Read Trouble: Crooked Souls MC Online
Authors: Zoey Parker
Trouble: Crooked Souls MC
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.
Trouble copyright 2016 by Zoey Parker. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.
Kat
“How was that, Miss Edwards?”
“What?” I shook myself. Great, I zoned out on another lesson. Ivy, one of my violin students, was looking at me expectantly. She was so eager to please.
“How was it? I practiced really hard this week.” Sweet little Ivy was looking at me with big, round eyes. I knew how hard her parents pushed her, even requiring weekly progress reports from me. She was so earnest, only wanting to make me and everyone around her happy.
“You did great. I can tell how hard you’ve been working.” I patted her on the back, watching as she packed up her violin. She reminded me so much of Sabrina at that age. Working hard, wanting to make me proud of her. We both gave up on our parents at an early age, knowing there was no pleasing them. One was gone, and the other was too tired to care.
“Do me a favor this week,” I whispered conspiratorially to Ivy after writing up another glowing progress report. “Take a little bit of time to go outside and play.”
“Play my violin outside?”
“No,” I said with a smile. “Play outside. Have fun. Playing music is supposed to make us happy. It’s a beautiful part of life, but it isn’t all of life. Do you understand what I mean?”
She nodded, but of course she didn’t get it. She was nine years old. She only wanted to make me happy by agreeing. I hoped she had a little fun sometimes.
I waved to her mom, who waited in her car outside my house during every lesson. Why did I care so much about Ivy? I cared about all of my students, but Ivy especially. Maybe it was the way she reminded me of my sister.
Sabrina. I’d been thinking about her during Ivy’s playing, just like I’d been thinking about her for weeks. Every day, she sat in the back of my mind, pulling at my thoughts. It had been five weeks, three days and two hours since the last time I spoke with her. She’d disappeared off the face of the Earth sometime after that. It had to be later that day, since we made it a point to speak every day and she didn’t call me the next afternoon. When she didn’t call, right on time as always, I knew something was wrong.
I closed my eyes, still standing in the front doorway. I pictured her in front of me. Blonde hair, like mine, but with a natural wave that I’d always envied. Eyes a shade bluer than mine. A little shorter, more petite. She looked like a little china doll, with her porcelain skin. Always smiling, always happy.
Not so much recently, I reminded myself. In the last six months, Sabrina had been caught up in things I didn’t understand. Why a beautiful, sweet girl like my sister would want to be hooked up with some of the people she’d been running around with I couldn’t understand.
With every passing day, I’d become more desperate. The police didn’t seem to care very much, not after the first week or two. I knew they assumed she was dead, her body in a ditch or a lake somewhere. Once they found out who she’d been dating, or sleeping with or whatever they’d been doing, the police chalked my sister’s disappearance up to just another piece of club activity. They were satisfied leaving it at that and moving on with their lives, shaking their heads in sadness at the loss of another bright young person at the hands of that wretched club.
I was not.
If anyone was going to find my sister, it would have to be me.
I had visited the sheriff at least ten times before he sat me down and leveled with me. “You know, Miss Edwards, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think you need to hear it. The more time that passes in a case like this, the less likely it is that we find the victim alive and well.
I couldn’t believe he could be so cruel. I shook my head resolutely. “No. If my sister were dead, I would know. Don’t you get it? I would feel it.”
He’d looked sympathetic, but his tone was not. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard those very words come from the mouths of distraught mothers, fathers, spouses. I would know if my loved one was gone. I hate to break it to you, miss, but there’s no such thing as a sixth sense. You know how every one of those cases ended up? I don’t think I need to tell you that every one of those victims was long since deceased.”
I’d put my hands over my ears, refusing to believe it. How could he be so cruel? He didn’t know me, or Sabrina. He had no idea what we’d been through together.
“I’m not telling you this to hurt you, Miss Edwards. Believe me. I only want to help you get accustomed to the idea. It may come time for you to move on with your life. You’re a young woman. I’ve seen too many grow old before their time because they refused to move on. The sooner you get used to an idea like this, the better for you.”
I hadn’t cared what he’d said then, and I still didn’t care. Forget him, and the entire jaded police force in my crappy little town. I’d always believed I lived in a nice place, full of good people. Now I’d started to see the underbelly, and I couldn’t go back to being as naïve as I was before. There were nice people, but they were willing to look the other way as long as what was happening didn’t directly affect them.
I left the doorway of my house, finally, going to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. I’d barely been holding it together, just going through the motions of daily life. I had to see my students if I wanted to make any money. It wouldn’t do any good for me to lose my house on top of everything else. It had long since been paid off, one of the few things my parents actually managed to get right in their short, pathetic lives, but the taxes were brutal. If Sabrina was sick somewhere, needing help, she’d have to have a home to come back to. I’d already cleared out her little apartment, her landlord threatening to throw her things out onto the street if I didn’t come to get them. So much for compassion.
Her things were now boxed up in her childhood room. I’d locked the door after bringing them home, telling myself the time to unlock the room would be when Sabrina came back to me. That room was heavy, always calling to me. Reminding me it was still locked up, as it had been for weeks since Sabrina missed her rent payment not long after disappearing. It taunted me, an ever-present reminder of my sister’s absence.
I sat alone in my quiet little kitchen. How many meals had we prepared here, together? I’d taught my sister to cook in this room. I’d washed her skinned knees and kissed them after putting Band-Aids over her boo-boos. We’d shared cup after cup of tea, talking about boys long into the night.
Then she’d moved away. I knew the time would come though I’d always dreaded it. Her sweetness was still firmly intact, but there was a headstrong streak in her that made me worry for her safety. I had that same streak of course, so I knew how tough life would be for her if she didn’t learn to listen to reason. I wanted to spare her the same mistakes I’d made, the pain that resulted from them. She was determined to live her life on her terms.
Never was this truer than when I’d gotten word that Sabrina had been in the company of one of the members of the Crooked Souls Motorcycle Club when a few passersby saw her. That was the last confirmed sighting the police had. She had vanished sometime after that.
I’d refused to believe it when she first told me she’d been hanging out with the club. Not my sister. She was too smart to be caught up in that mess. The club had been in our town for as long as I could remember. Always hanging around the fringes, like a family secret nobody wanted to bring into the open. There had been rumors about them for years, and whenever something bad happened—a disappearance, an accident, a burglary—the club was immediately suspected.
“How could you associate yourself with them?” I’d asked. We’d been right here, in this very kitchen.
“I’m not with them. I’m with him,” she’d insisted.
“Don’t play word games. You know what I mean. He’s part of them, for life. A man doesn’t devote his life to a club like that on a whim. It’s a full commitment. He can’t walk away.”
“He’ll leave if I want him to. I know he cares about me.” Sabrina’s blue eyes had been full of hope. I’d been too scared to pity her, though. I always knew her lack of a father figure would be trouble someday. The little she’d known of our father had been of a reckless, selfish man whose love never came for free. My baby sister would spend the rest of her life trying to earn the love of a man like him.
“Sweetie.” I’d been almost desperate by then, struggling to make her see my point. “There are so many good, honest, hardworking men out there. Why not find one of them instead? Or take a break from men for a while. You’re only eighteen, you have your whole life ahead of you.”
“You’re right, I’m eighteen. And I can do what I want.” She’d pushed her chair back from the table, storming toward the front door without another word. I’d called out to her, going so far as to follow her out to her car. She’d driven away without a backward glance.
Still, she had called me the next day. Just as always. I knew better than to address the subject so directly after that. We had still exchanged tense words over her involvement with the club, but I always backed down. I was afraid she’d do something to really show me who was the boss, like marrying that loser. And then where would we be?
Maybe I should have pushed harder. I stared into my tea, blaming myself again. So what if I’d pissed her off? I could have gotten through. I should have tried to get through. Now she was gone, and I knew the club must have had something to do with it. In that way, I was no better than the police, who had assumed from the get-go that the club was the culprit. There was a difference, though. I wasn’t going to let them get away with it.
I took a deep breath, reminding myself this was what needed to be done, as much as I dreaded the thought of it. I knew where the club hung out. I planned to go there and confront their leader.
As I got ready to leave, showering and dressing, I thought about the few times I’d ever laid eyes on Gabriel Hunt. I’d heard stories about him for years, and what I’d seen confirmed the rumors. He was a big, brutal-looking man. The type who made a person want to cross to the other side of the street when they saw him coming. An arrogant scowl on his face, like he knew the effect he had on people and didn’t care. It might even have pleased him for all I knew. His violence was legendary. He’d sent many men to the hospital, and those were just the ones who had the guts to admit it was Hunt who had put them there. Who knew how many more bloody, broken bodies were his doing?
He was also a notorious womanizer, handsome in a rough sort of way. Some of the girls I went to school with had slept with him. Even back then, more than ten years earlier, he’d been feared for his temper and lack of conscience. Still, these otherwise smart girls had fallen for him—at least for one night. All of them had sworn he was the best they’d ever had. They were only teenagers, though. What did they know?
I had seen his smirking face in town a few times. Once, he’d been coming out of the gas station as I was walking in. He’d looked me up and down, sizing me up, then grinned. Like I’d passed muster or something. He’d disgusted me. I shuddered just remembering the nasty look on his face.
I needed to face him. I wanted him to try to lie to me about being the last person seen with her, because that’s exactly what witnesses had claimed. They had seen my sister with the leader of the Crooked Souls just before she vanished. I wanted to watch his eyes when he made up a story, so I could catch him in a lie. I needed him to be honest with me. Somebody had to finally be honest with me.
I gripped the edge of the bathroom sink, forcing myself to calm down. The doctor had recommended I start on an anti-depressant, or, at least, something for anxiety. At the time, I’d turned him down, but in moments like this when I felt like the walls were closing in and my heart was about to burst from my chest I wondered if meds wouldn’t be helpful. Otherwise, I’d give myself a heart attack.
She’s out there. Only I can find her. I’m going to get the truth one way or another. I’m going to start with Gabriel Hunt.
This was what I told myself, again and again, as I finished drying my hair. I was Sabrina’s only hope. I couldn’t let my anxiety get in the way now.
The bar was seedy, dirty, a dive which sat at the edge of town. I wondered how many fistfights, or worse, had taken place in the gravel parking lot. There was raucous music coming from inside, and the sounds of men whooping it up. I steeled myself, remembering why I was there. Then I squared my shoulders and marched into the bar.
It didn’t take long for me to find who I was looking for. Even in the dim light, made even dimmer by the thick cloud of cigarette smoke, there was no missing him. Gabriel sat at one of the tables near a makeshift stage, where a girl was dancing while men in leather kuttes with the Crooked Souls patch on the back cheered her on. Another girl was sitting in Gabriel’s lap, her hand massaging his crotch. What the hell went on in this place?
It didn’t matter at the moment. I walked straight up to the table, standing between Gabriel and the stage.
“Get the fuck out of the way!” one of the men seated behind him called out. I ignored him, my eyes focused squarely on the club’s leader.
“Where the hell is my sister, Gabriel?” The noise in the immediate vicinity cut off like somebody had flipped a switch. No more cheering, no more catcalling. Silence. All eyes were on me, and him.
“What are you talking about?” He was sitting back in his chair, his legs splayed. He was a big man, massive, all thick arms and long legs. A thin t-shirt was stretched to its limits over his broad chest and shoulders. The smirk on his face made me wish I had the nerve to slap him. What right did he have to look at me like this?