Niner: Motorcycle Club Romance (Savage Saints MC Book 11) Read online

  Niner

  Savage Saints MC – New York

  ~

  Hazel Parker

  Niner – Savage Saints MC Series © 2020 Hazel Parker

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Niner

  Chapter 2: Carrie

  Chapter 3: Niner

  Chapter 4: Carrie

  Chapter 5: Niner

  Chapter 6: Carrie

  Chapter 7: Niner

  Chapter 8: Carrie

  Chapter 9: Niner

  Chapter 10: Carrie

  Chapter 11: Niner

  Chapter 12: Carrie

  Chapter 13: Niner

  Chapter 14: Carrie

  Chapter 15: Niner

  Chapter 16: Carrie

  Chapter 17: Niner

  Chapter 18: Carrie

  Chapter 19: Niner

  Chapter 20: Carrie

  Chapter 21: Niner

  Chapter 22: Carrie

  Epilogue

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  Author Bio

  Prologue

  Lane “Niner” Bentley

  I hated parties.

  I loved being around a brotherhood again, even if I didn’t know everyone else in the club that well yet. I loved the danger of facing down an enemy and engaging in a chase. I loved the tension that built and the release that came from fulfilling the cat-and-mouse game with said enemy.

  But I absolutely hated parties.

  And yet, I couldn’t avoid them.

  I was happy when I got the opportunity to join the Savage Saints. But the loud music, the excessively stupid conversations, and the overflow of alcohol were all enough to drive me over the edge. I already tended toward the introverted side of things. Now I had to act like I enjoyed these things.

  Fuck that.

  I checked my phone, standing in the corner, content to play the role of quasi-bouncer. As the sergeant-at-arms, I had access to club email and the president’s email as well. I tried not to abuse the privilege, especially since I knew what it was like for someone to abuse power, but it was still good to have from a security perspective.

  Most days, the emails bored me.

  Not tonight.

  I opened an email from an anonymous sender comprised of mostly gibberish. I looked at the photo with a warning to “Stop While Ahead.” It could have only come from one source.

  Kyle Stone, the brother of the president and vice president of the club.

  Family drama can’t ever end, can it?

  I made a note to myself to tell Marcel, the president, when he entered. But unfortunately, he wasn’t there, and that meant that I couldn’t occupy myself—something that Fitz, one of Uncle’s friends and someone that I literally never would have befriended without the club, took advantage of as he approached.

  “Nice party, huh?” he said.

  I just nodded. I hoped that people would get the hint that I wasn’t very much interested in conversation. Unfortunately, most people had the awareness of a blind squirrel, and Fitz was no exception to the rule.

  “I’ll bet you didn’t do this much in the NYPD.”

  Goddamnit, Fitz, I hate you. You know not to bring that up.

  “Nope,” he said.

  I would have thought that twice being ignored and given a curt answer to would have given Fitz the hint. But for someone who had once worked in finance and been smart enough to have earned a lot of money, he sure seemed unaware of how little I cared to make small talk.

  “So do you see anyone you want to go for?” he said.

  I didn’t say anything for the longest time, hoping that he would get the hint that I wanted to ignore him. But I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen and decided to humor him. If nothing else, maybe if I gave him a coy answer, he’d go and talk to the girl himself and find out more, even if he had just gotten himself a nice girl. I wasn’t trying to get him to cheat. I just wanted him to leave me the hell alone. Fitz started to look away, and I relaxed.

  And then I couldn’t believe my own eyes.

  “There.”

  The word escaped my mouth, and my hand pointed to where I was looking at, but it was all a sort of automatic response that I didn’t have much control over. The girl there…it couldn’t have been her, right? She couldn’t possibly…

  No, there was no way. She would have had to have moved all the way from Georgia to get up here, and the odds of that were just way too small. She wasn’t someone who had yearned for a bigger city and brighter lights like me. She was a Southern gal through and through; she was the furthest thing from a city lady. There was just no way.

  But…it was her.

  It was most definitely Carrie Griffith.

  But how?

  She looked the same as I had remembered her from way back when—olive-colored skin, always dressed a level above everyone else, and perfectly well-put-together. More than that, she still had the same grace and essence that she’d had back then.

  Which just made it even more confusing that someone like her would wind up in a club party setting like this. If she looked drugged out, that would have been one thing, but this?

  “So why don’t you go for her?”

  Why don’t you go for her? Do you hear yourself, Fitz? Do you have any idea why that would be insane? I did something in response that I rarely did.

  I laughed.

  And finally, realizing Fitz wouldn’t get the hint that I just wanted to be alone, I turned away.

  “I have my reasons,” I said.

  Fitz patted me on the back and started to walk away. I breathed a sigh of relief as I looked around the room. A quick scan showed that Biggie and Uncle were there, but they were distracted by two women who seemed intent on getting their pants off. It was a bit of a painful realization to recognize that Fitz was the only person here who was sober and able to understand the importance of what was going on.

  “Oh, Fitz!”

  He turned back to me. He looked quite surprised that I had reached out to him. He wasn’t exactly wrong to feel that way.

  “Yeah?”

  The eagerness of his words made me begin to regret trying to speak to him.

  “Marcel,” I said. “Is he coming?”

  He shook his head. That was of little surprise to me.

  “Still recovering. Spending time with Christine. Why?”

  I waved him over, deciding someone needed to know about what was going on. I opened the email and showed it to Fitz.

  “It’s Kyle,” I explained. “I think he’s getting tired of us being around.”

  “Then I guess Marcel’s and Biggie’s family feud ain’t over yet, huh?”

  I just chuckled. That was an understatement. Families
like this, once they started feuding, never stopped until someone died or someone moved away.

  “It’s just getting started,” I said.

  Fitz looked exhausted. He had just helped resolve a conflict with the Las Vegas Savage Saints, and he didn’t look too keen on taking on yet another challenge.

  For me? It was just one in a line of many, many challenges in my life. Facing hardship wasn’t something that I avoided. It was just a part of life.

  “Have you told Biggie and Uncle?” Fitz asked.

  I looked at them until Fitz followed my line of sight. That was enough to get me a few moments to look at Carrie Griffith and try and make sense of her presence. I would need a whole lot more than just a few moments, but it was a start.

  “Alright, well, I think we should organize an emergency meeting,” Fitz said, taking a deep breath. “If Kyle is doing this, he’s—”

  “We will,” I said, hoping that shut down the conversation.

  It sort of did.

  “OK, I’m going to text Marcel and let him know,” Fitz said. “You can, uh, let me know if you need anything.”

  I would.

  The job of sergeant-at-arms was like being a cop. I could never do it alone. That was doubly true when going into violent and difficult situations. Kyle may not have been violent himself, but I knew better than to think a politician would never go behind closed doors to use violent means. That was doubly true for Kyle.

  But I didn’t say that to Fitz.

  Frankly, I was just happy to spend a few moments in silence to try and make sense of why she was here.

  * * *

  Carrie Griffith

  I hated parties.

  I loved being around groups of people. I loved being around my closest friends. I loved being in an atmosphere in which people were joyful and in a celebratory mood.

  But parties with dark rooms, loud music, and an excess of alcohol? I hated that. If I went the rest of my life without attending a party after ten in the evening, my life would be better for it.

  Still, having been dragged to this party by my best New York friend and my co-owner at my restaurant, Caroline, I tried to make the most of it. I danced with the music. I drank a little bit of booze. I talked to a couple of the guys.

  But that was the other part of it, too. The guys just weren’t my type. They were loud and boisterous as if trying to prove a point. I preferred the quiet and contemplative type, the kind whom I could be around and relax in silence with.

  There was one guy standing off to the side who looked awfully familiar, as if I knew him from somewhere. I couldn’t place his face, given it was so dark, and his facial hair made him look like a lot of other dudes with beards, but there was something about his presence that just felt so familiar.

  It was New York City, though. Everyone had a doppelganger somewhere in the city. And even then, I met so many people at my restaurant that it was certainly possible I’d spoken to him before.

  I looked at Caroline, dancing in an almost fanatic state a few feet away. I looked at the rest of the party. Girls far more extroverted and social than me had latched themselves onto a respective man. I didn’t feel alone, but I felt like I wanted to be alone. I risked playing the role of party-pooper and interrupted my best friend’s fanatic dancing.

  “Hey,” I said, too quietly at first. Caroline kept dancing like she needed it to survive. “Hey!” Again, she kept on dancing, oblivious to me.

  “Hey!”

  Finally, I got her attention—but only to encourage me to dance as well. She took my hand, raised it in the air, and though I went along with it for half a second to appease her, I quickly retracted it and pulled her to the side.

  “Girl, this isn’t my scene. Can you walk with me to the subway stop and then you can come back?”

  “What?” she said as if this scene were everyone’s scene. “Carrie, you’ve been stressing yourself out with the store for weeks now! You need to let loose a little!”

  “I know! But I like to let loose with something a little less crazy than—Caroline!”

  She had gone back to dancing in her trance. I didn’t want to make the walk by myself, but I didn’t want to stay here.

  “Ten minutes, and you walk me?”

  “OK!”

  I was ninety percent sure that she only said yes because it would get me to shut up and start dancing, but at least we finally had a plan. Those ten minutes were miserable, and I counted off every single second of them, but with just a minute left, I could taste freedom. I looked to Caroline, who…looked even more engrossed in the music than before. Now she was laughing to herself.

  This is not promising.

  “Hey, hey, hey!”

  I looked behind me to see an older man approaching me, with gray hairs at his temple and a cocky smirk.

  “You two fine ladies look like you’re enjoying yourselves. The name’s Uncle.”

  “Uncle? Are you going to make me call you Daddy later?” Caroline said.

  Uncle bellowed in laughter.

  “I like her. You? You can come too. You should be more like your friend. Maybe you can be with Biggie or weirdo Niner over there.”

  That was enough for me. I grabbed Caroline and forcefully led her out the front door. Caroline tried to pull away from me, but only when we’d gotten to the sidewalk did I finally let go of her.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “You know that’s not my scene,” I said.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Look, you’re right, OK?” I said. “The restaurant isn’t doing well. If it keeps up like this for another week, we’re either going to have to lay off a bunch of people and have us work to death, or we’re just going to have to call it a day and close the shop. If that happens, then you can also kiss my time in New York goodbye.”

  “No, Carrie—”

  “I’m homesick, Caroline,” I said. “There’s nothing to remind me of Georgia. Sure, we occasionally see UGA football televised or the Braves baseball game on, but that’s not the same as the chill, Southern vibe that Georgia gives me. I wanted to come here to challenge myself, but now?”

  I laughed as someone came out from the party and threw up all over the sidewalk, thankfully a good few feet away from us.

  “Oh, and the fact that I dislike parties hasn’t changed one bit.”

  “OK, so that may be a bit much,” Caroline said. “But I would argue that your stress is exactly why you need to party. You miss that vibe? I get that, but what happens when you move back to Georgia to be with your family and you swing in the other direction? You’ll be so bored that you’ll yearn for a chance to celebrate.”

  See, that was where Caroline and I differed—and where I think the city life and the country life in me differed. For Caroline, FOMO was a real thing. If she went for a while without the party, she’d start to crave one and go out on a weekday.

  Me? I never missed it. I had never liked it in the first place. I guess when I was a student at the University of Georgia, I had gone to the occasional fun party, but that was usually when it was a small group of us having some wine and playing board games and cooking competitions, not when everyone was slammed to the bottom of a liquor bottle and seeing who could make the dumbest decisions they could excuse with being drunk.

  “Nah,” I said. “Look, we’re already outside? Can you just—”

  Someone came out of the party.

  But this time, it wasn’t anyone drunk. It was the same man that I had seen standing quietly, watching the rest of the party unfold from the side. He grabbed the man who had thrown up, almost literally tossed him inside, and turned to us.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “Is everything OK?”

  You look so familiar. I feel like I should know you. But no one came to mind. The best I could muster was a customer that I had had some good conversations with, but that didn’t seem right. I usually remembered my most loquacious and interesting customers, and while this guy intrigued me, he wasn’t t
hat talkative.

  “Oh, we’re fine,” Caroline said. “My friend’s getting lame and tired.”

  “Hey!”

  The man shrugged.

  “These things aren’t my scene anyway. If I didn’t work here, I’d probably be home right now.”

  “Don’t encourage her!” Caroline said, but she started to recognize that she was defeated. “Alright, fine, I’ll walk you to the subway, Carrie.”

  I looked at the man, who looked like he had much more that he wanted to say. I certainly had some questions. Who was he? Why had I caught him looking at me—and not just in a sexual way? What did he want? Did he know me? Did I know him?

  But neither of us said a word. The exhaustion of being in a setting neither of us thrived in had sapped our voices and our desire for further stimulation, and though I gave a short nod when I turned, I didn’t say anything. The handsome man only nodded back before he vanished from my line of sight.

  “Someday, girl, someday I’m going to get you to really party,” Caroline said.

  “You’re running out of time. I’m thirty-four, you know. I’m pretty sure that if I was going to party like you do, it would have happened by now.”

  “I know! God, I just want you to have fun!”

  “I did,” I said plainly, which seemed to baffle Caroline only further.

  In fact, the most fun part was trying to figure out who that man was. I relished intellectual puzzles far more than alcohol and handsome men; it wasn’t so much that I needed to debate an Ivy League graduate as it was that I just needed someone who could pique my interest more than they could pique my arousal.

  Not to say that I had no interest in the physical, of course. That wasn’t true at all; that man, whatever his name was, was extraordinarily handsome and someone that, if I spent more time around, I’d think about in certain ways.

  But for right now, I wasn’t thinking about the intellectual challenge or the looks or anything else having to do with the man. I wasn’t thinking about the shop, my life in New York City, or if I’d move back to Georgia. I wasn’t thinking about anything.

  Frankly, I was just happy to spend a few moments in silence.