Spark in the Ashes (Steel Souls MC Book 1) Read online

  Spark in the Ashes

  Copyright©2017 Nikki Groom

  Cover design by Sofie Hartley / www.hartandbailey.com

  Editing by Claire Allmendinger/ www.bnwauthorservices.com

  Formatting by Brenda Wright, Formatting Done Wright

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission.

  The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  All rights reserved.

  This book contains sex and violence, and is intended for ages 18+.

  Dedication

  For Zoë

  For always being there.

  You’re a beautiful soul.

  xx

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  He has no sense that I'm here. No clue I've been watching him for days. Not even the tiniest inkling that right now he's taking his last breaths on this earth before a one-way trip to hell at my eagerly awaiting hands.

  The street is quiet, dark, and derelict. Most of the houses are boarded up—a string of broken homes with even more broken people, and I wonder if he’s been selling drugs, or letting the debtors fuck his woman to enable them to keep the roof over their head.

  I’m shrouded in darkness, watching him from the other side of the street, and I step out from behind my Camaro with my gun aimed at his forehead, lining it up perfectly to shoot through the thin glass of his kitchen window. My pulse races, and I get a rush of pleasure much akin to an orgasm, although this is much more intense and longer lasting. The satisfaction of what I’m about to do thrums in my veins. Just one tight squeeze of the trigger and it's over.

  I’d never done this before, and although I’d rehearsed it several times over in my head, I wasn’t sure how it would play out. I had presumed I would have ended his miserable life by now.

  One second. One bullet. Game over.

  But I pause.

  I savor every minute that passes, watching him through the window, a voyeur taking pleasure in every second that I observe him, knowing his death is imminent, and that he’s totally oblivious to my existence. As I pause for thought, a twisted idea flashes to the forefront of my mind.

  Why take his last breath with just one shot? Why not draw it out—prolong the pleasure, and the pain? He doesn’t deserve a quick ending. He doesn’t deserve mercy or grace.

  He yells to his wife, and she answers his disrespectful beckoning by dutifully coming to his side. My jaw clenches as he draws back his arm and swings his knuckles into her cheek. She jerks back then cradles her battered face with her palm, head hung down, defeated but not in the least bit surprised at his loathsome action.

  Bastard.

  Fucking lowlife bastard.

  He's just secured himself a double dose of pain.

  I don't immediately relieve the woman of this scum. In fact, there’s a part of me that thinks she's pretty fucking stupid for not already doing what I'm about to do. If he were my husband, I would have slashed his throat while he slept.

  Why do some women feel they have to live like this? With no other option but to be treated like a slave. Does she have no respect for herself—or has he beaten it out of her?

  He leaves the kitchen, shouldering the woman out of his way, and pulls open the screen door, pushing his wife-beater covered beer belly through the gap before the rest of his filthy, despicable body follows. He stands on the porch and lights up a cigarette. As the tip of the cigarette glows in the darkness, I readjust my aim, moving my sight further down his body before smiling wickedly, and slowly, deliberately, I squeeze out this fucker’s first dose of pain.

  I watch with intrigue and fascination as if detached from the whole situation as his knee explodes.

  A burst of blood and bone.

  A cry of pure excruciating pain and shock.

  A wave of gratification spreads through me from my stomach to my fingertips, fiercely filling all the dark corners that I never knew existed until now.

  I step closer, my heels clicking on the gravel road as I stroll casually over to the front of his house, and stop when I reach the steps in front of his porch. I ascend calmly, and tilt my head, eyeing him curiously. He’s writhing on the ground, crying out breathlessly, making pitiful sounds that only serve to stoke the fire in my belly.

  How long can I keep him alive? How much pain can I make him endure before he passes out, or dies?

  I reach the top of the steps and crouch at his side. His wife swings open the screen door, startling me from my thoughts, although my face remains impassive.

  “What the hell are you doing? Did you shoot him?” She screams, panic rushing through her voice. “Oh shit. Don’t kill him, please,” she begs, and I shake my head, taking a deep breath to keep me from putting a bullet through her pretty, stupid head, too.

  “You want me to let him live?” I stand to my full height, drawing my shoulders back and narrowing my eyes at her. “Why?” I ask.

  She visibly shrinks under my sudden scrutiny. “I…I, he’s my husband.” She looks at me with a desperate plea, as if the lone fact that he’s her husband is good enough reason to make excuses for the sick son of a bitch that raped a twelve-year-old girl just a week ago. Everyone knows he did it. It’s the talk on everyone’s lips in every church and corner store. But no one knows why he was arrested and released without charge. No one can understand why he’s free to walk the streets after doing something so sick—so despicable—that it makes you feel wretched just thinking about it. It was only a matter of time before someone got to him, and I wanted to be that person.

  “That’s not a reason,” I sneer. “You don’t care if he lives or if he dies. You just think you do. Does your loyalty to your husband stretch as far as overlooking the fact he raped a child?” I raise a brow at her in challenge. Her jaw drops open, but she stays silent. That downtrodden, weak, pitiful look dulling her eyes to the world around her. “Do yourself a favor, go and pack your things and get the fuck out of here. This ain’t gonna be pretty.”

  She hesitates for a second, thinking it over, torn between her loyalty to a man that has beaten her and treated her like a dog, probably for many years, and her almost nonexistent instinct to survive.

  “Go,” I bark impatiently, making her jump. “I’m not beyond putting a bullet in your head, so you had better keep that pretty little mouth of yours shut. You hear me loud a
nd clear?” Something in her eyes tells me she’s almost relieved that I’ve released her from her self-imposed prison as she takes my advice and looks back one last time at the sad excuse for a man that’s lying helplessly at my feet. “I’m sorry, Don,” she whispers in his direction as he pants and curses under his breath, knowing she was his last thread of hope. Then she leaves.

  I crouch next to him once again, holding his jaw firmly and turning his face to look at mine. His eyes roll back as he tries to focus, and I know by the gray color spreading across his sallow skin that I don’t have long before he bleeds out.

  “You think you’re big and tough now, hard man?” I say quietly to him, power and justice singing through my voice as he struggles to figure out who I am and why I’m here. “You were big and tough when you raped that twelve-year-old girl, weren’t you? You thought you could get away with it. But you didn’t know about me. Did you?” Realization flashes in his eyes and his pupils dilate even wider. I smile as I drag the tip of my fingernail down his face, against his dirty, stubbled neck, and slowly slide my fingers around his throat. I squeeze until his eyes start to widen with understanding—until my nails start to break through his flesh—until his throat is being torn open under my hands and he’s burning with the need for air.

  I am going to kill him.

  He won’t live to tell the tale. He won’t ever again be able to hurt or rape another young, innocent, helpless girl.

  He uses every last bit of strength to claw weakly at my hand, to pry my fingers from his neck, but the pain radiating through his body, and the power shifting through mine, makes it an impossible task. Stupid fucker, if he had any sense, he wouldn’t fight it, he’s prolonging the pain, drawing out his death. His eyes roll into the back of his head until all I can see is the white of his eyeballs.

  He fights.

  He weakens.

  Then I loosen my grip. Bringing him back to me with a sharp slap to his face.

  “Oh no you don’t,” I laugh, my nostrils flaring with adrenaline-fuelled breaths. “You don’t get to check out just yet.” I stand, towering over his pitiful form, and smile. As I lift my foot and press the heel of my boot into his groin, he squeals, like a little pig calling for its momma before it’s taken to slaughter. “Does that hurt?” I grind the heel from side to side, digging deeper into his delicate flesh. “It’s called karma, asshole. And karma just declared you dead.”

  My skin prickles, and fear taps at the endings of my nerves sending an uneasy feeling through me. I’m not fearful of being caught, no, that doesn’t bother me. I’m fearful for myself. For what I’m becoming—maybe for what I’ve already become. Because torturing this piece of scum, it gives me a thrill. It’s giving me pleasure like nothing else before. I’m high on the fumes of his painful demise, and it exhilarates me more than anything I’ve ever experienced, but it scares me beyond belief. Because from here, where is there to go? How do I top this?

  I aim my pistol at his head, needing this to be over right now. As much as I crave the satisfaction of making him suffer for as long as possible, I can’t let myself give in to that darkness any longer. I can’t lose control and lose sight of the reason why I’m here in the first place. To rid the world of scum like Donny Carden. To take out the shitheads that feel the world owes them a living. It was never the plan to torture him and gain pleasure from it, regardless if it’s karma revolving full circle on his sorry ass.

  One last shot between his eyes and his body jerks as the cold metal pierces his skull and puts him out of his misery. I breathe in slowly through my nose and hold the breath deep in my chest before letting it quietly pass out over my lips. The smell of his filthy blood fills the muggy night air and invades my nostrils, a metallic taste touches the buds on my tongue, and I shudder as reality stabs at the edge of the twisted euphoria I’m floating in.

  It’s done.

  He’s dead.

  The first time I’ve ever taken someone else’s life.

  One less asshole on this earth.

  There’s no going back.

  I step back, tucking my gun into the waistband of my leather pants, and nervously drop down the few steps before striding to my car without looking back. My heart races, my hands shake violently with uncontrolled adrenaline, fear, pleasure, and even disbelief of what I’ve just done. I fling open the door and jump in, urgently needing to be as far away from here as possible. I’m desperate to scald my skin and wash away every trace of tonight, of the monster I fear I’ve become.

  Chapter 2

  She’s got balls. I’ll give her that.

  Granted, this is a shitty part of town, and no one even blinks when there’s a gunshot. But to shoot a guy in the knee, pierce his balls with the heel of her boot, then talk to him and tease him like a cat with a mouse in its claws, while he groans and begs her to spare his life, that takes her to a whole new category of woman. One I’ve not ever come across before.

  I’m no angel. I’ve taken plenty of lives. I’ve killed more times than I care to remember. But to watch her—her small stature, feminine curves in the right places, raven hair that trails over her shoulders and catches in the moonlight, the epitome of the female form, but in such a raw, vengeful state—it’s the most fascinating scene I’ve ever witnessed.

  She’s clearly pissed at him over something, but what she doesn’t know is that she’s taken something I’m owed.

  His last breath.

  Don Carden owed me money, a lot of money, and if he wasn’t going to pay it back, he was going to pay with his life, or his wife, one or another, and I won’t let this little raven-haired beauty get away with taking it from me.

  She turns and races back to her car. Fuck. She’s a vision of every man’s wet dream. Ruby-red cock-sucking lips, and tits that would fit just right in the palm of my hand. She approaches wide-eyed and in a hurry, pounding the ground under her heeled boots quickly as she approaches.

  She flings open the door and drops into the driver’s seat, letting out a shaky breath. She might be trying to fool herself, but she doesn’t fool me. It takes a lot of kills to lose that feeling of euphoric disbelief. The hatred you feel for yourself is consuming, and the high she just hit, the one that has blown her mind and changed her soul forever, will be closely followed by an almighty low.

  I breathe in her sweet scent. Sitting directly behind her in the shadows of her back seat, I can smell her… her hair, her skin, her fear.

  Adrenaline, perfume, and death.

  Consumed by her racing mind, she doesn’t notice me here, and as she pushes the key into the ignition, I contemplate letting her drive a short distance, just to observe, but I’m not stupid enough to risk my own life if she loses control of the car out of fright. So before she fires up the engine, I push my gun into her temple and slam my hand over her mouth. For such a little thing, she puts up a good fight, banging her fists on my forearms and digging her nails into my skin while trying to scream under the weight of my grasp. I pull her back tightly to the seat, keeping my hand clamped firmly over her mouth. “I think you’ve got some explaining to do,” I whisper gruffly into her ear.

  She tries her hardest to break from my hold, baring her teeth against the palm of my hand and trying to open her mouth just wide enough to close her teeth around my skin. I laugh. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.” I shake my head. “In fact, don’t even bother trying because you won’t win. I’m not afraid of hurting you, so do us both a favor and stop fighting.”

  Just when I thought she couldn’t surprise me anymore, she growls. She actually has the brass balls to let out a growl born from sheer frustration. She reluctantly stops fighting me, knowing it will get her nowhere other than hurt, or worse, dead. I don't make a habit of killing women, in fact, it's not something I've ever done or ever want to do, but if it came down to the wire, and it was kill or be killed, I know I'd be pulling the trigger first, regardless of who or what was in front of me. It’s an ingrained instinct. Protect yourself at all costs, e
ven if in the long run it could cost you your mind.

  “I'm going to remove my hand,” I tell her in a quiet, controlled tone. “You can scream as loud as you fucking well like, but you know as well as I do that no one will hear, no one will care, and your breaths on this earth will be severely limited. You try and run, and I'll shoot out your fucking hips. Hear me?” She nods stiffly. The anger emanating from her is electrically charged. She clearly doesn't like being on the other side of the gun, or being told what to do. As I remove my hand slowly, she throws her head to the side with a grunt and a scowl on her face.

  “Who the fuck are you?” she spits, reminding me of a feral cat.

  “I don't think you're in a position to be the one asking questions, do you?” She battles with the need to turn around and look at me, but I'm still positioned behind her, and she doesn’t turn fully due to the barrel of my gun still being pressed to her temple. “Drive,” I order, not knowing if this is a good idea, but our current location makes me think this might not be the best place to have this conversation.

  “What?” she asks, confused.

  “I said, drive. You and I both know that no one will care about dear Donny no balls, but it won't be long before his wife either turns hysterical and calls the police, or comes out here after you with the shotgun he keeps under his bed. So do what you're fucking told, turn the goddamn key, and drive.”

  She flicks her hair over her shoulder and turns her head a fraction towards me, but I press the barrel into the soft skin of her temple, forcing her to look forward and, resignedly, she fires up the Camaro. The engine roars to life, and the exhaust lets out a few pops as she revs to pull away. “For a wannabe assassin, you picked the noisiest fucking set of wheels. I'm guessing you didn't take Don by surprise. If you turned up in this heap of shit he would have heard you coming for miles.” I laugh to myself.

  “My fucking bullet took him by surprise when it ripped through his kneecap,” she bites out with indignance and pride touching her words.