Madeline Sheehan - Unbeloved

The way it always was and always would be, inside my heart.

“You motherfuckers wanna stand outside a prison all fuckin’ day?” Cox shouted. “That’s on you, but I’m ridin’ my ass outta here. Freakin’ me the fuck out, thinkin’ they’re gonna come chain my ass up or somethin’!”

Shaking my head at Cox, I turned to Hawk and smiled. “Do you even remember how to ride?”

His answering laughter was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

“Woman,” he said, an eyebrow cocked as he looked down at me. “It’s like fuckin’. You don’t ever forget how.”

Zachary “ZZ” Jeffries slipped the padlock onto the door of the last shipping container and slammed it shut with a loud click. After adding a metal shipping seal, he turned to leave, facing the remaining men on the docks. He gave them a nod to signify that everything was ready and they could start loading, then he walked off.

As he headed in the opposite direction, he could hear the muffled whimpers and cries from inside the container grow substantially louder. It was a heady, adrenaline-inducing feeling that powered through him, making his heart race. Unable to stop himself, his fingers curled, balled into tightly clenched fists.

He knew what those women were experiencing, locked up in that dirty, dark container, their futures unknown to them. He knew all too well that raw emotion as your heart pounded and you could barely breathe because your own fear was fucking suffocating you. He’d been running from . . . well, from everyone for a long time now, so yeah, fear was his fucking middle name.

It was also what had kept him alive this long.

He’d turned the fear into rage. Fought his way to the top of the lowest of the low, and took his place on a throne made of garbage and rot.

He didn’t give a fuck if his empire was built on the blood and bones of innocent men and women, didn’t care that more people would have to die so he could continue his reign, continuing surviving. This was his life now, this was what they had made him, the monster they’d forced him to become.

“Boss man.”

ZZ continued his stride across the docks, cutting his eyes to his right as Tommy, one of his men, fell into step beside him.

“What?” he snarled, coming to an abrupt stop.

Tommy swallowed hard and ZZ fought the urge to laugh. They were all afraid of him, even a mean old son of a bitch like Tommy was scared shitless that at any second his temper would be turned on him and once it was, no one was safe. Not a single fucking person.

“Big guy wants numbers,” Tommy said quietly.

ZZ snorted. “He’ll get ’em when I’m ready to fuckin’ give ’em.”

The Russian mafia might think they owned his ass, but the reality of it was that ZZ had ensured the loyalty of the men who worked under him. If the Russians ever decided to turn on him, make a play against him, ZZ had plans in place to start a war that would crumble the golden ground those fuckers thought they walked upon.

As Tommy reluctantly nodded, ZZ started walking again, cursing quietly over the summer heat, still suffocating even in the dead of night. But wearing short sleeves wasn’t an option for him. His former loyalties, his club colors, were still tattooed all over his body, something he purposely kept as a reminder of why he’d ended up in the fucking ditch he had.

Still cursing, he reached into his pocket, pulling a rubber band from his jeans, and after tying back his long brown hair into a knot, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, cracked his neck a few times, and continued on.

Making a sharp right in the direction of the parking lot, ZZ headed straight for his truck. He was eager to get home—get drunk, get high, jack himself off—even if home was a piece of shit. It was off the grid, out of the way, and that was all he cared about.

He’d just breached the parking lot when the rumble of a motorcycle gave him pause. Self-preservation, ever present in his every move, slammed into overdrive and he sidestepped, slipping behind a nearby vehicle. Crouching down, he pulled his piece from the back of his jeans and waited.

Who the fuck was here this late? He planned his shipments down to the last second, ensuring that everyone here was on his team, their silence bought and paid for. To the best of his knowledge, no other import or export was on the schedule for tonight, and this unexpected arrival was putting a damper on his good mood.

As he waited, not just one but two, three, and then finally five bikes came to a slow stop in the center of the parking lot. Raising himself just enough to see better, ZZ looked over the trunk of the vehicle he was crouched behind, and his breath caught in his throat.

Five leather cuts were illuminated by the moonlight, highlighting the Grim Reaper on the back, the Hell’s Horsemen rocker above it, and the Miles City patch beneath it.

No fucking way. They couldn’t know he was here, and after all this time, why would they bother to look for him? He’d been so sure that once Deuce had come to an unhappy truce with the Russians, his former president would stop sending runners after him. And he had. For years now, ZZ hadn’t heard as much as a whisper of the Horsemen sniffing around his business.

But as the bikes lined up beside one another, ZZ watching as one by one the men riding them cut their engines, toed their kickstands down, and dismounted, he couldn’t help but wonder if that had been the plan all along. Letting enough time pass, letting him believe he was safe, and then pouncing when he’d least expect it.

Too bad for them, he always expected the unexpected.

“You’re stupid as fuck, Dev,” one of the men called out, a deep voice ZZ didn’t recognize. “Prez finds out you brought along your bitch, he’s gonna be puttin’ you in the damn ground.”

“Shut up, asshole,” a female voice called out, and ZZ’s eyes zeroed in on the dark figure that moved to stand beside the quickly forming circle of men. Dressed in head-to-toe leather, showcasing a body built for sin, she reached up with small, feminine hands to remove her full-face helmet.

And ZZ’s heart stopped. It couldn’t be . . . but it was. The blonde hair, the killer body, the grin punctuated with dimples glinting under the parking lot lights. Danny looked just like he’d remembered her, as if she hadn’t aged a day since he’d last seen her.

“She stays in the parking lot,” another voice called out, this one ZZ recognized as his former brother, Bucket. As he turned to look the man over, he noticed the years hadn’t been kind to him. He looked worse than ever, grimy as fuck, and older than ZZ knew he was.

“What’s the big fuckin’ deal?” another man said, much younger than Bucket. Coming up to stand beside Danny, he swung his arm up and around her shoulders, and pulled her tightly to him.

ZZ blinked, feeling a strong sense of déjà vu. It had been a while since he’d seen any of his former crew, but if he didn’t know any better, he’d have said that man was Cox. Only it wasn’t. Cox had been covered in tattoos, and this guy didn’t have any visible ink.

“It’s a fuckin’ cash drop-off,” the young man continued. “Wham, bam, we’re back on the road.”

Bucket shook his head. “She stays in the parking lot.” This time his voice brooked no argument, and the younger man’s arm fell away from Danny.

“Yeah, man,” he muttered. “She stays in the parking lot. Fine.”

“Fuckers,” Danny bit out. “You’re all a bunch of no fuckin’ fun.”

ZZ’s head was spinning. Wasn’t Danny married to Ripper, didn’t she have a kid with him? And here she was with another brother?

And then all at once, his confusion, his surprise, bled quickly to anger.

The Hell’s fucking Horsemen were here, in his fucking territory, and doing some sort of business, no less.

But even worse was . . . Danielle West was here. The reason his life had gone from damn near perfect to shit staining a motherfucking gutter WAS HERE. And she was just as beautiful as ever, living a carefree fucking life doing whatever the fuck she pleased.

His anger spiking, he felt a cold tremor slither down his spine and his hands began to shake. And suddenly, he wanted more than he’d ever wanted anything to wrap his hands around her perfect fucking neck and squeeze the life out of her.

As the group turned away, headed in the direction of the docks, ZZ could no longer be bothered with their reasons for being here. He was solely focused on Danny, who was headed back to the line of bikes.

Huffing loudly, she slammed her helmet down on the seat of the Harley she’d ridden in on the back of. Then turning away from him, she dug into her back pocket, revealing a brightly lit phone.

ZZ shuffled backward so he wouldn’t be seen as the men passed by him. Breathing shallowly, his heart racing, he counted under his breath as he waited, something he often did when he was preparing himself for the unknown.

Once he could no longer hear the booted footsteps echoing through the night, he shot up from his hiding place, and with careful, silent steps maneuvered through the vehicles in the lot. As he approached Danny, who was still facing away from him, entirely unaware of his presence, he raised his arm, lifting his gun.

But he wasn’t going to shoot her. No, he was going to make her pay for what she’d done to him.

“Danny,” he growled, feeling the muscles in his face begin to violently twitch. Rage long suppressed had been released, coursing angrily through his veins at a super speed he had absolutely no control over.

Startled, her phone clattering to the ground, Danny spun around. All that long blonde hair went flying, whipping around her as she turned to face him. As it settled away from her face, ZZ looked her up and down. Tight black leather jacket and pants, her lips painted a bright red, and eyes lined in black. This was not Danny. Forget that she was far too young, even younger than he’d previously thought. Now that he was standing directly in front of her, he could see the subtle differences between this woman and Danny. Her body wasn’t as slim, was more curvy than athletic; her bright blue eyes were bigger, almost too big for her face; and her lips were thicker, the bottom one curving in that sexy way that was very much reminiscent of . . .

Eva.

The young woman’s surprised gaze dropped to the gun in his hand and then back to his face. Just as she opened her mouth, a scream forming in her throat, he lunged forward . . .