Dying Love: An MC Romance (Savage Kings MC Book 12) Read online

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  Savage Redemption

  “My life was all about revenge until I met her.”

  I want them destroyed.

  The Anarchists killed my father, haunt me and my brother, and seek to destroy my club, the Savage Kings.

  For years, I have stopped at nothing to annihilate them.

  But for years, I also never forgot her.

  She was everything to me.

  She brought joy to my life.

  And I had to leave her without explanation.

  But a chance encounter has brought her back to me.

  And now, everything has changed.

  My life is now all about having her—and nothing can stop me.

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  Dying Love

  Carter Steele

  Contents

  1. Parker

  2. Liza

  3. Parker

  4. Liza

  5. Parker

  6. Liza

  Epilogue

  Other Books by the Author

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  1

  Parker

  Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.

  The sound of the gunshot propelled me forward, and the world around me grew silent. Even though Main Street in Romara had turned into something of a war zone with hoodlums in the Anarchists and the soldiers in the Savage Kings, it wasn’t until the sound of the gunshot came that my mind seemed to narrow in on its target.

  It was like the old days of war. In the moments when battle erupted, I wasn’t so much human as I was something else. Someone could have shouted my name right up to my ear, and I may not have noticed. I wasn’t so much focused as I was excluding the entire world around me.

  In war, the focus was the enemy above all else. A giraffe could have walked by with a hippo on its back, and I either would not have noticed or would not have processed the absurdity of the sight. And right now, a bunch of citizens of Romara could have emerged from the shops, a Savage King could have expressed his surprise at my return, or the goddamn moon could have collapsed toward the Earth, and I would not have noticed it.

  I had one objective and one objective only. Get to the source of the gunshot, see who the Anarchists had killed, and retaliate accordingly. And pray to every God that had ever existed in the history of humanity and beyond that their target was not Liza.

  I turned the corner, my gun cocked.

  There was one Anarchist with his back turned to me. He was enormous, probably over six feet tall and over two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle. But fortunately, bullets went through muscle and fat all the same.

  I cocked my rifle and, with barely a conscious thought, fired at the Anarchist. The rounds of bullet struck him in the back of the skull, dropping him instantly.

  As he collapsed to his knees, he revealed Liza, being held by a man with a cloth over her mouth. Another Anarchist stood at his side. Two stood over the body of Sheriff Craig Jones.

  Yes, Liza lived.

  But that was hardly cause to stop and celebrate the moment. She wouldn’t be alive for another three seconds if I didn’t act quickly.

  My gun swiveled toward the two Anarchists standing over Sheriff Jones. I laid waste to them both. I turned my attention back to the one holding Liza’s gun. I fired just as he raised the gun. Then I turned my attention to Liza’s captor.

  And I lowered my gun, a stunned expression on my face.

  Liza, in the time that I had needed to take out the other Anarchists, had knocked him out cold. She then walked to the back of the alley toward something I could not see, raised her gun, and landed two hard hits on two Anarchists hidden from view. Then, and only then, did I feel any sort of sense that things had slowed down.

  “Liza,” I said, more in disbelief than anything else.

  She turned to me, holstered her gun, and ran up to me. Even in full police uniform, even with the chaos going around us, even with her superior quite possibly dead on the ground before us, she ran to me. I saw in those eyes something that I knew I had heard in her voice before.

  Desire and love.

  I took her into my arms as she all but jumped into me. For a moment, it felt as sweet as it could be. I had my girl—yes, my girl—back. The battle was far from over, but for just a moment, I could appreciate the fact that she was safe and alive.

  The battle is far from over.

  Both of us must have had the same thought at the same time, because both of us mirrored each other’s movements and words.

  “What’s going on?” we both said, leaving us both to laugh.

  “You go first,” I said.

  “We were in a club meeting with the Savage Kings when Officer Redd radioed in to let us know that this was all going down,” she said, sweeping her arm across Main Street. “If I’d had the chance, I would have reached out to you, but—”

  “Ya had to respond as ya did, no shame in that,” I said. “If anythin’, I’d be real disappointed if you skipped on your duties just to say hi to me.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  And then she turned back to the sheriff, who… groaned and moved his arm?

  “Sheriff Jones?” Liza said, running over to him and flipping him on his back.

  “You really think a single bullet wound to the arm would kill me?” he said, almost sounding insulted before he let out a mocking laugh of defiance. “Nonsense.”

  “How the hell?” I said.

  “Well, Liza knows, but you don’t, Vulture was here just a second ago. Think he slipped in through some back door. He said don’t kill us but do whatever you want. So they shot me first, probably to incapacitate me before they went for Liza. But…”

  He kept talking, but as soon as I’d heard the words “Vulture was here just a second ago,” my mind was elsewhere. Liza noticed too. I nodded to her and took off through a door that was slightly ajar, my rifle at the ready. I ran through an ice cream shop that had closed hours ago, looking for the rear entrance.

  The good news was that I found it. The bad news was that the only sign of Vulture and his crew were some bikes that had already gotten so far away, if it weren’t for the red brake light shining through the evening sky, I wouldn’t have seen them. I certainly couldn’t hit them from this far away

  “Shit.”

  So close.

  Doesn’t matter. The Savage Kings will take me back. And this time, we’re going to truly launch a war on those assholes. Take ‘em out once and for all.

  I made my way back to Liza and Sheriff Jones. At this point, a few of the Savage Kings had made their return.

  “I’m taking him to the hospital,” Liza said, lifting the sheriff up and slinging his arm over her shoulders. “You come and get me whenever you’re ready for retaliation. I’m sure I can procure arrest warrants.”

  It ain’t arrests that we’re going to try and do. But I nevertheless nodded, mostly just so she could get the sheriff to the squad car and off to the hospital.

  She and the sheriff turned the corner, and around came Brock and Landon.

  “Parker,” Landon said, almost in surprise.

  “I thought you might be here,” Brock said with a coy smile.

  “Yah, was this emergency ‘nough?” I shot back, though I had a grin on my face as well.”

  “Just a bit,” Brock said. “I think it’s safe to say that you’re back in the club. Welcome back.”

  “Don’t ya ever kick my ass out again, ya hear?” I said as some of the members nervousl
y laughed. “I ain’t gonna stand idly by anymore, no matter what ya ass may say.”

  “Hey, after tonight, we need someone like you, someone trained in the military ways,” he said. “How the hell did you wind up here, anyways?”

  Just as Sheriff Jones and I had started to do, we explained our current situations to each other. I may have replaced the fact that I was moping shirtless on my balcony with something a little more badass—say, pretending to pace in my living room for strategies for taking out Vulture and the Anarchists—but the gist of it remained the same. Was home, bored, heard the sirens, rushed into battle, and saved the day.

  “Well goddamn,” Brock said. “We’ve got a whole bunch of messes to clean up here. I think—”

  “Y’all handle that one,” I said with a grin. “Hey, ya throw me out of the club for a bit, there’s gonna be consequences for ya too, ya know.”

  “I’m sorry?” Brock said, but he couldn’t hide the grin either.

  “I know, I know, sergeant-in-arms, cleans up the club’s messes. Guess what, though? I got a lady who just saw her boss get fired.”

  “So that is a thing!” Brock said, clapping his hands. “I wondered if you two—”

  “Of course it’s a thing!” I said, which may have been jumping ahead a bit on the truth, but not according to how I saw it playing out. “Shit, ya act like a bunch of middle schoolers who found out their friend just got herself a man! I’m gonna go make sure our sheriff and lady cop are fine. Y’all clean up the shit after.”

  “But—” Landon said, trying to interject.

  I turned to him, looked myself up and down, and shrugged.

  “Not wearin’ any Savage Kings clothes,” I said. “Guess y’all gonna have to give ‘em back to me before I can do that.”

  I went off with a cackle back to my bike, leaving Brock to shake his head. That’ll teach the fucker to leave me behind in the future. Shit, they need me.

  And I need them. Thank God that seems mostly back to normal.

  I hopped on my bike, making a straight-away dash for the hospital. I didn’t encounter any resistance along the way, though I almost wished otherwise. I wanted Vulture to think that he had a free shot at us, only for that to wind up being the biggest goddamn mistake of his career. I was feeling cocky, and I wanted to quench that cockiness with some Anarchist blood.

  Alas, instead, I had to settle for a peaceful ride over. I parked in the visitor’s deck, made my way through the lobby, and found Liza standing in front of the room where Sheriff Jones recovered.

  And wouldn’t you know it, she just looked so goddamn beautiful. Even with blood on her uniform, even with frazzled eyes, even with her hair a hot mess, she still looked fucking beautiful.

  “Liza.”

  She turned to me, those beautiful eyes boring in on mine.

  And finally, all pretenses, all urgent matters, all external circumstances were dropped. She walked up to me, embraced, and squeezed me.

  For now, at least, all of the outside drama was over. It would come back—we would go to it, that much was for sure—but at least for the night, it wasn’t going to make an appearance again.

  I couldn’t even begin to describe how nice it felt to have my girl back in my arms.

  2

  Liza

  I didn’t get exhausted often in my time as a cop.

  But today was absolutely one of those days. From walking into what felt like an enemy’s base to defending Main Street to fearing for my life to fearing for the life of Sheriff Jones… was it any wonder when I saw Parker that I just gave up trying to be professional? I just needed a hug, and he was more than willing to provide it.

  “How’s he doin’?” Parker said, nodding toward the sheriff.

  “He’s fine,” I said, a fact accentuated by the fact that he waved to Parker when he saw him. “In fact, he’s a little too fine.”

  I made it a point to move us out of sight of the sheriff, if only so I wouldn’t have to deal with questions from him about how serious Parker and I were or weren’t. And even if such questions were justified—as it felt like they were bound to inevitably be, the way we were expressing our feelings to each other right now—they couldn’t be the focus of my business relationship with the sheriff right now.

  “How’re you doin’?” Parker said.

  “Me? I’m fine,” I lied. “I’m fine. I’ll just go home at some point, take a little nap, and then I’ll be all set. We need to go out and kill the Anarchists. Parker, we can…”

  But his expression was unchanging. It was one that called BS on me being fine.

  “Ya went through a hell of a day,” he said. “Ya ain’t in any shape to be sayin’ ya fine or any other nonsense like that. Ya need a good night’s sleep.”

  “No, I—”

  “Liza,” he said. “I’m used to spottin’ bullshitters. Ya pick it up real quick in the Marines. Ya full of shit right now. All love, but let’s get ya home.”

  I suppose if there was someone I could drop the pretense with, it was Parker. I nodded, squeezed his arms back, and smiled.

  “Let me go let the sheriff know,” I said.

  Parker let me go. I slipped into the room, taking care not to let Sheriff Jones get a view of Parker standing outside.

  “So is that your boyfriend now?”

  Well, that’s one way to just put it out there, huh? And the worst part is, I can’t even pretend like he’s being unprofessional. He saw me right out there.

  “No, we’re just friendly right now.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Well, at least the sheriff’s got his sense of humor still.

  “Listen, Sheriff Jones, I think you’re at the point where you are stable and recovering well. I really need some sleep after the day that we’ve had. Do you mind—”

  “Hell no,” he said with a reassuring smile. “You’ve done more than your share of work today, Officer Burton. Go retire for the night. We can figure out what to do in the morning.”

  It was odd for me to be so sternly given orders to relax. It was even odder for me to embrace those orders as if they were the equivalent of a promotion. But the oddest thing of all was that I could really see myself fulfilling them in full—even if Parker tried to take me home, I didn’t see how I’d have the energy for sex, let alone anything else.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “My pleasure. Now get out of here and go on your date.”

  Oh my God, Sheriff.

  “If you mean my date with my bed, then yes, I will get out of here,” I said with a knowing smirk.

  The sheriff winked at me, and I left him behind, feeling at ease if not also incredibly exhausted. Parker put his arm around me as we exited, but I didn’t have the energy to return the favor. It was nothing against him or how I felt about him; I just needed as much energy as I could for the actual drive home.

  “I take it the old man is just fine?” Parker said.

  “Yeah,” I said wearily. “He’ll recover. Long night ahead of him and he’ll be sore, but he’ll live.”

  “Excellent. Where we headed to?”

  “Home,” I said. “And Parker…”

  I was about to tell him that I wanted to be alone. The idea of socializing or discussing anything else was too much.

  But I was also feeling something that I didn’t want to admit to, and certainly would not admit to out loud as a police officer.

  Fear.

  They’d targeted the sheriff and me. They were getting more audacious. Who was to say they wouldn’t come after me at my apartment if they knew I was alone?

  “Can you spend the night with me?” I said. “I don’t have the energy for much. I just need to know I’ll be safe.”

  Parker looked like he was tempted to say something sarcastic or coy. But thankfully, he recognized that as much as I liked him, I wouldn’t have liked a smart remark.

  “Ya got it,” he said with a smile. “C’mon. Ya lead, I’ll take ya six.”

  “Deal.”

&n
bsp; When we got home, I could barely keep my eyes open. A couple of times, Parker actually had to blare his horn because I was starting to drift in the car or just didn’t go when red lights turned green. I knew then that even if I had wanted to sleep with him, I would have probably passed out midway through sex.

  Parker supported me as I got up, but as soon as I hit the bed, I was out cold. If Parker wanted to do anything, eh could have. But that was the point—I knew that he wouldn’t. I trusted him from him having saved my life… twice now.

  If once is sex, then is twice love? I thought with bemusement just before passing out.

  When I woke up, it was bright outside. Much brighter than I had anticipated, actually; it seemed like I had slept well into the morning. A quick glance of my phone, which showed it was a little after 9 a.m., confirmed that. I got out of bed and looked out the window, admiring the small streets of Romara.

  To think, this town nearly killed you yesterday.

  And now here you are, going back out to fight the bad elements. With Parker. And the rest of the Savage Kings.

  It really is a brave new world, huh?

  I shivered for a second before throwing on a hoodie. When I opened the door to the rest of my apartment, I heard the snoring long before I saw Parker. I followed the bellowing, noxious, stilted snores to see Parker asleep on his back on my couch. He had placed his pistol right by him, but otherwise, he looked just like any other guy.

  But he was certainly far from any other guy.