Page 1 of Property of Saint

CHAPTER ONE

SAINT

I’ve just had my cock very satisfactorily deep throated in one of the town bars by a woman who thought she’d won the lottery just for giving a blow job to a biker. She didn’t even expect any reciprocal action, simply satisfied to have my attention or perhaps to gain bragging rights to her friends. Some days I fucking love the cut I wear, showing I’m a member of the Kings of Anarchy MC, and of course my patch, denoting my position in the club, helps. I’m the VP. There’s always the chance she might turn up at one of our parties and want to connect in a way more beneficial to her, but she’ll be disappointed. Her lips around my dick had been the only part of her that I’d found interesting. I hadn’t asked her to suck me off. She’d offered. And I do appreciate I’m riding back to our clubhouse with a deflated cock and a satisfied smile on my face.

Halfway there, my phone rings in my ear via Bluetooth. The signal’s poor, so I pull up at the side of the road to answer it, and out of habit, turn my headlight off. It’s my prez, and I want to hear his words without the roar of the pipes and the static seeping through my earbuds. It’s a minor update, nothingto worry about. I say, “yeah,” when I need, and “I’ll get on that tomorrow,” which satisfies him. Then, as I end the call, something catches my eye.

I might often be hard pushed to remember what day it is, or how old I actually am, because who gives a damn when you’re living a life you love? But my senses are sharp, and I recognise a bad situation when I see one.

With my lights off, I’m invisible and watch unseen as a nondescript hatchback roars past, all but taking the turns on two wheels. I’m intrigued when there’s a black SUV following fast, the gap between it and the vehicle ahead far too close.

I’m still feeling sated and relaxed, all due to the nameless woman I’d just left. For me, I’m probably in what passes for a good mood, so when I see the vehicles whiz past me, instead of turning a blind eye as I would normally, curiosity comes to the fore. My intuition tells me something bad’s going to happen, and like any concerned citizen, well, fuck, if I was that, I suppose I would have called the cops, but I’m an outlaw. I’m no snitch. I kick my bike into gear and, with the headlight still off, relying on the moonlight and taillights ahead to guide me, I give chase.

Knowing the loops and turns of this road like the back of my hand, I soon catch up to the sedan. I’m just in time to hear the smash, see the sparks, and watch as the hatchback flies over the guardrails and into the ravine below.

Well, fuck.Nicely done. Professional to professional, I admire a job carried out well. As if I’ve sat through the satisfying finale of an action film, my hand backs off the throttle, and I slow, letting the sedan tear off into the night. Without conscious thought, I come to a stop just at the broken rail.

I’m the VP of a one-percenter club. I might be called Saint, but only because that’s a joke. I’m anything but. Compassion was beaten out of me long ago. I’ve few loyalties, only those to my prez, and the brothers I ride alongside. There’s nothingabout this situation that should make me do anything other than ride on. Who’s the victim and who’s the aggressor is no business of mine, and there’s no way it’s anything that concerns the club.

Yet I don’t. Fuck knows why. Maybe I’m bored. Maybe I just want to have my questions answered and satisfy that aforementioned curiosity. But for some goddamn unknown reason, I find myself turning off my engine, kicking down the stand on my bike, and starting my way down the unfriendly, steep embankment.

I slither more than walk, end up on my ass a couple of times, but the still glowing headlights of the car beneath me beckon me on. Whoever was purposefully run off the road is surely beyond any help I could give, but there’s something inside me that wants to know who they are, and why they were a victim of a murder tonight. I don’t expect to find anything but a dead body. Someone, my brother, Words, who runs the local mortuary and crematorium, will eventually be called in to send out of this world and into another, wherever that may be.

This is stupid,I tell myself, as I stumble and trip for the umpteenth time. I should just go back to my bike and be done with it, but instead I stubbornly carry on until eventually I reach the upturned car. I take the mag light out of my pocket, the beam quickly showing it’s a female who’s inside, her lifeless body hanging upside down, held captive by the seatbelt. Again, my interest is piqued, morbidly wanting to know whether she’s young, old, ugly, or has the world lost something beautiful tonight. I focus the light on her face and am greeted by wide-open eyes. When they blink, I scramble backward in shock, drop my flashlight, then pick it up again. I zero back in on her face for a second look, sure I was mistaken.

“Kill me or help me.” The groaned, resigned words make me draw in a deep breath. It’s not every day you come face-to-face with a corpse that can speak.How the fuck did she survive?Realising, even now, she’s probably more dead than alive, I pause for a second, wondering what trouble she’s in and if it might be better just to leave her. But despite my thoughts, my hands work seemingly without direction from me as I take my knife and slice through the webbing that binds her, bracing my arm to soften her transfer from upside down to right way up.

Committed, I now have only one course of action. “I got you,” I murmur, easing her out of the car, still thinking she’s probably mortally hurt.

Her pain is evident through the involuntary sounds that she makes.

“Who the fuck are you? Who wants you dead?” My questions are rhetorical, asking them more to myself than to her. She doesn’t seem in any state to face an interrogation. I can’t see her face through the blood that covers it, but her frame is light, and in my arms, feels toned and muscular.

I ask again, “Who are you?”

Any answer she might be about to give loses importance as I hear the roar of an engine that grows louder, then cuts off, the sound coming from the road above.

A hand, surprisingly strong, comes out to cover mine. Though her voice is weak, it’s more than I expected. “It’s them. They’ve come back to check that I’m dead.”

I reel, surprised she can speak at all, and that her tone isn’t panicked, just stating a fact. I don’t know her from Adam, don’t know what crime she’s committed. There’s not one reason I shouldn’t make myself scarce and leave her to her fate. She’s a stranger, no brother of mine. But, hey, I’m no saint. There’s more than an iota of self-preservation as my mind works at lightning speed. They’ll have seen my bike and know I’m here. They don’t know for sure I’m a witness, but I’m not going to take that chance. Nor, I decide in a split second, will I leave her to the wolves.

As I start moving, she grabs my hand again. Whispering so my voice doesn’t carry, I reassure her, “I’ll go tell them you’re dead.” It might work, it might not. It would be better for my health to tell them I’d stopped for a piss and had no idea what had happened down here. But her car’s headlights are still shining, and I doubt I’d get away with that. Or I could just tell them to get on with whatever they want to do and walk away, knowing it’s none of my business. Why the fuck I don’t want to play it like that, I wouldn’t be able to answer under torture.

For a moment, she hangs on to my arm, as if wondering whether by keeping me here, I could protect her. Then, as if she’s come to a decision, she hisses, “Go. But leave your cut with me.”

She’s seen my cut.I’m stunned. It’s true the headlights mean we’re not in complete darkness, but after the crash and the car careened over and over into the ravine, her brain should be too scrambled to notice details. But I’ll be damned if she hasn’t made a good point. I don’t know who the fuck these men are, only that they’re not on her side, and probably not on mine. It would be best if I didn’t draw attention to myself, especially not my affiliation to my club.

Hating that she’s right and hating more that I’m taking off the leather that took blood, sweat and tears to earn, I slide out of the cut and reluctantly leave it in her outstretched hand.

Unable to delay any longer as I begin hearing the grunts and rustling of undergrowth and stones slithering down, I start walking, crawling, pulling myself up the ravine, slipping and sliding until I come face-to-boot with a man who’s obviously heavily armed.

At least he gives me the time to get to my feet and hold up my arms, blinking and squinting in the bright light shone my way. “What the fuck? Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

I tell him as much of the truth as I can. “Hey, man, I’m not looking for trouble. I was out for a ride, pulled up to have asmoke. Saw lights down below, the crash barrier smashed, so I went down to see if I could help.”

Two other men appear, flanking the first. “And could you?” The abruptly spoken words are laden with suspicion.

Shaking my head, I tell them in my best aggrieved voice, “Fuck, it’s a mess. Car’s a total right off. The bitch driving is dead.”

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