WRAITH (Iron Kings MC, #1)

time, Knox Price, now the president of the Rogues. He’d refused to accept Scott forcing them to pull out of lucrative, illicit deals, that he’d engineered in the first place, refused to accept the club’s revised weak, peaceable status. In fact, Knox had started his own club, the Rogues. And then he’d gone after Scott’s wife. He’d murdered her. Scott had gone after him and his new club, risking his legit status to avenge his wife. He’d managed to take out a large number of them, but a few, including Knox, had survived, and gone to ground.

But now they were apparently back, I was sure all hell would break loose again, that Knox would be out for blood.

“What do you need?” I asked automatically.

“Need you to protect my baby girl.”

“What?” I croaked. “That’s my role in this? Running protection detail on Ashley?”

“The club’s gonna be focused on the war coming with them fuckers. All hands on deck. And there ain’t nobody outside the club that I trust, but you. I gotta have her safe.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Like I said, I’m not at my best anymore. And this is your daughter we’re talking about.”

His knockout of a daughter. Jesus Christ, she was something.

Running protection detail, being in close quarters with her, day in and day out for hell knew how long was the last thing I wanted. The last thing I needed.

The girl had a thing for me. She’d made it known when she’d helped nurse me back to health.

The whole situation was fraught with complications. And I didn’t do complications anymore.

Scott’s hand clamped down around my wrist, pulling me from my thoughts.

His eyes burned into mine, a stark vulnerability I’d never seen from him before, hitting me right in the gut.

“I already lost the woman I loved to those fuckers. I ain’t losing my baby girl, Finn,” he said, distraught. “Please, all right? You’re the most dangerous, ruthless fucker I’ve ever met. That’s the kinda man I need watching her back.”

I knew what he was really saying.

He needed the version of me that I’d been trying hard to bury down deep.

The monster.

As much as I wanted to stay as far away from all the bullshit of my old life, I couldn’t deny him.

He needed me.

Goddamn it.

“Fine. She’s under my protection.”

2

~Ashley~

 

I CRINGED.

Once again, my phone buzzed in the back pocket of my jeans.

Urgh. It had to be the fifth time in the last hour.

Hadn’t he gotten the hint yet?

He was infuriatingly overbearing. Ridiculously overprotective.

When it sounded yet again, I couldn’t take it any longer.

I blew out a breath of frustration and tossed the stencil I’d been trying to concentrate on down on the table. Pulling my phone out from my back pocket, I slumped down onto the adjustable chair and braced myself as I scrolled to his latest message.

Ain’t playing, Ashley Marie Tate. Call me back. ASAP.

I felt a twinge of nervousness. Using my full name made it clear just how pissed he was and that was never something to be taken lightly when it came to the notorious President of the Iron Kings Motorcycle Club. My father.

I shook it off. I wouldn’t allow him to get to me. I wasn’t at his beck and call like his boys were. I’d gone to great pains to remove myself from his messed-up world, from the domineering influence he’d exerted over my life.

Besides, I had a fairly good idea of what he wanted and there was no way in hell that he was going to get it. He didn’t like me being so far away from him, from the watch of his club. He wanted me back home.

Well, I wouldn’t sacrifice my freedom for his peace of mind. Those days were long past. Going back home was the last thing I wanted.

I’d spent years trying to build a life for myself, going to art school, networking, working as an assistant to two tattoo artists. In the last year and a half, I’d succeeded in acquiring my own chair. I’d built up a reputation as a respected and sought-after designer in my own right. I wasn’t about to give all of that up just so he could sleep easier at night. It was ridiculous. He was easily the most paranoid man I’d ever known.

It all stemmed from what had happened to me as a teenager when his enemies had taken my mom from us and nearly succeeded in dealing me the same fate as well.

Didn’t he get that it was safer for me to be as far away from him and his club as possible? To continue to distance and disassociate myself from it? That brutal world was what had killed her, being mixed up in my dad’s screwed-up life.

I was determined to live my own life. My dad had already screwed with it for long enough as it was. His influence had raged out of control after we’d lost my mom. It had reached the point where I hadn’t even been able to date. As soon as I’d taken an interest in someone, one of his club members had inexplicably been there threatening the object of my affections. Of course, after being threatened by some scary-ass bikers, the guy had scurried away and never risked looking my way again. It was the reason I was so awkward around anyone I took a liking to now. I didn’t know how the hell to flirt, or anything. Hell, I wasn’t just a little inexperienced. I was a fucking virgin. A virgin at twenty-three years old? It hadn’t helped that since I’d moved away, work had been the only thing on my mind. If I went back home, I wouldn’t be able to breathe and I’d be a virgin until the day I died.

I stuffed my phone back into my jeans and returned to working on my stencil.

I was so excited about it. The client wanted a three-dimensional mechanical arm, the design to be near-impossible to distinguish from the real