Forbidden Sacrifice: An MC Romance (Savage Kings MC Book 10) 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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  Forbidden Sacrifice

  Carter Steele

  Contents

  1. Parker

  2. Liza

  3. Parker

  4. Liza

  5. Parker

  6. Liza

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  1

  Parker

  I didn’t trust that dropping Liza off at the police station would go well.

  But there was no one else that I trusted to get her to the police station as intact as I would. Call it trusting my gut, call it my interest in Liza, call it the good old Texan instinct to protect what I most cherished, but whatever you called it, it wasn’t something that was flexible. I was the only person who could get her to the safety of the police station.

  I felt my rage increase as I stared at the email that she had gotten, the one with the header “Dumb Bitch” and the text “You’re with the wrong people.” Liza had to gently grab my wrist to prevent me from all but crushing the phone with the anger boiling in my body. A part of me just wanted to head straight to Golden Valley and all the other satellite hideouts of the Anarchists and take them out myself.

  “Hey,” she said, gently shaking me. “I’ll be fine. I just need a ride back. Once I’m there, I can defend myself. I’m a cop, remember?”

  “Yah, I know,” I grumbled.

  But in this time, not even a cop had full safety and strength against an Anarchist. Especially a cop I like.

  I grabbed a rifle and slung it over my back.

  “Do I want to know where you got that rifle?” Liza asked.

  “Just pretend ya off the clock right now,” I groused.

  We walked outside to my motorcycle. I handed her one of my helmets and threw on one of my own. I got on the bike, but before I kicked the motorcycle into gear, I thought about the body armor inside. Maybe it would do—

  “What are we waiting for?” Liza said. “Let’s go. Come on!”

  Goddamnit, Liza, you crazy woman.

  “Alright, alright,” I said.

  I drove off from the compound, feeling a whole lot more naked than I had at any other moment that night.

  My eyes scanned almost everything except for the road in front of us. I feared bikers and ambushes from the side of the road a hell of a lot more than a four-way stop sign or a red light that had no one crossing on the complementary green. And even if someone did come by to blare their horn, I trusted my driving instincts to dodge them a lot more than I did a surprise attack.

  I got to Main Street unscathed, but that just meant the most dangerous part was still ahead. Main Street’s various restaurants, windows, and other hidden features made it a citizen’s paradise and my personal nightmare. I had one hand on my pistol around my hips as we drove forward, ready to whip out and strike at a single moment.

  And then…

  Nothing.

  I got her to the police station unscathed. It appeared I had just become paranoid. The Anarchists had gotten their strike in for the night and had retreated like the rats that they were back to their homes.

  “Safe and sound,” Liza said.

  “Yep,” I said. “C’mon, I’ll walk ya inside to the keys and to the car.”

  “Such a gentleman,” Liza said. “Just don’t get carried away. Things haven’t changed from what I said back at the clubhouse.”

  “Ya, I know.”

  And my approach to what you said hasn’t changed either. You’ll crack eventually, Miss Burton. I’ll get ya to open up and consider me.

  I walked with her inside to a police station that I knew almost as well as I knew my own clubhouse, from the time that I had visited Sheriff Jones to a few times that I had, well, been a bit too disruptive in the town and needed to go in timeout. There was one desk lamp on, but the building seemed empty otherwise, suggesting the cop on duty was out on the streets. The Anarchists might have required a police presence, but otherwise, the most that ever happened in this town was a teenager throwing toilet paper on a rival’s home.

  Liza grabbed her keys and ambled outside. I followed her, my eyes still on a swivel. Until she’s in the car, assume nothing.

  “Ya know,” I said as she started to unlock her cruiser. “I ain’t gonna say it was fun to witness ya car attacked and totaled… but I am gonna say that everythin’ after was a real delight.”

  “Indeed,” Liza said. “And I had fun too.”

  She didn’t add anything else. Damnit, she didn’t have anything more to say? Nothing to say about the kiss, about our future, nothing? She is a professional, through and through.

  “Ya know,” I said, deciding to all but ignore. “If ya free tomorrow morning, I could—”

  I saw movement behind her. I grabbed her and threw her to the ground at the same time that someone just barely grazed the back of my head. I turned around to see someone had attempted to swing a baseball bat at my head and had just missed doing real damage.

  “Comin’ at me, fucker?” I growled.

  The Anarchist—I recognized him by his cut—swung again, but this time, I was prepared. I ducked, grabbed him by the wrist, and dislodged the weapon from him. I cocked him cold in the face, staggering him backward. I was about to drop him with another punch when he charged forward and tried to tackle me.

  Fortunately, with my girth, I just plopped down on him, driving his face into the ground. I backed up, slammed my knee into his skull, and rose when he got knocked out.

  “Liza!”

  But as it turned out, I didn’t have anything to worry about either. When I turned to check in on her, she had simply taken her enemy by the hair, driven him onto the frame of the police cruiser, and knocked him out cold.

  “Holy shit,” I said with a couple of admiring chuckles. “Not bad!”

  “For what, a girl?” she said as she took out her handcuffs and arrested the guy. “You forget, I dealt with assholes like these all the time in Los Angeles. If someone’s going to try and attack me, they’re going to have to do a lot better than to try and put me in a headlock.”

  A chick that’s a real badass, knows how to use a gun, and isn’t afraid to talk shit. Parker, you may have just met the woman of your dreams.

  “Still, these ain’t your typical LA gangstas,” I warned. “These assholes—”

  “Parker,” she said curtly.

  She brushed by me and put handcuffs on the other man who had tried to ambush me. I helped her throw both of the men into a cell on site, dusting my hands as if they had gotten soiled with something worse than blood and dirt in the act. I turned to her with a wink, but instead of smiling, she gave a weary sigh.

  “Parker, what I said back at the club house goes double now,” she warned. “If things are going to be like this, if cops are going
to have to worry about getting ambushed, then I really can’t think about dating or anything like that. Doesn’t matter how attractive or charming you are.”

  “I mean, I can also be funny and sarcastic and—”

  “Parker!” she snapped with such force that even I, the big beefy Texan, the sergeant-in-arms, the man who usually did the yelling, jumped in surprise. “Seriously. Not now.”

  She locked the door to the prison cell and walked away. God, she was such a tempting target. The fact that she was saying not now was only making her more desirable.

  Parker Knox didn’t handle being told no very well. Maybe it was the Marine or the Texan or just the general attitude in me, but if I got told no, I might as well have been told “no, so work harder.” It was a bit different with women, of course, but it wasn’t like Liza had no interest in me. I just had to figure out a way to break through and get to her.

  “Ya know,” I said as we went back outside. “Ain’t no reason we can’t be a lil’ Jekyll and Hyde, if ya catch my drift. Professional by day, playful by night, and—”

  “Parker,” she said with a sigh, but in those eyes, I saw someone that wanted an excuse to break through the bullshit of the job title. Perhaps I was looking too hard for it, but I swore that it was there. “We have to be professional. That is the bottom line. Do not make me cut you off so that I can solve this issue.”

  You won’t do that. You like me too much. But even I knew I’d pushed my luck awfully far tonight. The only reason I had her still in front of me was because I had saved her life. That only extended so far, though, especially with someone used to having their life on the line.

  “I understand,” I said with a Texas bow. “Ya have yourself a wonderful night.”

  I didn’t say another word as I headed for my bike. But I knew, almost as if I had eyes on the back of my head, that she was still watching me.

  She couldn’t resist me, just as I couldn’t resist her.

  It was just a matter of how long these barriers stood.

  2

  Liza

  “I take it you had an eventful night,” Sheriff Jones said as I stood by his side, standing in front of the prison cell housing the two Anarchists.

  They must have woken at some point during the night, because they weren’t in the same position that Parker and I had left them in, but they were currently out cold. We’d put them both in one cell with only one bed, and it looked like they both had reached an understanding that neither would have a bed. Wasn’t really my problem; my problem was to get them held for assault on an officer and the charges processed.

  “That’s an understatement,” I said.

  “How did this happen?” the sheriff said, in disbelief at what he saw. “I mean, I know you were assaulted. But what led you to this?”

  “Well,” I said, taking very care to word things properly. “I wrecked my car because someone cut me off. The Savage Kings think the Anarchists were behind it, and I’m inclined to believe them. But, fortunately, I got rescued. I spent some time at the Kings to recover, and then we came back here. These guys right here thought it was a good idea to assault a female police officer, but they weren’t really aware that I was more than capable of defending myself. And now, here I am.”

  “Here you are,” Sheriff Jones said admiringly.

  A few moments of silence passed. I looked at at the sheriff, who looked like he had something on the tip of his tongue but was almost hesitant to say it. I looked back at the men, thinking about what I’d have to do to process them.

  “Who rescued you?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Which of the Savage Kings rescued you?”

  Oh, Jesus.

  “Parker,” I said.

  “Interesting. And you went back to the clubhouse to recover?”

  I almost lashed out by saying that nothing happened, but I felt like that would only add fuel to the fire. I didn’t need this to explode anymore than it already had, and saying that nothing happened with a sharp tone would all but say that something had happened.

  “Yep, and to get some information. That’s it.”

  I didn’t look the sheriff in the eye as he looked at me, smiled, and said, “Understood.”

  “Unfortunately, these two are evidence of something much worse than last night,” he said. “The Anarchists have always been willing to keep their fight to just the Kings. Theirs is mostly a fight of ego and bragging rights, although I don’t think you have to guess which side I believe is the good side. But if they’re going after us, well, I guess they’re trying to really live up to their name.”

  He chuckled at his lame joke, but he wasn’t wrong. Fighting the cops was, in some ways, worse than fighting the civilians; it was a direct fuck you to structure and order in society, and though cops had gotten a bad rap in some places, we still had a vital role to play. That role got undermined when people thought we were the enemy, not simply an enforcement of mutually agreed upon rules.

  “This won’t get any easier,” the sheriff said. “Remind me how long are you here for?”

  “As long as I need to be,” I said. “LAPD’s orders. They don’t want to see what happens in Romara spill over to the city proper.”

  “Makes sense. Just be careful, will ya?”

  I smiled as I headed back to my desk.

  “I’m more concerned about being prepared than being careful, Sheriff,” I said. “At this point, caution is only going to do so much.”

  If that didn’t scare the sheriff enough to prepare a little bit further, then nothing would.

  I sat back down at my desk, exhausted from little sleep and with not enough caffeine in Romara to keep me awake. I needed a nap, but I needed to finish my shift first—and then get home safely.

  Just before I went back to my work, I checked my phone for messages. I only had one—from Parker.

  “Just your daily reminder it’s OK to both flirt and function in your job.”

  I rolled my eyes. The alliteration from Parker certainly felt forced, and it wasn’t going to change my mind. I had a job to do.

  But…

  He did have something of a point. I could get a little too wrapped up in my work occasionally.

  Time would tell if this job was any different.

  3

  Parker

  “This is bullshit!”

  I slammed my fist in the clubhouse meeting room as the rest of the officers looked at me with exasperation on their face. Brock was about the only one who didn’t look frazzled by my outburst, but it didn’t do the president much good when the rest of the club seemed too terrified to react to me.

  “They fuckin’ attacked a cop. A goddamn police officer. Twice!” I roared. “And ya mean to tell me that ya plan is to wait?”

  “Yes,” Brock said with a demeanor that I could only describe as frustratingly calm. “The Anarchists are picking up on our patterns, Parker. You know this, you just don’t want to admit it for whatever reason.”

  There was no pretense for “whatever reason” was. Brock was just nice enough to not call me out for it in front of the entire club.

  “The last few times that they have struck, we have retaliated immediately. We need to strike back in a way that defies the normal patterns. Maybe we strike during the day. Maybe we strike during one of our regularly scheduled parties. Whatever we do, we gotta do something that we aren’t doing now, because the results have not worked out.”

  “Speak for your goddamn selves,” I said. “They want a war? We gotta give them a fuckin’ war. What’s gonna happen when they start killin’ our cops, huh? You want this town without Sheriff Jones? The damn sheriff is the reason we can pull off half the shit we do! What happens when he gets killed and the state or feds come in? What then? Ya think they’re gonna show mercy to us? Or do ya think they’re going to see the words ‘motorcycle club’ and do everything in their power to shut us down? I know ya know the answer to that, Brock.”

  It was the easiest thing in the world to
predict. The feds would come and declare something like martial law. They’d eradicate the Anarchists, sure, but we’d get swept up in the aftermath. We wouldn’t have motorcycles, let alone a fucking clubhouse and weapons, after they were done with us.

  “We cannot let ‘em take the fight to anyone other than us,” I said. “And the fastest way to get them focused back on us is to strike at ‘em. We hit the hornet’s nest, the hornets come after us. We let the hornets focus on the target in question, and we all dead. I don’t know how I can make it any clearer.”

  “And your input is appreciated, Parker.”

  Goddamnit, Brock, you just sound like a fucking stupid politician who is too scared to take action on what matters. You know we need you to actually do something bold. Don’t just sit there like a bitch and say we’re not going to do anything.

  “However, we need to think strategically, not tactically,” he said. Oh, Christ, you’re trying to sound like a soldier, you dipshit. “Striking now may feel good, but I am not convinced that it is the best long-term play. We—”

  “Fuckin’ hell,” I said. “I’mma say this bit once and then I’mma shut the hell up. If our fight and our tussle was just Kings versus Anarchists, then that would be fine. But when it’s Anarchists against Kings and cops? Or Anarchists against Kings, cops, and the people? We are in a world of fuck. Stop thinkin’ just one on one.”