The Taste of Revenge: Lucifer's Wings Motorcycle Club, #1

By Karen McManus

Bella Nouveaux fought tooth and nail to make it.

As an orphan left completely alone when her brother is killed in a gang initiation when she was nine, Bella had to scrap and steal to stay alive on the streets of Carmen Beach. Toughened by such a brutal upbringing, her grit and cunning have made her into one of the Soul Catchers MC's best drug runners.

Sander Knox is out for revenge.

When a rival gang murdered his partner and best friend, Sander became a man on a mission. As the young and handsome leader of the Lucifer’s Wings MC, he is about to embark on a quest for revenge that might prove deadly.

When he finds his chance to strike back – but falls in love– Sander faces an impossible decision.

Searching for vengeance against the Soul Catchers, Sander captures Bella. The immediate attraction between them is fierce, but as his gang brothers push him to avenge his partner’s death, Sander is forced to choose which is more important: revenge or love?

EXCERPT

His hand was still making those tantalizing little circles on her flesh but she was more interested in what he had just said to her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I think you are tough as hell because you had to be, because things happened and made you that way. You aren’t mean, but because not everyone knows what it means to be tough, they think you are mean.”

Her stomach quivered. Was she so easy to read? She hoped not. She knew she was not, so how was he so accurate?

“Jackson used to say you could spot someone like us if you know how and for a long time I thought that was just another of his weird sayings, but he was right. I know you. I knew you before I met you.”

No one spoke for a while.

“He sounds like a good man,” Bella whispered.

“He was,” Sander said, “And he didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“No,” she said, “he didn’t. Kyle has always been a coward.  A sneaky little coward.”

Sander said, “And that brings us back to you.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: E-Publishing World, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507082706

Book preview

Prologue

The bike weaved in and out of traffic, its rider sitting astride it with a careless confidence that drew admiring looks from the people in the cars around him.

The man on the bike was young, not quite thirty, and his smile was huge. His black hair ruffled back from his forehead and the patch on the back of his leather vest proclaimed him as one of Lucifer’s Wings. The name was picked out in bright crimson on the black leather. There was also a figure — an angry devil, also red, surrounded by a set of white wings with a Harley symbol below. Jackson was spelled out in huge letters atop the patch.

The bike thundered to the left. Jackson dipped low to make a tricky turn. Another bike came out of a parking lot, its roar and clashing gears not registering to him.

He was singing along to the heavy metal song blaring from his radio, riding steady and low, intent on his destination.

The other bike cut to the next lane to stay out of Jackson’s line of sight and then went beside a few cars, its rider dipping lower across his handlebars and riding the yellow line beside a sedan whose terrified passengers were trying desperately to get away from him.

A fist struck the sedan’s hood and the woman driving let out a breathless shriek that carried through the windows. She hit the brakes, almost causing the car behind her to rear end her. The rider buzzed ahead, still staying right on the yellow line alongside the cars in that lane.

Jackson saw none of the commotion behind him. There was an intersection ahead and he was making for it. The other rider suddenly came in behind him, just as the light changed and his bike nosed into the back of Jackson’s, just hard enough to start shoving him into the intersection.

Jackson's blood ran cold. This was not one of his own guys playing a prank. This was a rival club member, and he was trying to shove Jackson out into oncoming traffic!

He squeezed the brakes and, for good measure, he dug the wedge shaped heels of his engineer boots into the asphalt. The tar was fresh, sticky and it gave quickly.

The other rider's bike hit Jackson's back tire again. Both bike engines screamed, accompanied by the squeal of rubber on steel.

Jackson tried to keep control. Fear made his hair stand up on the back of his neck. The light changed, other cars were moving, but a few were not. He saw, in his mirrors, a guy popping out of his car to help, but it was already too late.

The bike lost traction. The back tire spun wildly. Jackson saw the semi truck coming, already into its turn. He was too far out into the intersection. His only chance was to beat it.

Clamping down on the throttle, Jackson went for it –  bike wide open, boots on the pegs and middle finger in the air.

The semi’s grill swallowed him, threw him off the seat and into the air in a screaming clash of light metal and tons of steel. Jackson had just enough time to see the ground racing up toward him, and then he was gone, falling under the semi’s wheels while the rider behind him zagged to the right hand lane and raced away.

Chapter 1

Custom bikes and good old American rolling steel packed the parking lot of the Seedy Shell. The roar of engines rose into the night, rivaling the thunder booming from the heavens. The dark skies threatened rain, and there were a few women huddled into a tight little cluster near the bus stop opposite the bar.

Bella swung into the lot, her curvaceous figure perched comfortably on top of the vintage Indian Chief that was her pride and joy. It had been lovingly restored, and while it was simple in comparison to the chromed out custom bikes, and smaller than the heavy-duty road monsters some of the men preferred, her machine was a beauty, as was she.

One of the women at the bus stop saw her and whispered something to one of her companions. Bella noticed the look and the cupped hand. She was a keen observer, one of the talents that had kept her alive, and she knew that the woman on the receiving end of the gossip must be a new girl on the block. Everything about the way she stood and her conservative clothes screamed new blood.

Bella sighed as she cut her engine. She hated seeing the working girls, even if she didn’t argue against their right to work. They brought back too many memories of her childhood on nights like these.

Wiping those thoughts away, she walked toward the door. As always, she paused for a moment. Sure enough, the door opened and a drunken man with a red face and wild hair was abruptly ejected into the parking lot. He wore a cut off Levi jacket, his tattooed arms poking through the ragged arm holes, and a pair of filthy jeans.

Another prospect who had failed to make it.

Bella ignored him. He got up and dusted himself off, taking great pains to flick every piece of dirt from his still-disgusting clothes. She breezed past, caught the door to the club in one hand, and entered, her eyes adjusting quickly to the dimness.

The yeasty scent of beer, cheap perfume, and cigarette smoke hit her like an avalanche. Raucous hard rock blared from the jukebox and a scrawny woman with a meth-head's jerky gait danced on the bar. Men were whistling and cheering as she tore her top off to reveal a stack of protruding ribs and breasts that had shrunk to the size of small apples.

Another memory surfaced, but she pushed that down, too. Thunder and rain always made her remember things. Her folks. That night. The streets where she had wound up, all alone.

She shook her head and wished that Garrett would have saved whatever it was he needed from her until dawn. Not that the drug business ever waited for a convenient time, she thought, her red painted mouth turning up in a rueful smile.

Stan, the bartender, slid her cup of coffee over the rail without a word. She took it with a grateful nod, sliding a five dollar bill into his cup. Garrett paid Stan well, and though patrons here rarely tipped, she made a point of repaying kindness for kindness.

She saw Kyle sitting in a booth with a few others from her crew, their leather jackets and the Soul Catchers emblem marking them as harder than any other of the hard cases that populated the bar every night of the week.

A bearded man, obviously not a regular, leered at her and said, as she passed, Look at that ass. Man, if there was ever an ass made for leather, that is it!

Bella didn’t turn around; she had grown immune to that sort of trash talk. Kyle said, There you are. Pops is looking for you.

Bella sipped the scalding, bitter coffee. Here I am.

Gus, an older man who’d been with the Soul Catchers from the start, said, Tell Kyle here congrats, Bella.

For what? The cup had a chip in it. She felt it against her lip.

He just made his bones. Gus said and immediately there was a collection of shouts and roars. He wiped the concrete with some street grease that won’t ever have a need for his wings again!

Kyle had made his bones. He’d killed a man – not just any man, but a biker from their rival crew, Lucifer’s Wings. Bella gave Kyle a cool nod and stood. Garrett was leaning out of the door to his office, looking for her.

Congrats, she said casually over her shoulder as she walked away. Inside, though, she was seething. Things were getting more difficult and dangerous every day and Kyle, that asshole, had just gone and wiped the road with a Lucifer’s Wing?  It was a stupid, show-off move. He couldn't have chosen a worse thing to do,