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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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  Tarnished Love

  Carter Steele

  Contents

  1. Petey

  2. Anna

  3. Petey

  4. Anna

  5. Petey

  6. Anna

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  1

  Petey

  On the front porch of my newly purchased home, I held a celebratory cigarette in my mouth. My hands still shaking from the vibration of my motorcycle, I held the lighter in one hand and covered it with the other, protecting it from the wind. The flame danced to light with a single flick of my thumb, and seconds later, I could taste the relaxing inhalation that I had not felt in quite some time.

  For two weeks now, the Savage Kings had experienced complete peace and prosperity. Our president, the young Brock King, had found peace. His younger brother, Landon, had felt more connected to the club than ever. Our enemy, the Anarchists of Death, had scattered into the wind, as dangerous as specks of ash—perhaps mildly annoying, but far from the uncontrolled fire they had once been.

  As for me, I was just happy to have a moment of silence. In my two decades with the club, I had seen death, shootouts, mayhem, arguments with the police, arguments with old ladies, members leave, members kicked out, the founder killed, love found, love lost, and just about everything in between. But rarely, very rarely, had there ever been a dull moment.

  Until now.

  Between my new home about ten minutes outside of Main Street in Romara, the splintering of the Anarchists, and Brock reuniting with his high school sweetheart, it was nice to finally have—

  I looked up when I heard the sound of a vehicle pulling up the driveway.

  A vehicle that was not mine or a club member’s.

  It was a vehicle that assured me that whatever silence I thought I had just gotten, I no longer had.

  The sheriff’s cruiser parked in my driveway. Sheriff Jones turned the car off, got out, and shut the door.

  “Petey,” he said with a nod.

  “Can’t an old man catch a break,” I said as I took a puff of my cigarette. “I just bought the place.”

  “It’s nice.”

  “Yeah, it’s not ready for a housewarming though.”

  The sheriff snorted, but the lack of a laugh told me that something had happened.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Well, apparently,” he said, emphasizing the word. “Some of your boys have gone around town and caused a little bit of trouble.”

  “It happens,” I said. “They get a little drunk, some college guys want to talk shit, they have to learn a lesson—”

  “If it were that simple, a night in the drunk tank would have done the trick,” Sheriff Jones said. “I think you need to come and look at this.”

  “Ah, hell, Jones, come on,” I said as I took another puff of my cigarette. “What about the president? I thought he was your line.”

  “He is, but it seems that he’s having a Sunday trip out of town with his lady,” he said. “Landon’s not answering his phone. If you think I’m going to go to Parker, you’re out of your damn mind. So, here I am.”

  So much for Landon feeling a little more connected to the club.

  “Don’t blame you on Parker,” I said. “But goddamnit, sheriff, I was just starting to believe that I would have a peaceful fall.”

  “That’s what I thought too. And then this happened.”

  I pulled up behind the sheriff in a small shopping center that had an In-N-Out burger restaurant, a Whole Foods store, a fitness studio, and a barber shop.

  Or what was a barber shop.

  Though the majority of the shop still stood, someone had broken the front glass down. There wasn’t any bit of it left. On the ground, someone had spray-painted the Savage Kings logo with the words, “We run this town now.”

  “Sure seems just like something your boys would do, wouldn’t it?” Sheriff Jones said.

  I sighed. Just when it seemed like things were getting peaceful.

  “And here I thought I was going to spend my Sunday watching the Raiders play,” I grumbled. “Do we have any leads?”

  “A young woman, owner of the fitness studio, was here last night. Said she saw and heard some of it. I’ve spoken to her. But I’m sure you, as an officer in the Savage Kings club, would like a chance to talk to her as well, right? Clear the air?”

  I could really use another cigarette right now.

  “Where is she now?”

  Sheriff Jones nodded toward the fitness studio. I followed him in and came across quite a beautiful sight.

  About twenty women were in downward dog, their asses in the air as if on display. Even the sheriff couldn’t help but crack a smile at the sight before the two of us. I chuckled as I folded my arms. It wasn’t every day that fate seemed to give you something so kind.

  And then I looked at the front of the room, and there stood one of the most gorgeous women I’d ever seen in my life.

  She had long, brown hair down to her breasts and one of the most athletic bodies I had ever seen. She wore tight spandex clothing that revealed a pleasing amount of cleavage and the faint outline of abs on her stomach. She had gorgeous green eyes that seemed to take notice of the sheriff and me but not land on them.

  “Alright, class, at this point, Erin is going to take over, OK?” the woman said in a chipper, happy voice, her words accompanied by a sweet smile.

  “Anna Adams,” Sheriff Jones said softly next to me. “One of the prettiest women in all of Romara. A real sweetheart, a real knockout, and the envy of every man in town. You can have at her, but you’ll be competing with everyone who has ever had their balls drop.”

  “Oh, I’m good,” I said, drawing a questioning look from the sheriff. “I’ve got far too much baggage to be hitting on college girls.”

  “College?” the sheriff said with a laugh. But before he could elaborate, Anna had come to us. “Hi, Anna. This is Greg Peterson.”

  “Call me Petey,” I said, offering her hand.

  Despite her having worked out, it felt very feminine, soft, and gentle. I may have said that I wasn’t going to say anything to her or do anything with her, but sweet baby Jesus, touching her had some sort of effect on me.

  “Petey here, he’d like to talk to you about last night. He thinks he might know some of the people who did this.”

  “Oh, OK,” she said. “Very nice to meet you, Petey.”

  “Indeed,” I said.

  Had we met in any state east of Texas, I would have called her a southern belle. She had a sweet grace to her that suggested the energy and viewpoint of a young woman unaffected by the perils and tragedies of life, and yet something about her also indicated that she was routinely underestimated. The sheriff’s laugh had played into that just a bit.

  “Miss Adams—”

  “Oh, please, call me Anna,” she said. “If I’m goin
g to call you Petey, you have to call me Anna.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “I understand you witnessed some of the shit that went down last night.”

  “Yeah,” she said, though she seemed a bit unsettled by my swearing. “I was here doing some accounting for the store, you know, I like to be in here. It’s both my studio and my calming center.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “And anyways, it was about one in the morning, and just after I’d shut the lights off at my studio but before I headed home, I heard the sound of glass breaking. I froze, thinking that my store was under attack, but it wasn’t. I crept to the front and heard some men saying something like ‘if we…’ I want to make sure I get this right. ‘If we can’t beat them, let’s turn the town on them.’”

  Shit.

  I guess the Anarchists are back in town.

  “Do you know anything about that?”

  I chuckled.

  “It sounds like something that my friends would say as a prank,” I said. “I apologize. I’ll take care of it for you and have the police help out.”

  “Wait, they’re your friends?” she said, confused. “You seem like a nice guy. I’m surprised that you’d have friends like that.”

  Anna was either very sweet or very naive, or quite possibly both. I just laughed off her statement and shrugged.

  “Hon, you don’t know me that well. I appreciate the kind words, but—”

  “But nothing! You came in to check in on my store and see what was going on. Plus, I can tell. I can pick up people’s energy and vibes. You don’t strike me as a bad guy.”

  I rolled my eyes, which only caused her to giggle more. She really did seem sweet, and it was entirely possible that she wasn’t weird, she was just being nice. But the return of the Anarchists had put me in a defensive mood.

  And in any case, even if that wasn’t the case, I couldn’t let myself get attracted to her. Like I said, I had too much going on in my head and from my past for me to even consider it. Letting myself fall for a young woman like her would seem like too much trouble.

  “Well, that’s very kind of you. But I’ll let you get back to your class.”

  “Thank you! Come in anytime—I’ll give you a free private lesson if you like.”

  Now that was tempting—picturing this perfect body before me in spandex and with no one else around was the kind of thing that I would have had fantasies about.

  “I’ll take you up on that at some point,” I said, but it was more of a reflexive statement.

  I nodded to Sheriff Jones, who walked with me out the door.

  “She’s cute, eh?” he said.

  “Yeah, but I don’t have time to worry about women with the Anarchists around,” I said as I got on my bike.

  “Speak for yourself,” he said. “She’s wanting to find a man, you know. She’s in her mid-30’s, and she’s going to want kids soon.”

  That stopped me dead in my tracks.

  “Mid-30’s?”

  “Yep. I try and stay detached since I’m almost two decades her senior, but goddamn, that woman does not look 35, huh?”

  Not in the least.

  “That’s good to know,” I said as I revved the engine and headed back to the clubhouse.

  2

  Anna

  Who is this Petey guy?

  When the sheriff had told me that a gruff man of some sorts was coming to talk to me, a man who might have known the people who had done this, I imagined a big, burly man with a white beard, a handlebar mustache, and hands so calloused that they would feel like tree bark. The “Savage Kings” graffiti by the barbershop suggested they had done it, although it wasn’t exactly like the Kings were known for causing trouble.

  Still, the reputation of the Kings was that of the antihero teenage rebel, the kid who never listens in class, listens to the principal, or does his homework, but somehow saves the day. Even if I believed that they had not committed the crime last night, a part of me still believed that whoever was coming over wasn’t going to be someone that would fit in with the typical clientele at my studio.

  Imagine my surprise, then, when Sheriff Jones brought in a normal-looking man with dark blonde hair, a clean cut, and some slight stubble on his face. Petey had a lithe frame, though I could tell that he had some athleticism to him. When I shook his hand, he had some callouses, but not the amount that I would have anticipated.

  By all accounts, Petey just seemed like a normal guy who happened to be a part of a biker group that was a little bit of a rebel cause.

  And maybe it was because of the contrast of my expectations against his reality, or maybe it was because he didn’t get so caught up in talking to me, but whatever the reason, I found myself kind of attracted to him.

  It was probably nothing more than a physical fancy, the kind of thing that would pass after a day. He was handsome and nice, but we had no reason for our paths to cross. Of all the options in town, Petey probably wasn’t someone that would cross my mind after today.

  But when Erin, my top student and my fill-in teacher, came up to me at the end of class, I knew that I wasn’t going to forget him any time soon.

  “What was that all about?” she said, but her tone of voice suggested she already knew the answer.

  “Sheriff Jones wanted me to tell Petey what I saw.”

  “Petey?”

  “The guy, the—”

  “The gangster?”

  I shrugged.

  “He seemed nice.”

  “Did he also seem like a killer? Like someone who would go into gunfights? Because you know that’s what the Savage Kings did a few weeks ago, right?”

  I bit my lip. Erin, perhaps not convinced that I was getting the message, opened up her phone, typed in a few things, and then showed me a news article that showed a violent shootout had taken place at a warehouse a few miles east of town, with the Kings’ involvement heavily suspected.

  “I mean, Petey treated me nice,” I said.

  Admittedly, my optimism and belief in others was probably a weakness. Erin herself had told me that multiple times. But really, what good or enjoyable was life if I didn’t try and see the good in others?

  “Of course, Petey’s not going to come in here and shoot up a studio full of women, he knows that that will get him life in prison and everyone else he cares about that. Doesn’t mean that he’s not associated with violence.”

  “OK, relax, Erin, I didn’t go out on a date with him. I just talked to him.”

  “I saw how you spoke with him.”

  I sighed, crossed my arms, and shook my head.

  “It’s nothing, Erin, I promise.”

  “Please keep it that way, Anna,” she said. “I know you’re looking to date right now. I—”

  “I promise, Erin,” I said.

  I may have been open about my dating desires, but that didn’t mean I was particularly keen on talking about it if I did not want to.

  “OK,” Erin said, smiling. “Great class today, by the way. All the girls performed pretty well.”

  “I’ll say,” I said. “It was the perfect kind of Sunday morning.”

  I just wasn’t quite willing to say why it was that way.

  By the time Friday morning had rolled around, I was convinced that I had actually told Erin the truth, that there wasn’t going to be anything more to it. I hadn’t seen Petey since, and though I had thought about him some Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday, it became more of an interesting fact than something that interested me. He was mighty handsome and somewhat mysterious, but if he wasn’t available, then there just wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  On this morning, I had a free yoga session in the park set up, something that I did once a month to encourage people to get healthier. For the most part, it was mostly just old retired ladies, college students back in town, and other people who didn’t have day jobs. But it was still a way for me to get outside and teach an audience I wouldn’t have reached otherwise.

  “OK,
we’re starting in five!” I said, raising my hand, followed by a “woo!” of excitement.

  “You got room for one more?”

  I turned around and stared surprised at, of all people, Petey.

  “I didn’t know you were into yoga,” I said with surprise.

  “You know, I like to try new things,” he said with a chuckle.

  He looked a little bit different than he had before. For one, he had shaved most of his facial hair. For another, he didn’t smell like gasoline oil as he had before. Finally, his clothing was more… normal. He had worn a black cut with a crown with blood on it upon his visit to the studio, perhaps the only part of his visit that left me a little uneasy. But here, he was just dressed in a gray shirt and gym shorts.

  “You’re not going to count this as my private lesson, are you?” he said.

  “No, no, not at all,” I said. “But if you’ve never done yoga before, just…”

  “I got it,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder—a touch that made the hairs on my arm stand on their ends and my breathing quicken. “It’s yoga. It can’t be that hard, right?”

  “That’s what all guys say.”

  Petey chuckled and let his arm slide down my arm. The gentle caress felt good, and I even let out a breath of excitement. I turned and watched him converse with some of the older ladies there. He was so at ease in conversation. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who strutted his stuff or tried to look cooler than he really was.