Chapter One
Pirate
Present Day
“ I appreciate the extra cover but when the fuck is sanitation going to end this strike? It smells worse than Cyclone’s ass out here.” I roll my eyes at Knight, my vice president, and crouch lower when the back door to the building we’re watching opens.
“Shh,” I hush him and push his head down into one of the bags of trash we’re hiding behind.
“Fuck, it’s her.” I pull Knight away with me when I back up to the alley wall.
“I fucking hate you. Ugh,” I shake him and then move around the corner quickly, make my way back to where we left our Harleys.
I turn to my left so I can see him, and my hackles raise.
After all these years, the fact that my eye was taken for a crime my father didn’t commit makes me burn with rage. And that little princess I just watched walk out onto the street is my ticket for revenge.
A father for a father. I’ll let her keep her eye on it; after all, the father’s crimes should never fall on the children.
“Let’s get out of here. Call Church. I want everyone there when we arrive.” Knight nods and pulls out his cellphone to send a group text, all the brothers in my club will get in moments.
Technology is a fantastic fucking thing.
“Gross, I need to shower and a bleach soak.” How did I end up with such a melodramatic man as my vice president?
Probably the same way I found my Sergeant at Arms, Spector, in the ghettos of Harlem, where we all are just trying to survive, and all we had were the clothes on our backs.
I was luckier than others.
Pops left me everything, and once my godfather retired and returned to Texas, I stepped up and took my spot as the prodigal son of Brass, the fallen President of the Saints’ Outlaws MC at the ripe old age of twenty-five.
It took me twelve years to find out the name of the man responsible for my parents’ murder, but only six months to figure out he had a secret daughter being raised by his employer. I’m sure he hoped that would keep a target off her back, but I’m going to prove how wrong he was.
I’m not only going to take her from him, but I’m going to tie us together in a way that he’ll never be able to break. I’m going to marry the only known heir to New York’s Cosa Nostra, the head of the Italian mafia.
I think over my plan for the hundredth time as we sneak our way through the city heat back to the clubhouse. Pops’ old garage, a warehouse he transformed into a chop shop in the early seventies, which I’ve converted into a legitimate repair and customization shop, sits on the edge of Spanish Harlem by the Third Avenue Bridge.
It’s got easy access to the Bronx, the Harlem River, and, if needed, LaGuardia airport.
The only way into our compound is by a gated fence off Lexington, and to the naked eye, we’re just a long-forgotten building on the river. We have no Google footprint, and all our customers are vetted. No one enters my property without my knowledge.
Spector and his little side business ensure that.
Having a retired cyber specialist who ran the SEAL teams for the Navy is really handy. The fact that he’s family and volunteered for the job when he retired was a godsend. He runs his special ops off our dock, and I don’t ever question a thing.
We roll up to the gate, and my guys open the way for us to enter.
“Everyone’s ready,” Knight calls out to me as I park my Harley.
“Go grab one of the Tools and put them on the girl. I want to know everything by tomorrow. If they need to sit next to her while she gets her fucking toes done make sure to report back what color directly to me.” He raises an eyebrow in question.
“You want to use someone from the Box for that?” I laugh at his skepticism.
“We all started somewhere. If they can’t handle a simple surveillance job what the fuck good are they?” He nods and jogs off to address the prospects that we lovingly call Tools, and the building where they stay, is the Box.
They all start off working in the garage and are given generic road names until they’ve earned their permanent ones. We currently have five, but after this little job, I’ll cut two.
“Hey Prez,” Ares greets me when I walk in, and I glance around to see all but two members assembled just like I asked.
Knight is following my order and will be back any minute but where the fuck is Flip?
“Spector, where’s my treasurer?” I adjust my eyepatch that hides and broadcasts the fact that I’m missing the orb.
“It’s the sabbath, Prez. He’ll be here after sundown.” I curse in Spanish, making the room chuckle.
“You hired him.” My cousin smirks at me, knowing I won’t call him out for his disrespect, frankly, cause it’s true.
I chased Samuel Benowitz all over Manhattan and Atlantic City until he finally agreed to join the club, but on his terms. He’s got to be one of the strangest Orthodox Jews you’ll ever meet. He has no problems tormenting a man as long as it doesn’t interfere with his religion.
He kept a prospect that was caught stealing hanging upside down over a tank of his piranhas for all seven days of Hanukkah a few years ago.
“What time is sunset?” I ask on a sigh.
“Thirty minutes,” Cyclone answers as he fusses with his watch.
I grit my teeth but nod, because what else can I do but wait? I move through the room and take my seat at the head of the table, where my father’s ashtray, gavel, and signature brass knuckles, where he got his road name from, sit exactly where he left them. I had them welded into the table with a plaque in memory of my parents.
I kiss my fingers and touch the smooth metal before knocking my knuckles on the table three times.
“Any other business we can take care of before Flip arrives?” Slowly, the table fills with my brothers, with only three empty seats.
Knight returns with two of the Tools, Sprocket and Flathead. He tossed them into the corner and pointed at them with a menacing look.
“Don’t fucking move. Stay quiet and listen. You may learn something to keep your sorry asses alive. At the end, one of you is getting a job to do.” He walks away from the men who look like toddlers in time out, only with beards and tattoos.
Knight sits to my right, covering my blind spot. He’s more than my Vice President, he’s my fucking best friend. I would be dead along with my parents if it weren’t for him. He still feels guitly that my eye couldn’t have been saved but teases the shit out of me that he’s the reason my dick still works.
He’s not wrong.
If he hadn’t stopped the bleeding from my groin I’d have lost my penis and leg. The eye doesn’t feel like such a sacrifice when you know that fact, until you look in a mirror and always see what that asshole meant for me always to understand.
That my parents had been set up.
The daily reminder that the monster who did this will never see justice, the same way I will never see the world the same again. But that ends now.
I found his secret and soon I’ll have her under lock and key with the smug satisfaction that there’s not a fucking thing he can do to stop me.
An eye for an eye isn’t possible, but his daughter will do.