Hawk's Cry : Satan's Devils MC Second Generation #2 Read online

  Satan’s Devils MC - Next Generation Book #2

  Contents

  Cast of Characters

  Satan’s Devils

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Reading Order

  Other Works by Manda Mellett

  Stay in Touch

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Published 2020 by Trish Haill Associates

  Copyright Manda Mellett

  Cover Design by Wicked Smart Designs

  Edited and formatted by Maggie Kern at Ms.K Edits

  Proof reading by Melanie Farrow at Professional Writing Services and Maria Lazarou

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book reviews.

  www.mandamellett.com

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Warning

  This book is dark in places and contains content of a sexual, abusive and violent nature. It may not be suitable for persons under the age of 18.

  Cast of Characters

  Officers

  Wizard – President

  Hawk – Vice President

  Hound – Sergeant at Arms

  Throttle – Enforcer

  Heart – Secretary

  Dollar – Treasurer

  Joker – Road Captain

  Mouse – Computer Expert

  Patched Members

  Drummer (ex-Prez)

  Wraith (ex-VP)

  Peg (ex-Sergeant at Arms)

  Blade (ex-enforcer)

  Bullet

  Cast

  Drifter

  Jekyll

  Lady

  Marvel

  Roadkill

  Rock

  Shooter

  Truck

  Prospects

  Butcher

  Nathan

  Rascal

  Old Lady’s and Children

  Olivia (Hawk’s)

  Sam (Drummer’s): Eli (Hawk) and Zane

  Sophie (Wraith’s): Olivia, Zoey, Eliza and Hilda

  Tash (Blade’s): Sabrina and Mason

  Darcy (Peg’s): Noah (Throttle) and Lisa

  Marcia (Heart): Amy, Jacob, Isabel and Alexis

  Maya (adopted daughter of Joker and Lady)

  Mariana (Mouse): Yiska, Maria and Tanya

  Becca (Rock’s): Rose and Aidan

  Ella (Slick’s): Faith

  Allie (Truck’s): Hope

  Carmen (Bullet’s)

  Sandy (Viper’s)

  Members who’ve moved on

  Hyde – left the club

  Dart – transferred

  Beef – transferred

  Road - transferred

  Deceased Members

  Adam

  Buster

  Tongue

  Hank

  Viper

  Slick

  Kidder

  Shortass

  Chapter One

  Eli…

  “I wondered where the fuck you were hiding. Took me ages to find you. What the hell are you doing up here all alone?”

  I glare at Throttle, enforcer for the mother chapter of the Satan’s Devils MC, as he comes closer. When my narrowed eyes and my teeth all but bared don’t send him the message, I resort to words. “And that I was here alone didn’t give you a fuckin’ clue that I might want some solitude?” Here is in the forest up above our Tucson compound. I’m sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree contemplating my life, trying to get things straight in my head. Or that’s what I was doing until I was so rudely interrupted.

  Throttle doesn’t take the hint. Instead of disappearing like most decent people would, he comes closer and sits his ass down alongside me. Stripping off a piece of bark and, giving his hands something to do, he starts to shred it.

  “What the fuck is up with you, Hawk? You’ve been off lately.” He taps his head as if to show me what he means.

  Throttle, the son of the ex-sergeant-at-arms, Peg, who stepped down from his role a few months back, is only a couple of years younger than me. As club kids, we’d grown up together here on the compound. All our lives we’ve been as close as brothers, in and out of each other’s houses all the time. I’m not surprised I haven’t been able to hide my state of mind from him.

  “I just…” I start, then stop. How can I explain? Why, when outwardly I have everything, do I feel so wrong? Why is it that some days, I find it hard to breathe, as though there’s a heavy weight on my chest? Why am I not happy and content, but rather full of unease?

  Throttle throws away the remains of the now destroyed bark and looks sideways at me. “Spit it out, Brother.”

  How can I put the impossible into words? I open my mouth, close it, then opening it again, finally spit out, “I’m not sure I’m where I should be.” It’s the best, only, explanation I can come up with. It sounds weak, even to me.

  The enforcer turns his head to look at me. “What the fuck do you mean?” He barks a short laugh. “Here, in the forest? If you’re lost, I know the way back.” He winks. It’s a joke. We spent our childhood playing amongst these trees.

  I shake my head, take another deep breath, and admit, “In the club.”

  If anyone’s eyes could open wider, I’ve never seen it. “You can’t be fuckin’ serious?” He stares at me again, trying to analyse the expression on my face. “You are serious?”

  I nod. “Deadly.”

  Throttle stands, rakes his hands through his hair, and then tugs at the beard that’s thick just like his father’s. His voice is just as deep and controlled when he states, “You’re the VP of the Satan’s Devils, Hawk. You’re the son of the ex-prez. You’ve just gotten married to the daughter of the previous VP and you’re expecting your first kid. Now you’re questioning being in the fuckin’ club?” He shakes his head. “You were fuckin’ born to this.”

  My hands clench into fists. “And that’s just the fuckin’ problem. Can’t you understand?” Rage that he doesn’t immediately see things the same way as I do floods through me. Standing, I get up in his face. “Drummer’s my dad. Drummer, the ex-prez. I was fuckin’ groomed to be an officer in this club from the day he and Mom gave me life. It was expected that I’d follow in his footsteps. I never had a fuckin’ choice, Noah.” Unconsciously, I realise I’ve reverted to using his legal name, the name I’d called him before he’d patched in. Appealing to him as my friend, not the club’s enforcer, I say, “Zane was never under the same pressure—”

  “Your brother, Zane, took after your mom. He was different from you since the day he was born. He followed the rules blindl
y while you always questioned and challenged them. Just like a man ready to lead this club should.”

  It’s true. I’ve always been the serious one while Zane’s got a much lighter outlook on life. I know it amused everyone how much I resembled my father, in looks and in the way I got things done. But I question how much that was his influence. Oh, he loves Zane, don’t get me wrong. But I was the son he’d never expected, but once arrived, he’d found he’d always wanted. The one who’d carry his legacy on.

  I envy Zane, my younger brother. He’s not part of the club, never having expressed any desire to become a member. He still lives here on the compound but isn’t involved in all the shit that goes on.

  I hadn’t meant to share my thoughts with anyone, not today. While they weren’t things I’d be able to keep to myself for much longer, I didn’t think I was ready to share them. If Throttle hadn’t come to find me, I’d never have opened up. But he’s caught me at a weak moment, perhaps it’s serendipity that he has.

  So I look him directly in the eyes, take a deep fortifying breath, and give it to him straight. “I’m going to leave the club. I’m going to become a civilian.”

  I’d been wrong. It is possible for his eyes to widen further. “What the fuck did you just say?” He growls and cups his ear as if he hadn’t heard me right. He shakes his head like a dog shaking rain off its back. “Must be fucking hearing things. Thought I heard you say you wanted to walk away from this life.”

  I put it more definitively, “You’d heard right. I want to go. Get a proper job, move off compound.”

  His body is vibrating with anger as he rounds on me. “This life isn’t something you walk away from, Hawk.”

  I shrug. I’m aware of that and the consequences of my decision. But something’s wrong, and I can’t see any other way to fix it. “I just can’t do this anymore.”

  “You can’t fuckin’ do this anymore?” he roars. His head moves to one side, then the other, then back. I see his muscles tick in his jaw. “You’re the fuckin’ VP, the vice president, Hawk. You and Wizard lead us. You, of all people, can’t just turn your back on the club.”

  “That’s the fuckin’ problem!” I scream at him, losing any control that I had. “I wasn’t asked if this is what I wanted. I had no choice.”

  “Choice?” He looks astonished. “What the fuck are you talking about? You could have said no if you didn’t want to prospect when the chance came up. You could have said no before you took the patch. You weren’t let off lightly because of who you are. Both you and I went through a harder time as prospects, because of who our fathers were. You had to be pretty fuckin’ sure that’s what you wanted, else you’d have walked then.”

  He’s right. No one had taken it easy on us. We should have been shoo-ins, already trusted, having known no life other than the club. But we’d been tested to the ultimate to make sure we weren’t hanging onto the coattails of our dads. So the members could see our loyalty was real, not assumed, and that we expected no special treatment from the club. That we’d risen through the ranks so fast had been part of the dedication and commitment we’d proven to have.

  “I’m too young to do this. I shouldn’t have made VP.”

  “You’re twenty-five, almost twenty-six,” he replies, deceptively quietly. “Wraith was what, twenty-seven when he made VP? He ever say it was too much to handle? Fuck no. He ever want to walk away? Not that I’ve ever heard. From the day he became Drummer’s right-hand man, Wraith’s given his all to the club. You saying you can’t give the same support to Wizard?”

  “I’m saying exactly that.” I’ve nothing to offer anymore. I feel like the club’s sucked the life right out of me. I’m wrung dry.

  Throttle kicks at the tree trunk as though he’s kicking me. His steel-capped boot makes it rock. “How does Olivia feel about all this?”

  I sigh as he mentions the woman I exchanged vows with just three months back. “I haven’t spoken to her about it,” I tell him, while acknowledging to myself, she’s part of the problem. “I was groomed and prepared to become an officer from the day I was born, Throttle. From my first breath, this was what Drummer wanted for me. I was put into that fuckin’ crib with Liv, the VP’s daughter. She was my first friend. We learned to walk and speak together. We played together, shared toys. Of course we were fuckin’ close. So I did what was expected, and now we’re married. Now the cycle’s happening all over again with a fuckin’ kid coming along.”

  Throttle stares at me as though he can’t understand any of the words coming out of my mouth. “You love her,” he says after a moment, almost accusingly.

  He’s not wrong. I do. I love her as much as my ability to breathe. She’s everything to me. But she wasn’t a choice that I made. That’s the point. Just another thing I was forced into.

  What it comes down to is that I haven’t been allowed to make a choice over anything. Everything’s always been mapped out for me. To keep everyone happy, I’ve done exactly what was expected. I’ve had to pretend to be someone I’m not, and I just can’t do that anymore.

  Throttle leans with his hands on his thighs. He looks like he’s struggling for something to say. It’s a few minutes before he speaks again. When he does, it’s with something akin to disgust and disappointment in his eyes. “Do me a fuckin’ favour, Hawk. Go speak to your wife.” Then he straightens, gives me one last glare, and walks off with his shoulders hunched over. I catch his mumbled someone needs to talk some sense into him before he disappears.

  I haven’t any intention of ignoring his instruction. It’s something I’ve already put off far too long. A conversation I’d known was coming, but also one I dread, and with fucking good reason.

  I stay in the forest for about ten minutes after Throttle leaves, trying to get my thoughts in order. Whether the enforcer will keep what I said to himself or tell others, I’ve no idea. But I can’t take the risk that he won’t, and Liv, who was my first and who remains my best friend, deserves better than to hear that shit secondhand.

  My wife is folding laundry when I step into our house that’s built at the top of the compound. It sits in the midst of all those that have been constructed for anyone who wants to live here. Ours is a stone’s throw away from the one belonging to my dad, and next to that, there’s the home of her own parents. Another expectation I’d fulfilled, being swept along with the tide when it was taken as a given we’d live nowhere else. No choice. No one asked for my opinion.

  “Hi.” She looks up expectantly and raises her chin, offering her cheek to me.

  Automatically, I step to her side and place a kiss to it.

  Her hand moves down and touches her stomach. At six months pregnant, she’s sporting a definite baby bump. “She’s active today. Do you want to feel her?”

  I should reach out and caress where my baby’s lying inside her. I should take delight in these moments. I should laugh when she alludes to the fact that as she’s one of four sisters, girls run in her family. I should remind her that boys run in mine and insist she’s carrying my son as that’s all my sperm will give her.

  But I don’t. I can’t. I feel frozen inside. Where once there was light, now it’s all dark.

  She looks at me carefully, then shakes her head. “You ready to talk yet?” Her teeth worry her lip.

  That’s exactly what I was intending, but something about the way she’s holding herself, how her arms go protectively around her body, shows me my talk was anticipated.

  I’m hurting her. I never meant to. She’d gotten swept along in the same way I had.

  Giving a deep sigh, she prompts me. “Eli, this has been too long coming. You’ve got something to tell me, so spit it out.” But she half turns away as though not wanting to hear it.

  “Liv…” I start, then stop, finding it harder to tell her than it was to bare my soul to Throttle. Then, like a dam breaking, it all starts coming out. About how I’ve never been asked my opinion on anything. How I am who I am because of who I was born to. How I don’t
know what I want anymore. How I don’t know me anymore, let alone my desires.

  When I run out of things to say, at last I look at her and see a tear leaking out of her eye. From the day I was first conscious of her lying in the crib alongside me, I’ve hated to see her cry. It’s no different now. The only change is when I step closer to wipe it away, she takes a step back.

  “You don’t get to comfort me,” she hisses, “when you’ve just told me I’m not what you want.”

  “I didn’t say that,” I remind her quickly, certain I hadn’t expressed anything of the sort. Though perhaps that had been the implication.

  But she ignores me. “Is it because of the baby? I thought we both were ready. It was you who didn’t want to wear the condom. We both took our chances. Then Dad got out his shotgun and you proposed—”

  “It’s not the baby,” I refute quickly, while acknowledging deep down inside, perhaps it is. Yes, I was the asshole who’d taken the chance. She’d reminded me when I’d forgotten but, to feel myself inside her unprotected for once? That, I’d thought at the time, was well worth it. Wraith hadn’t needed to get his shotgun out; Dad would have killed me if I’d not stepped up and made an honest woman of her. Though why he’d wanted to see me married when he’d never officially tied the knot himself, I’ve no idea.

  Though Drummer’s enduring love for my mom is clear to everyone, she has never needed a ring on her finger. Wraith and Sophie, Liv’s dad and mom, had made everything official, and their relationship had stood the test of time. Maybe, married or not, I’d be feeling no different.