Jekyll and Hyde Series

ROGUE

The day of the barbecue, I woke up with not one but two warm bodies in my bed, and a hangover from Shorty’s party.

Damn, it’s good to be king.

After getting my dick taken care of, I kicked the two nameless skanks out and headed to the shower. As I soaped myself, my thoughts strayed to the sexy-as-fuck tattoo artist from last night.

I remembered her name, all right. Jamie Sinclair.

Pete had asked me about hiring another artist a couple of months back, and I had given him the go-ahead without much thought. Even though I owned The Shop, I knew fuck-all about tattoos so I pretty much let him do his thing.

But I didn’t know that the new artist was going to look like a mix between Ms. America and a fucking porn star. If I had, I would have stopped by and let her throw herself at me sooner.

Except Jamie hadn’t thrown herself at me—or any of us, really.

Breaker had been up to his normal bullshit, and instead of taking it with a flirty smile like all the chicks did, Jamie had not only put him in his place, but she had also somehow connected with him.

She fucking connected with Breaker. Like, on a personal level.

I didn’t even think that was possible anymore because Breaker didn’t have much humanity left to connect with. All of his feelings had been eroded away by the shit we asked him to do on a regular basis for the club.

And man, if anyone deserved a little happiness in this fucked-up life, it was my man, Breaker.

Yeah, Breaker used the girls, booze, and drugs as much as any of us, but it only went skin deep with him. He never lost himself in the moment. Never let himself feel enough to soak up the good to combat the bad.

And I had put him through some motherfucking bad.

So, even though just the thought of Jamie Sinclair made my recently used dick hard again, I needed to back off and let Breaker take this one.

He fucking deserved it.

When I walked out into the clubhouse I wasn’t surprised to see the place neat and tidy after last night’s chaos. The sweetbutts knew their job. Cindy, at the bar, poured me a large mug of black coffee without saying a word.

A moment later, Steel walked in looking as fresh as a fucking daisy for a sixty-five-year-old who had partied all night. He accepted a mug of coffee half filled with French vanilla creamer, the way he’d been drinking it for longer than I’d been alive.

Steel slid a folder over to me—the background check I’d ordered on Jamie Sinclair. If Breaker was serious about her, I had to know what I was dealing with.

It seemed Jamie Sinclair was twenty-six years old, born in Winchester, Virginia. She went to Veritas Collegiate Academy for high school, and got a BA in art history from Georgetown. Her bank account had a little over ten thousand dollars in it. She owned a Honda Civic, and had received four parking tickets and two speeding tickets in the last six years.

And that was it.

Why would a gorgeous woman with an ironclad education move to my little town to become an unknown tattoo artist?

“What else?” I asked Steel, and he just shook his head.

The old ladies started coming in to set up for the barbecue, and one look from Pam was enough to send Cindy and the other sweetbutts hustling out the door. They knew that Saturday was a skank-free day.

Breaker came in even more keyed up than normal, and I noticed a distinct lack of pussy following him out of his room. It was unlike him to abstain, especially during a rager like last night.

He must be fucking serious about claiming Jamie. All power to him, but that was one road I was never going to travel down again. The one and only time I had attempted to tie down a woman, she royally fucked me and this club over. The only good thing to come out of it was my little Angel.

Breaker grabbed a bottle of Jack and swigged, then lit up a joint. Always too keyed up for caffeine, he usually self-medicated with enough booze and weed to combat his edginess.

I was itching to ask him about Jamie Sinclair, but I knew he wouldn’t talk.

The clubhouse slowly filled with brothers and their wives and kids. Someone started up the music and I went to check in with Angel. She had spent the night at Aspect’s house. He had two rugrats of his own and his old lady was super maternal.

Angel’s biological mother might have been a junkie bitch but that didn’t mean my baby girl was going to grow up without a mom. Layla was incredible with Angel and I didn’t have to deal with any of that relationship drama. It was the best of both worlds.

My little girl was getting some food and gave me a wave. She would find me if she needed anything, so I waved back and got busy mingling. Now that Pops was gone, it was my job to ensure these people were taken care of.

In the middle of a conversation with Layla, my phone suddenly dinged an alert from the front gate, and I pulled up the security footage. Nobody came through that way but strangers—we all used the back. The camera showed Jamie Sinclair striding up, sexy as hell but showing no skin, and I left Layla mid-sentence and hurried to the gate.

Through the speaker, I heard the prospect, Dope, laughing. When he started laying down the law for the girl, I held off to see how things played out. But when Dope grabbed her perfectly shaped ass, I saw fucking red. Rage pumped through my system and I was itching to pull out my piece and cap this motherfucker right here on club grounds.

Before I could get a handle on myself, Jamie took things into her own hands. She laid Dope out in two well-aimed strikes, then stood over him like she was the fucking Queen of England.

A queen worthy of a king.

My dick throbbed at the thought, and I had to forcibly remind myself that she was Breaker’s. Moving fast, I only just managed to grab her before she ran off.

Tank must have followed me because he went to check on Dope—and gave me the nod that meant he was still breathing. Then he moved in, like I needed backup to handle a chick that might be a buck twenty when soaking wet.

Sensing that she was near a dangerous predator, Jamie started babbling.

It was kind of funny, but I didn’t like the hungry look that entered her eyes when I told her she was now a part of the family. Maybe this was all a play and she was only interested in Breaker for the protection and status he could offer her.

That thought didn’t sit well with me, and before I knew it I was fucking issuing death threats. Any sane chick would run for the hills at that point, but Jamie’s eyes turned molten and she not so subtly squeezed her thighs together.

What the actual fuck? This chick was turned on by my threat. Maybe she and Breaker had more in common than I could have imagined.

She walked away just when I was about two seconds from saying screw it and fucking her right there against the toolshed, Breaker be damned.

How the fuck could I disrespect Breaker like that, even in my head, after everything he had done for me? Now, I felt like shit—and it was Jamie fucking Sinclair’s fault.

Tank walked up and asked, “Where the fuck has that chick been hiding?”

“In The Shop with Pete,” I growled out, and Tank’s eyebrows rose.

“That’s the new tattoo artist who’s been doing da Vinci-level art? Damn, I guess it’s time for me to get some more ink.”

He then walked over to Dope and slung him over his massive shoulder before heading into the clubhouse. He’d find Doc to patch him up.

I went back to mingling and did everything in my power to ignore Jamie Sinclair and the fucking big-ass smile on Breaker’s face as he showed her around. Goddammit, I’d never seen the guy look happier.

A couple hours passed and I was just barely keeping my shit together when my phone dinged again. Someone else was at the gate. This time it was a slick, black town car.

I got a text from Ballistic letting me know that Richard Forte was in the car. Fuck my life—what a day.

I made eye contact with Breaker and gave a slight nod toward the gate. This douche, Forte, wasn’t getting the message I was sending. It was time to let Breaker do his thing and break some shit.

The fact that I was pulling him away from Jamie Sinclair had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Breaker was bouncing at my side as we reached the gate. I rapped my knuckles on the car’s tinted back window. It lowered to reveal a pompous idiot in a thousand-dollar suit sipping an amber liquid out of a cut-crystal glass.

Forte opened his mouth to present us with his latest offer, but before he could utter a word, Breaker punched through the driver’s window with the help of his favorite brass knuckles and dragged the shocked driver out by his shirt.

Richard Forte was some bigwig real estate developer from the city who wanted to buy the thousand acres that Pops had left me. My land sat right between Phoenix and Carefree, and Forte wanted to turn it into the next up-and-coming elite suburb for rich, white idiots like himself.

I would die before that shit happened. That land was not only where we farmed our crop, but it was also a buffer between my town and the fuckers in the big city. If it went, it wouldn’t be long until the Souls went with it.

I had made my refusal to sell very clear, and his showing up, on family day no less, was not fucking acceptable. Today Forte was going to get a taste of what happened when people messed with me.

Once Breaker had the driver out of the car, he proceeded to beat the man methodically, but without the intent to kill or maim.

The entire time, I didn’t take my eyes off Forte, making my message clear. If he showed up again, it would be him instead of his driver, and Breaker wouldn’t go easy on him like he was going easy on this guy.

Even though Breaker was holding back, he looked like an extra from a horror film when he was done.

I yanked Forte out onto the blacktop, and Breaker got into the driver’s seat and pulled the car into the garage. Forte’s hundred-thousand-dollar car just became my chop shop’s newest acquisition. As for Forte, he was already on his phone. He wouldn’t find any law enforcement officer willing to listen to his story, not in Carefree.

When Breaker jumped out of the car and started back toward the barbecue, I stopped him before he could get too far.

“Dude, you might want to clean up. Your new friend doesn’t even know what a sergeant at arms is, for fuck’s sake. If you are serious about this chick, then I would suggest easing her into your shit.”

Breaker paused and looked down at himself, only now seeming to realize he was covered in blood splatter. He grimaced before turning toward his room in the clubhouse.

Shaking my head, I went out to the back to grab some food before it was all gone. After filling my plate, I scanned the yard for Angel. As usual, she was at the basketball court. And not as usual, she wasn’t alone. She was playing a game with Jamie Sinclair.

Fucking shit. This chick thought she could get to me through my kid.

Ducking behind the fence, I made my way unseen toward the courts. When I got to the gate, about five feet from the court, I paused to get my bearings. I didn’t want to scare my baby girl, after all, just our newest interloper.

When I didn’t hear much of anything, I peeked through the gate. They were both lying on their backs, breathing heavily, about three feet from my hiding place.

I was about to step in and grab Angel when they started talking.

“Were you serious about helping me get good enough to beat the boys?”

My little girl’s voice was strangely vulnerable. Angel is a lot of things, but vulnerable isn’t one of them. What the fuck was this chick doing to everyone around me?

“Of course. We can meet up and practice any time I’m not working. Is there a court at your school?” Jamie’s slightly raspy voice made my dick twitch.

“Yeah, I think there is, but we should just use this one,” Angel said.

“Um, I don’t know if that’s a great idea. I don’t think I’m really supposed to be here.”

Fuck, why did this chick not get that she was now included in the family?

“It’s cool as long as I say it’s cool. I’ll make sure my Daddy knows not to let the brothers give you any grief.”

Pride swelled in me. My Angel knew she was princess of my kingdom. But the next words out of Jamie’s mouth almost knocked me on my ass.

“What’s your Daddy’s name?”

Could the chick be serious? Why the hell was she hanging out with Angel if she didn’t know that she was my one and only weak spot?

Angel was at an awkward stage. She would grow out of it, and then the world would understand what they had been missing, but right now my kid was not someone most people gravitated toward. Thank god, I was scary enough to keep the bullies in check.

“His name is Donovan, but everyone calls him Rogue.”

At this, Jamie jerked up to a sitting position and started looking around. Ha, at least she knew that it wasn’t okay for her to single out my kid.

“Oh shit,” said Jamie. “I don’t think your dad likes me very much. It might be a good idea to keep our practice sessions on the down low.”

Angel’s face was a picture of confusion that matched my own.

If this chick was serious about helping out my kid with b-ball practice, then it would do nothing but buy her favor with me. Why would she want to hide that? Angel knew the score in this town. She knew her power stemmed from mine.

“Did you do something to piss my dad off?” Angel asked.

“No, but whenever I see him, he gives me this super-intense stare, like he can see into the depths of my soul. And I’m pretty sure he is not impressed with what he sees there.”

Angel laughed so hard she actually flipped over and slapped the ground. I glanced at Jamie to see if she was pissed that my twelve-year-old was making fun of her, but she was looking on with a small smile.

“My dad only pays attention to the people he deems worthy of his time,” Angel said. “If you’re holding his attention enough for a ‘soul stare’ then I’m guessing he likes you just fine.”

Well, shit. I was going to have to have a talk with her about giving away all my secrets. I definitely didn’t want this minx to know how much she had caught my attention. Especially since she belonged to Breaker.

“Okay, well, if you can promise to get me in, we can meet after school to practice.”

Jamie was part of the family, but I probably needed to spread the word so nobody bothered her again, if she was going to be showing up here a lot. Although the state of Dope’s balls might already have taken care of that for me.

“So, what do you do for work?” Angel asked, and I focused back on the conversation.

“I’m a tattoo artist,” Jamie said—and Angel’s eyes lit up. Oh fuck.

“Oh my god,” Angel gushed. “That is so awesome. Can you give me a tattoo?”

Jamie flipped onto her stomach so that she was in the same position as my kid, and grinned.

“Of course! What do you want?”

And that was my cue to break up this party. I stormed out from behind the gate, making both girls jump. Reaching down, I pulled Angel from the ground and draped her over my shoulder.

“You are getting a tattoo over my dead body,” I growled, and heard the intoxicating sound of Jamie’s laughter as I walked away.

Fuck my life, how in the world was I supposed to stay away from that sexy minx?