Chapter One
With a twist of his wrist, Magnum downed the rest of his whiskey, slapped the shot glass on the worn, scarred table in front of him, planted his boots onto the floor and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
He did this all while staring at the young blonde across his bar. That was right, his fucking bar.
He knew she wasn’t scouting.
He knew she wasn’t gathering intel.
Why she would show up at Dirty Dick’s, his club’s bar, he had no fucking clue.
Why she would sit down and make herself at home in the Dark Knights MC hangout, he didn’t know.
While he needed to find out, he was in no rush to see what her angle was. Fuck no, he’d wait a bit and see how it all played out.
His club brothers were eyeballing her, but none had been stupid enough to approach. So far.
Why? Because they all knew who she was. And like Magnum, had no idea why she was there.
But it spooked the ones who knew who her father was. A member of an ally MC, the Dirty Angels.
She was young when Magnum first met her and now, even ten years later, she was still too young.
One good reason to avoid her should be her father being a member of another MC.
Add the fact that she didn’t grow up in that MC. Fuck no, she grew up in a rich neighborhood, attending private schools. Attending a good college.
The problem was, she was his type. Long legs, long blonde hair, green eyes and fair skinned. Not to mention—and hard to ignore—curves in all the right places. So, he couldn’t help but watch her for the past few years. Once she became legal, of course.
Because he did not fuck, or even eye-fuck, jailbait. Never had, never would.
It wasn’t her youth which drew him, anyway. Once she’d matured and filled out, it was those very curves, the confidence she carried and her capture-your-soul green eyes she pointed at him.
But even then, he had only watched her. At poker runs, at the DAMC parties, at the Toys for Tots drives, at Ellie Walker’s fundraisers for the Walker Foundation, which helped needy amputees.
He’d seen her at them all.
But he’d kept his distance. For the most part.
And for good reason.
But why had he caught her attention?
He had no fucking clue. Because they couldn’t be more opposite.
Was she still too young? Fuck yeah.
Did he want her anyway? Fuck yeah.
Was it smart? Fuck no.
But his undeniable interest in Caitlin was a no-fucking-go.
Not unless he wanted to cause a war.
For almost the last decade, shit had settled, and the Knights had made strong allies. Not only with the Angels, but also with the Blood Fury MC up north.
Between the three clubs, they ruled the western half of Pennsylvania. So currently, life was easy.
It wouldn’t remain that way by Cait showing up solo at Dirty Dick’s.
Dawg was protective of his daughters, whether they were five or twenty-five. Whether he claimed them at birth or at almost fifteen.
You did not fuck with a brother’s daughter, whether from your own MC or another’s. At least not without getting permission first.
And if you approached that brother, you’d better be damn sure you planned on taking that relationship seriously. You did not approach a brother just to ask to bang Daddy’s little girl. Fuck no. Not if you wanted to keep, not only your throat intact, but your nuts securely in your sac.
So, it made him wonder why the fuck she walked into his bar and sat at one of his tables.
He waited to see if any of his brothers dared to approach, in case she was there to meet one of them.
What was fucking crazy, she didn’t even scan the room. Not once. She’d walked in, sat at an empty table and, after one of his girls took her order and returned with a drink, she took a long swallow and then stared at it with her eyebrows pinned together.
This did not give him the warm fuzzies. Especially with someone as outgoing and outspoken as Cait.
He raised his hand and motioned Nina over.
Nina hurried over to him, ran her long pointy nails across the skin at the back of his neck and asked, “What do you need, Big Daddy?”
For fuck’s sake, Nina had been trying to get his dick for months now. She wasn’t going to do it by calling him Big Daddy. She wasn’t going to do it at all. Nina wasn’t his type. He did not lean towards females with dark hair, dark eyes and dark skin.
Fuck no.
His tastes ran elsewhere.
His eyes slid back to Caitlin, who’d now almost finished her drink.
He jerked his chin up toward the blonde. “Why she here?”
Nina lifted a slender shoulder. “Didn’t ask. Should I have?” Her claw-like nails dug deeper into his neck.
Normally that shit would get him hard. Just not from Nina.
“Yeah, get ‘er another drink and dig.”
“Want me to tell her to leave?”
“I fuckin’ tell you that?”
Nina made a face. “No. But whatever you need, Big Daddy...”
“Told you what I fuckin’ need. When you get ‘er another drink, tell Wick to get me another shot.”
“I’ll get that for you now.”
As she spun away, Magnum reached out and snagged her wrist, jerking her to a halt. “Problem with you, Nina, is you don’t fuckin’ listen. Told you what to do. Now do it.”
Nina’s nostrils flared and her jaw got tight, but not as tight as his. Then a second later, she nodded and, thank fuck, kept her mouth shut.
Magnum released her and she scurried away. He watched her long enough to make sure she was doing what she was told, then his eyes sliced back to Cait.
With her gaze still directed at her glass, she was clueless two of his brothers were moving in. Like two fucking panthers stalking a doe at a watering hole.
He caught Cue’s eye and cocked a pointed eyebrow at him. Cue slapped Cisco’s arm and both quickly fell back.
Smart move on both their parts.
Nobody from his club was touching her. No-fucking-body.
Not even him.
Nina approached her table again and set down a fresh drink. She hovered for a few, trying to make convo with Cait.
A few seconds later, Nina’s mouth became pinched and her lips flattened out before she swiped the empty glass off the table and headed back to the bar.
She was beside Magnum not a minute later, putting two more shots in front of him.
Magnum downed one, then waited. Of course Nina just fucking stood there. She was a beautiful woman but he swore she was missing shit upstairs. Another reason he wasn’t into her. He might not be very educated, but he liked a woman who had more than two brain cells to rub together.
“Jesus fuck,” he muttered finally and shook his head.
Nina’s hands flew up and she huffed. “No fucking clue, Big Daddy, she wouldn’t say much besides thank you.”
Christ.
“Maybe she’s waiting for someone.”
Maybe.
“A date or something.”
Magnum raised his eyes to hers. “When the fuck you ever seen someone in here on a fuckin’ date?”
Nina shrugged. “Don’t know. I don’t really pay that much attention to it.”
“Especially a white girl in a Black biker bar?”
Nina pursed her full lips and rubbed the back of her neck. “Plenty of white girls in here. With one of the brothers.”
“She with a fuckin’ brother?” he just about shouted.
“Not yet.”
His fingers curled into fists and he stared at them, trying not to lose his shit. “Go. Go back the fuck over there an’ bring ‘er here.”
“But—”
“Now, Nina.”
Nina huffed again and headed back over to Cait’s table.
Nina said something to her and Cait’s head raised, she answered, then her neck twisted toward him. Nina jerked her chin towards Magnum and the blonde stood and, without an escort, headed in his direction.
She took her time, all eyes in the bar on her, which annoyed Magnum more than it should.
Since she was taking her sweet time, so did he, running his gaze from top to toe.
Yeah, that fourteen-going-on-fifteen-year-old who Dawg discovered was his and claimed, was no longer that thin, petite blonde young girl. She’d graduated fucking high school, she’d graduated college and she was beginning to carve her way in the world. And along that way, she’d developed into a woman, attitude and all.
Made no sense why she was in Dirty Dick’s. None at all. But he was about to find out.
“Hey, Mag,” she said softly with a barely-there smile that got him smack in the middle of his gut.
Trouble, nothing but fucking trouble, he reminded himself. “Sit the fuck down.”
That start of a smile slipped upside down as she plunked her drink down on the scarred and scratched table—his fucking table—and yanked out the chair opposite him.
Magnum waited until she settled her bones. Once she did and opened her mouth, he threw up his hand to stop her.
He shook his head, then locked his gaze with hers to make sure she was listening. “Story time. Long time ago a really fuckin’ hot redhead did a stupid thing. She walked into this fuckin’ bar. Didn’t know she was DAMC property at the time. What she did wasn’t smart, and it really pissed off her man. That man, you know as Jag, dragged her ass outta here. Ivy came in scoutin’ for info. See if we were doin’ a territory grab. We weren’t, but it still coulda caused a shitload of problems between your father’s club and mine. Luckily it didn’t because we were busy dealin’ with a bunch of fucksticks called the Shadow Warriors. We had a common enemy and goal. Now we don’t. Wanna keep it that way, Cait. You showin’ up here, especially when you stand out the way you do... Blonde, green-eyed, with great fuckin’ tits and ass...” He sucked in a breath and shook his head again. “History’s proven wars have been started over less.”
She opened her mouth again and he cut her off, making her eyes narrow and her lips thin, but he didn’t give a fuck.
“Likin’ the peace right now. All I gotta do is protect my brothers from themselves, not protect them from an enemy. You fuckin’ showin’ up here can make us an enemy. You hookin’ up with any of my brothers will start that war. Your daddy ain’t gonna like you’re here. Pretty sure he’d expect me to squash any shit you start with one of my brothers.”
Her voice wasn’t so soft this time when she announced, “I’m not here for any of your brothers.”
He leaned forward, still keeping their gazes locked. “Then what the fuck you here for?”
“You.”
His brow dropped low. Bullshit. “Why didn’t you approach first thing? Why’d you sit over there if you’re here for me?”
One of her long slender fingers with a light pink painted nail distracted him as she traced the word “KNIGHTHOOD” raggedly carved into his table by someone’s knife. “I was gathering my thoughts... and...” The breath hissed softly from her.
He raised his eyes back to her green ones, the color reminding him of a gemstone. “An’ what?”
“And my courage.”
His head snapped back. “Nobody more confident than you, Caitie.”
Fuck. He didn’t mean to call her that. It was just a slip of the fucking tongue. Just like what happened at Diesel’s wedding. A slip of the goddamn tongue.
If she was here for that... If she was here for more...
Whatever this was, whatever she was here for, he needed to shut this down. And do it right fucking now. “Already lived half my life. You’re just startin’ out. You don’t need the hassle that comes along with a man like me. Got your whole life ahead of you. What we did at D’s weddin’ was a mistake. Told you that. Thought you understood.”
“I’m not here about that.”
Yeah, it was over a year ago, but he still hadn’t forgotten it. Still hadn’t rid himself of the memory of how sweet she tasted on his tongue. It was the one and only time he did something more than watch her.
He did something he shouldn’t have. And he was lucky he hadn’t been caught. Once he realized what a stupid fuck he was being, he got away from her and stayed away.
He didn’t need that temptation.
But here she was.
Her lips twisted. “I mean, you’re hot and all that. But you’re not irresistible.”
He cocked a brow, pursed his lips and sat back in his chair. “I’m pretty fuckin’ irresistible.”
“Mmm.” She tilted her head and made a show of studying him. “Jury’s out on that. Irritable, more like it.”
He surged forward, slammed his palms on the table and growled, “Didn’t...” He flared his nostrils and sucked air deep. She played him. Jesus fuck. “Woman, spill it or get the fuck out of my bar.”
She glanced around. “This is your bar, Magnum, or the Knights’ bar?”
“The Knights’, which means it’s mine. Talk, Cait.”
The flame in her eyes suddenly extinguished.
As much as he didn’t want to see her in Dirty Dick’s, he also didn’t like seeing that light dim.
His chest tightened as she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, her fingernail now nervously picking at the carved letters and making little shavings. If she didn’t stop, she’d shred her nails and they weren’t very long as it was.
Something was up and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one fucking bit. “Cait!” he barked, because he couldn’t take much more of her hesitating.
Her eyes slowly opened, and they looked troubled. That did not help his damn soaring blood pressure at all.
“I need your help.”
Those four words made his heart seize, then begin to pound as loud as a bass drum in his ears. Why the fuck was she coming to him? What the fuck was going on?
Keep your shit together, brother. Keep it the fuck together. “Don’t need my fuckin’ help, Cait. Got a whole club at your back. And it’s not mine. Like I said, don’t need a fuckin’ war.”
Goddamn it. He didn’t need anything to cause tension between the Knights and the Angels. No fucking way.
“I can’t go to anyone in the club with this. It’ll create more of a... a mess than it already is.”
Goddamn it. “The Shadows.”
“They work for Diesel who won’t keep shit from Dad.”
Goddamn it. “The pigs.”
She sighed. “Axel. He’ll tell Bella and Bella will tell D or Dawg.”
Jesus fuck. She was probably right, Axhole would run to his wife like the pussy-whipped pig he was. “Yep, screwed no matter who you go to.”
“Except you.”
He could debate that, too. Because there was nothing more he wanted to do than pound her like a nail into the wall.
He downed his remaining shot, slammed his hand on the table, making his empty shot glasses jump, as well as her Jack and Coke—or whatever the fuck she was drinking, or actually not drinking—spill over the rim. “Nina!” he bellowed and lifted two fingers. “Now!”
Not even a minute later, Nina rushed over with two more shots and slid them both in front of him. She gave Cait a frown, who gave her an answering shrug and then scurried away.
The woman was at least smart enough to know to stay away from him when he was not in a good mood. And right now, he was on the wrong side of a good anything.
He downed one double shot, then the next, and waited for the warmth to hit his gut and his pulse to stop raging. But it ended up being more of a searing burn which turned his stomach. “So far, you haven’t told me shit. And not sure I wanna hear it if you can’t tell anyone in your club. You belong to them, Caitie. You’re Angels’ property. I can’t step in and interfere.”
“I’m not property of the club.”
Her cheeks were now flushed, and her eyes held a hard glitter. She was getting pissed. Good. Because so was he.
“Babe, you became property of the DAMC the second your daddy’s swimmer hit your momma’s egg.”
Fuck yeah, she was getting pissed.
“I didn’t know my father until I was almost fifteen!” she shouted.
“Don’t fuckin’ matter.”
She shot to her feet. “Fine! If you don’t want to help me, I’ll go elsewhere.”
Oh, now she was getting an attitude. Fuck that.
He reached out, grabbed her wrist and jerked her back into her seat. “Sit the fuck down and fuckin’ spill it, Cait. Least tell me what the fuck’s goin’ on that’s got you all fucked up.”
“You have to promise not to tell anyone.”
He almost rolled his fucking eyes. And it took a lot for him to do that. “Not promisin’ shit.”
“Then, fuck you.” She tried to surge to her feet again, but he still held her wrist. That outburst had him tightening his grip to keep her in her seat.
“Woman, you walk into this fuckin’ bar, try to get me involved in shit and now you’re gettin’ an attitude with me? That shit ain’t gonna fly.”
When she squeezed her eyes shut and her wrist trembled within his fingers, he knew that very fucking second he was not letting her leave without knowing what the fuck was going on. Even if he couldn’t help her, he wanted to know.
He needed to know. Because now his thoughts were spinning, and his gut was a raging fire.
“Cait, you’re killin’ me here.” He had done his best to soften his tone, even though he was ready to flip the fuck out. “Cait!” he barked so loudly, she jumped and opened her eyes.
What could be so bad, she was afraid to say it?
What happened to her unwavering confidence? What the fuck happened to her?
He rose from his seat, not releasing her wrist. He was not risking her running out of that bar and him being left in the dark. Because he could not chase her down if she did that. Especially if she ran back to Angels’ territory and back to Dawg’s house in the DAMC compound.
That would raise way too many red flags. And he hated the color red.
No, he was getting to the bottom of whatever the fuck was going on and he was doing that right now.
