Page 1 of Knox (The Devil’s Luck MC #6)

KNOX

F or the first time in what felt like goddamn months, things were chill. Not the end-of-March chill that made the women shiver in their chairs around the firepit at Grant’s place, but the kind of calm that came from lack of action.

It was relieving as much as unnerving.

Walter Bates and his psycho Wolverines were lying low, lurking in the shadow of Reno where the Devil’s Luck couldn’t yet see—his daughter, Caroline the sadistic bitch, included.

But it was hard to focus on impending doom when my brothers were sipping beers by the fire, half of them warmed not just by alcohol but by their women.

Half the club hadn’t shown up yet, busy with their own shit, so we were just waiting for the texts.

In the meantime, my gaze raked over Jackson and Sam.

She had one arm resting over her baby bump that had grown over the past month, casual but unmistakable in its protectiveness.

She’d smash a bottle over anyone’s head who made the stupid decision of getting too close.

Speaking of close—she leaned into Black Jack from his chair, eyes fluttering contently from the warmth of the fire.

Jackson Black, the President of the Devil’s Luck MC, had been hardened by years as a SEAL.

He had returned to find his kid brother murdered, and he had seen death so many damn times, surely they were old pals.

He shot first and demanded questions later—and he was whipped as hell by the owner of the bar, Samantha Lye.

No one would have guessed the horrors he’d seen when he gently tucked the blanket around his girl—his growing child—tighter. She yawned.

It made Elouise yawn from across the pit, cuddled in Abel’s lap, and made her glare indignantly. “Hey, don’t yawn, or I’m gonna yawn.”

Sam snorted good-naturedly. “You already did, Mayfair,” she said affectionately.

Abel’s broad hand splayed across his woman’s more subtle baby bump as reverently as Jackson did to Sam, nuzzling her cheek with his, damn near purring. They had come a long way from where they’d started, too. “You tired, baby?”

Grant, Gabriel, and I barked identical laughs, breaking the peace.

“You serious, Snake?” Grant razzed, sipping his beer. “Gone soft as hell.”

Abel whipped his head toward us and glared. “Shut up, single dicks.”

Gabriel, grinning, turned to me as Grant leaned forward to stoke the flames. “Feel left out, Flush? We can cuddle.”

I rolled my eyes. “In your dreams, bastard.”

Elouise, unaffected by the banter, smiled lazily. “Mm, maybe. Take me home, Snake Eyes.”

Sam, equally unfazed, stretched, glancing at Jackson, and mused, “I hear bed calling my name, Black Jack.”

“We should get going,” Jackson agreed, rising. “It’s late.”

Grant and Gabriel jumped at the chance to give the president a hard time. “Black Jack’s been domesticated!”

“Daddy Jack!”

I couldn’t help but join in, flashing a cocky grin. “Fearless leader trading his bike for a pregnant lady and a rundown truck.”

Jackson helped Sam stand up, a gentle action compared to the death glare he shot his brothers. “Keep running your mouths and see what happens. I ain’t putting my girl on the back of a death trap.”

“Since when is your bike a trap?” Grant raised a brow in disbelief.

“Since when do you ask so many stupid questions?” Jackson growled, ushering Sam toward the truck.

Abel and Elouise weren’t far behind, leaving us “single dicks” behind.

My grin faded as I watched the lovestruck fools retreat into the night.

The sense of calm and camaraderie seemed to sour, curling in my gut like dread.

I’d been able to put a hell of a lot of shit at the back of my mind the past few months, loyalty to the Devil’s Luck and all the blood we’d waded through keeping me focused on everything but myself.

I loved my MC to my last breath, but as the dark swallowed Jackson’s broad back, I knew my loyalty had a crack. It was ironclad but not unquestioning.

Sometimes, certain things needed to be done another way.

Sorry, Black Jack.

I’d set myself up for recon at an underground poker game where it was rumored Caroline would be playing in an abandoned warehouse basement. I hadn’t told any of my brothers, Jackson included. If he knew I’d disobeyed his orders not to engage yet, he’d skin me alive.

“ An undercover man is our last resort ,” he’d said a month ago, “ but it’s something to keep in the back of our minds .”

Caroline Bates was an easy target. It wasn’t to say she was easy to kill, with the insurance of her father and the rest of the Wolverines as her shield, but she wasn’t invincible, and she was Bates’s weakness—a possible gap in his armor.

They’d hurt my club members too many damn times for us to wait around and lounge by a firepit until they came at us again.

Jackson was becoming increasingly distracted by approaching fatherhood.

His protective instincts were on high alert, and on more than one occasion, it bled into daily club goings-on.

It was cause for plenty of good-natured torment, but to me?

It was the president getting distracted from what the Devil’s Luck had been gearing toward for damn near a year: killing Walter Bates.

If my getting to Caroline got us even one step closer to that, I would risk it all. What was the harm of one poker game? My tattoo seemed to prickle at the idea—the shamrock and skull. Luck had my back.

Grant had teased I wanted to spend time with bleach-blonde Barbie from hell .

And what had I said?

“ No, I’m keen on seeing the look in her eyes when she realizes she led her father to his doom at our hands .”

I meant it. The club had more to lose than ever, with two babies on the way. Everyone felt the need to protect what we had like the precious gifts they were. The world those kids were going to enter needed to be safe.

I snorted at myself for thinking that shit. Since when was I ever a family man?

I thrived on chaos just as much as my brothers. I liked bloody knuckles and knocking back whiskey until I forgot my troubles.

But this was the Wolverines. This was Walter Bates, and I needed to figure out why and where the fuck they were hiding before hell broke loose in the streets of Reno.

I leaned back in my chair as the trucks rumbled off down the street. My grin faded, staring at the crackling flames. I finished my beer and crumpled the can up, tossing it on the edge of the firepit.

After a too long moment, Gabriel toed my calf. “You’ve been quiet.”

Grant grunted in agreement. “Makes me antsy. What’s on your mind, Knox?”

I glanced up at them, meeting their gazes briefly, unexpectedly amused at the genuine concern on their faces, even if it was half-hidden behind their scruffy beards. I shrugged my broad shoulders and popped open another beer with one hand while the other slid through my hair.

“We’re all on edge.” I grunted, took a deep swig, then winced. “Nasty shit, man,” I said to Grant. “You’re rich as fuck, and you can’t get good beer?”

Grant raised an unimpressed brow, though he couldn’t fight a smirk. “You drink them so fast, you don’t even taste them. Don’t avoid the question.”

I matched the smirk, considering tossing the alcohol in his firepit to see if it exploded like the turpentine it tasted like. “Not avoiding anything. You just don’t want to see what’s going on in this meat computer.”

Gabriel threw his head back and howled with laughter. “ Meat computer ? I’d rather call my brain anything fucking else.”

Grant elbowed him, grin broadening. “How rotten do you think it is?”

“Don’t know,” Gabriel played along. “But mine’s quality as wagyu.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Yours is sirloin.”

“Get the hell off my porch.”

“Can’t. Need to finish the nasty beer.”

I shook my head at their sibling banter. “How’s anyone supposed to believe you two are grown-ass adults?”

Grant’s phone buzzed. Gabriel peered over, ignoring Grant’s glare, and grumbled, “Same people who think we don’t deserve our own women.”

“Huh?”

Grant’s fingers flew across the screen. “Brody is heading over with Andy.”

My jaw tightened. With Caroline Bates still on my mind, it returned to the memory of her firing a shot at Chips.

The stitches he’d escaped with were nothing special or new, but it was the fact that she had harmed almost every club member.

If I closed my eyes, I could still see Jackson beaten half to death, barely saved by Brody’s magic doctor hands.

It couldn’t continue. She had to be stopped. If her father couldn’t be taken out, maybe she could.

Gabriel turned to me, prepped to pester an answer out of me, but Brody’s bike roared as it emerged from the gloomy road, then cut short.

I barely made out him swinging his leg over and helping Andy off.

The gravel path crunched under their boots as they mounted the porch.

Rowdy greetings were exchanged while Andy was welcomed with light razzing.

Beers were handed out, asses plopped into seats, and the flames had two more faces to illuminate.

Andy shivered, holding her beer can in both hands like it was hot chocolate. Brody draped the blanket Sam had left over her thin shoulders—not so thin as before. She’d come a long way since Brody freed her from that strip joint. She’d filled out, finally looking healthy, not a single rib showing.

“Where are the future mamas?” she asked, looking around as if expecting Sam and Elouise to appear. “We didn’t miss them, did we?”

“Sorry, Andy,” Grant said, scrolling on his phone when the group chat started going off. “They left. Everyone else is on their way.”

Brody pressed a lingering kiss to her temple, looping an arm around her shoulders.

I caught Gabriel and Grant wrinkling their noses at the PDA.

None of us were strangers to the coupled members’ gestures of affection, but somehow, it was more awkward watching the little things rather than knowing they’d all fucked each other’s brains out.

Motorcycle clubs like ours treated their women right.

I just snorted. I’d long sworn off relationships after my inability to keep them in the first place—the lack of desire to attach a single string. Hookups were fun, but I was just fine on my own. Let the others be all mushy.

“It’s past midnight, baby,” Brody said. “They’re probably passed the fuck out.”

“Or demanding some ridiculous snack,” Gabriel said wryly. “Suzie and Carrie will cheer you up.”

Andy brightened at that.

Minutes later, the rest of the club rode up and joined them—Jameson and Carrie and Mason and Suzie. More beers were tossed into eager hands, and the girls clustered together while Jameson and Mason clasped hands with me, Grant, and Gabriel.

“Sorry for the late arrival,” Tex said around a cigarette.

Mason popped his tab. “I’m not.”

Suzie swatted his shoulder.

“What?” he asked indignantly. “None of these bastards have manners. Why should I?”

The VP’s eyes suddenly flicked to me. “You look more brooding than usual, Royal Flush. Like you’re itching for a fight.”

Gabriel leaned forward and braced his forearms on his thighs. “Knife or gun? Either way, I’m there beside you, buddy.”

My jaw ticked in annoyance. Why the fuck was I getting interrogated? Though I couldn’t deny, hefting a weapon, even just to hold it, sounded pretty appealing. Anything to distract from this suspended place in time before Wolverine-shaped shit inevitably hit the fan.

“First,” I growled, jabbing a finger toward Gabriel. “Don’t talk to me drunk. Second,” I continued, glaring between Grant and Mason. “Fuck off.”

The girls all gave me a questioning look, confused by my sudden lashing out.

I rolled my shoulders and tried not to be bogged down by the judgment, dropping my gaze to the fire like it held the answers.

Really, it was my own guilt curdling in my stomach at the thought of betraying Jackson’s trust, going to that poker game.

“As your VP?—”

I crushed my can in my fist and snapped, “I can’t stand this waiting around. The Wolverines are planning something, and I know it’s coming for us.”

My club brothers gave almost identical concerned looks.

“What is?” Mason asked.

I took a steadying breath, then looked up. “The end. The end of this damn war.”