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There were still hours to go before we hit New Orleans, but we had a base headquarters ready for us. We’d need a long, hard sleep after today’s ride.
We’d need our strength and our wits.
The next few weeks meant introducing Hunter to Julian’s partnership, finalizing protection contracts, establishing our turf, and carving out our niche in the city.
Hunter turned to me for a moment, and we shared a meaningful look. Sarah glanced over as well, and I felt Kate look their way.
I smiled.
If it wasn’t for Hunter and Sarah coming back together, Kate and I would have never seen each other again. In some small way, our stories seemed to run parallel. A cog in a grand plan that encompassed us all.
And I would forever be grateful for that.
But there was another similarity between us… It was something that Kate had told me that morning, right before we left El Paso for good.
The Devil’s Dragons had a prince on the way, sitting in Sarah’s womb. But the heir to the throne wouldn’t grow up alone.
Kate was pregnant.
And I was going to be a father.
You made it this far! Keep going! There’s still ONE more surprise in store!
Thanks again for being so amazing! You are the reason I write!
-Nikki xoxoxo
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Novels by Nikki Wild
Bad Boy Sports
Play Dirty (A Bad Boy Football Romance)
Running Game (A Bad Boy Football Romance)
Bad Boy Fighters:
Knockout (A Bad Boy MMA Romance)
Bad Boy Bikers:
Saving Landon (A Bad Boy Biker Romance)
Saved by the Bad Boy (A Devil’s Dragons Biker Romance)
Pride and Pregnancy (A Devil’s Dragons Motorcycle Club Romance)
Roughneck (A Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance)
Rough Rider (Outlaw Kings Motorcycle Club)
British Bad Boys:
Royal Prick (A Bad Boy British Romance)
Arrogant Brit (A Bad Boy British Sports Romance)
Rock Hard (A Bad Boy British Rockstar Romance)
Played (A Bad Boy British Romance)
Bad Boy Rockstars:
Illicit Behavior (A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance)
Rock Hard (A Bad Boy British Rockstar Romance)
Bad Boy Stepbrothers:
Lust (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)
Richard (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)
Bad Boy Billionaires:
Protect And Serve (A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance)
Pretend Married (A Sexy Billionaire Romance)
THE FINAL SURPRISE! You’ve just found MALICE!
Here it is! A brand new never-before-released novel from Nikki Wild!
I wanted to do something extra special and here it is… For all my loyal fans who made it this far, here is a totally new and totally unreleased Nikki Wild novel just for YOU. MALICE is a bad boy cage fighter romance that I think you’re going to love! Thanks for making this the best year of my life.
-Nikki
Troy
The soles of my shoes beat a rhythm on the pavement like rain on a tin roof. I never liked to listen to music while I trained because there were too many things to be on the lookout for. Especially at night. So, I let my feet, and my thumping heart, and my labored breaths be the soundtrack.
Rounding the corner on to Sparrow, I crossed in front of Haye’s Auto Repair. It was where I’d spent most of my time when I was a kid. That is, when I wasn’t out raising hell.
Haye’s had bars on the doors and windows just like every other business in this fucked up town. The owner was a mountain of a guy named Robert. Robert had taken it upon himself to look out for me, seeing as how my mother wasn’t exactly capable. He used to give me a few dollars here and there for helping him sweep up the auto bays; and his wife, Sarah, always made sure I had food in my stomach.
When I was around twelve, my sister and I were taken away from Mom for good. She went to rehab, and they split us up and put us into foster care. Neither situation panned out. After a stint with some new family, I’d find an excuse to run off. Fitting in with someone else’s program wasn’t my style. A few weeks would go by, and they’d find me—usually standing on the curb in front of that blown out old shop.
That was how it went for a few years. The system kept me as its burden until I turned eighteen, and then, it spat me out. Mr. Haye died not long after that, and with my sister lost in the wind, I was officially on my own.
My legs burned as I pushed it to the limit. It was sometime after midnight, and even in a city like Chicago, the streets still smelled good after a fresh rain. The quiet night was so crisp.
Everything was better outside the walls of Cook County Jail. I’d only been free for a little over a month, but life still just seemed… sharper. Things can get bleak in a dungeon like that. At least I didn’t end up in state prison.
As a kid, I was in and out of juvenile hall; not because I wanted to be the next Al Capone, but because I had to eat. I made it all the way to twenty-three before I went to big boy jail.
It was a felony battery charge and you can bet your ass I was guilty.
I’d been doing work for a local loan shark named Damon Ortiz. Ortiz was responsible for a healthy portion of the city’s other crime statistics too, but I stayed away from all that. Anyway, whenever he needed someone to collect on a bad loan, I was the guy that got the call.
Mostly, my work was limited to scaring the shit out of gambling addicted businessmen from the north side who didn’t want to pay their debts—or, more likely, didn’t want to tell their wife they dropped ten grand on a Bears game. In the end, I always collected. Sometimes, though, I got a more… challenging assignment. It was one of those that landed me in the county for an extended vacation.
Eddie, the guy who usually gave me the jobs, told me he was waiting on payment from a couple of kids from the university. They’d sharked out twenty-five thousand to throw a huge blowout and basically party their faces off for a couple of weeks. When it came time to settle their debt, they told him to fuck off.
Nothing was worse than dealing with spoiled, coked up, college kids. They all seemed to have lawyers for fathers and were never shy about letting you know it.
Anyway, I made my way to the address Eddie had on file, where I found three of them waiting for me. I told them to pay up, they refused… and then they went to the hospital and I went to jail. End of story.
Cardale road wound behind a strip mall and petered out in front of an apartment complex that was built sometime before cell phones were a thing. That’s where I lived, and it wasn’t too bad. For the most part, it was a building of families and young professionals. I’d only moved in a couple of weeks back, but sometimes I wondered if they saw me as the bad apple in the bunch. Little did they know about my fresh commitment to turning over a new leaf.
Practice was going to come early tomorrow. I’d had a moderately successful high school wrestling career, but it was nothing compared to this. Mixed mart
ial arts were a different animal. Every morning started with a six o’clock warmup, followed by strength and agility training, and then drills and sparring until lunch. After that, I’d head over to the auxiliary building for jiu-jitsu class, and when that was all said and done, I’d go to my job loading trucks. It was a hell of a way to spend the day, but when you remembered that in two short weeks you’d be standing across the cage from your opponent, the grind became worth it.
I picked the streetlight at the front of the parking lot as my finish line. If I could sprint as hard as I could until I crossed it, then I’d sleep tonight. I had to find little challenges like that to keep from drifting off my path. It’s also why I liked to run at night. It gave me fewer opportunities to find trouble. Idle hands are the devil’s play things, is what my grandma always used to tell me.
My lungs begged my legs to quit, but they wouldn’t. I passed a lady sitting in her car at the stoplight and she looked at me like I’d just stolen something. Maybe once you were branded as a ‘felon’, people could just sense it about you. Or, maybe I was the one being paranoid.
I passed my mark and my legs turned into jelly. Stumbling to a stop in front of the manager’s office, I doubled over and rested my elbows on my knees.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered, sucking in huge breaths of cold air. My heart hammered so hard inside of my ribcage that I considered for a second it might break through.
And that was it. The city buzzed, the stars blinked, and I could add another check to the sheet of paper hanging on my refrigerator. Another day down without letting myself blow it all up. Troy Eason was an upstanding member of society.
Riley
“Oh, my goodness Riley, what are you still doing here?”
