks with us, Maddy. I have a contact, someone you should meet, and I can ask him to come out with us tonight. He's a friend of my guy. He's connected. Could get you one of those paid internships you're always asking about. He owes me."
"Owes you cause you had sex with him?" Elena hisses across me, grinning wickedly.
"Whatever it takes to get ahead," Ashley retorts. “Sometimes you got to give head to get ahead, or so that saying goes.”
Elena gasps playfully. "You unrepentant slut."
"He was hot. The attraction was mutual. I'd do it again, too. He liked to reciprocate, and he really knew what he was doing down there."
I lean forward, inserting my face between the two of them. Some of Ashley's wild, flaming red hair tickles my nose and nearly makes me sneeze, but I suppress it just in time. "Will you two quit talking about sex? And of course I'm in for drinks. I'm done with almost all my coursework. All I have left is revising my thesis, and even that is going well. So I want to celebrate until my brain cells are begging me for mercy. First round of shots is on me."
Both Elena and Ashley giggle, but then Ashley tugs on my sleeve. I look at her, and see her eyes fixed off to the corner of the auditorium. It only takes a second to see what she's looking at. Or who she's looking at. My stomach twists itself into a knot in the most unwelcome way.
"I didn't think he'd show," Elena says, noticing my gaze and giving me a consolatory pat on the shoulder. “Sorry, Maddy.”
"This isn't his type of thing. Being supportive, I mean," I add. “I wonder why he’s here.”
"Still looks handsome, though," Ashley says. "Even if he's a dick, at least he's not an ugly one. And he keeps himself clean. Ugly dicks are just gross. And ugly, unwashed dicks are the worst of all."
I sigh. It's true. Alexander Covington, my husband-to-be-but-not-by-my-choice, is anything but unattractive. Standing in the crowd, wearing his bespoke Italian suit, Rolex that costs more than a car, with his dark blond hair immaculately combed and restrained by just the right amount of pomade, Alexander Covington may stand among the crowd, but he stands above it, too. Every inch of his six-feet-and-change appearance reeks of filthy rich power.
He catches my eye and makes an abrupt 'come on' gesture.
I frown at him.
He frowns back, deeper.
"Should I ignore him?" I voice aloud.
I'd love to. Just to watch the apoplexy overtake his face with a deep shade of enraged purple. Maybe his eyes would bug out. Oh, maybe he'd have an aneurysm and die.
Wouldn't that be grand?
It really would.
For all of a minute. Just enough time for me to dance in victory and then call my parents to tell them that the greatest hope of saving their real estate business just spontaneously died.
"Yes," Elena says. "Ignore his ass. Come out with us. You don't owe him shit."
That last sentence comes out far less convincing than the rest of them. She knows my financial situation—and that of my parents—as well as anyone.
