AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PROLOGUE
KASSIAN
“Your bond’s been posted, kid.”
Kassian Hardy slowly lifted his head, eyes no longer focused on his raw bloodstained knuckles.
The bars of the jail cell clanged noisily, and the door slid open. He stood, making sure to give the other occupants a steely glare before favoring his left leg on his way through the barred exit. There was no way in hell he could take on the five men he shared a cell with only moments earlier. Though he walked away the victor in his recent MMA fight, there was a cost to his unscathed record. He clenched his jaw, pain shooting through his muscles with every step he took.
It’s worth it.A small part of his subconscious disagreed. Even if he kept up his winning streak, the damage to his body would eventually take its toll. He shook his head and straightened his back. No, he wasn’t about to give up the one thing that made him feel alive, wanted, needed… even if only for a few rounds.
The hallway widened to the entrance and Kassian glanced around the nearly vacant room. The stench of bleach, vomit, and piss caused his nose to wrinkle. They were scents he knew all too well. Memories of his past life flooded him, but he swallowed, pushing them down yet again.
He paused at the front desk, the thick plexiglass streaked with fingerprints and a red lipstick smear. “Who paid the bond?”
The jailer shoved Kassian’s personal belongings through the small hole at the bottom of the glass and jutted his chin to the right.
Following the direction, Kassian narrowed his swollen eyes at the man in a leather cut signing discharge paperwork at the other desk. He snorted.A biker, great. His trainer usually posted the bond when a fight went rogue, but that wasn’t him.
Curling his hands into fists hurt, but he didn’t give a damn. Owing anyone wasn’t his style if he could help it. He could pay the guy. Once he collected the winnings from the previous night’s fight, that is.
“Who the hell are you?”
His voice echoed over the puke-green covered walls. All eyes immediately snapped to his six-foot-six-inch frame. Every eye but his bond benefactor’s. The man with bright red hair speckled with a touch of white just kept sliding his pen across the forms.
“Are you deaf, old man?” Kassian crossed the space in a mere four steps, his long legs eating up the flimsy laminate flooring. He towered above the biker, the emblem on the back of the leather cut one he’d never seen around town. He couldn’t deny the goddess-like creature it depicted was intimidating and fascinating at the same time.
Finally, the man stopped, nodded at the woman behind the window, and turned toward him.
“Nah, not deaf. A little selective in my hearing.” He smirked. “Or so says my old lady.”
Kassian’s head pounded from the wallops he took the night before, but the casual words with an Irish accent only made it worse. He glowered at the shorter man, but the biker didn’t react or even twitch. He merely stared right back into the mismatched eyes that stunned every girl Kassian met.
“Cut the shit. Who are you?”
“Lorcan O’Grady to you, but my club calls me Reaper.”
Kassian glanced at the name on Lorcan’s vest, then to the patch on the opposite side. “President, huh? That supposed to mean something?”
Lorcan shrugged and leaned against the counter. “Is Rubble supposed to mean something to me?” Before Kassian could reply, the other man continued. “Because I saw your fight. You’re good, sure, but you don’t live up to your name, boyo.”
A shot of adrenaline coursed through his veins. He never watched the crowd before, during or after a fight. It’d only throw him off. Still, it surprised him that a biker from God knew where came to see him demolish another fighter.
“Old man, I’m tired, bleeding, and sore, and you’re barking up the wrong tree if you think I’ll join whatever misfit gang you got.” He slid on his jacket, bruised arms screaming at his jerky movements. “I don’t join clubs, so you can fuck off.”
Chuckling, Lorcan started walking toward the door. “Oh, I’m not here to recruit you. My club doesn’t need a hothead.”
Despite the truthful barb, he had to know. “Then why’d you pay to get me out? My trainer is probably on his way right now to do the exact same thing.”
The biker slipped on his sunglasses, his blue eyes now hidden from the world. “Because I’m hoping that somewhere beneath all your bullshit is a man Idowant in my MC.”
“Don’t count on it.”
Lorcan glanced to the window then back. “So, I shouldn’t tell the Feds where you’re at?”
Ice filtered through Kassian’s veins. No one knew about the warrant except his trainer. He closed the distance between them and gripped a fistful of Lorcan’s cut. “Who the hell told you about that?” he seethed between his teeth.
“Boyo, not much happens in my town without me hearing about it.”
