LOVING LUCIAN: Hade's Horsemen: Motorcycle Romance Book Two (Property of Lucian Series 2) Read online

  Loving Lucian

  Simone Elise

  Contents

  Loving Lucian

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Loving Lucian

  My pleasure is your pain

  Chapter 1

  LUCIAN

  One Month Later

  Lighting up a cigarette in the alleyway, I waited and watched the man spasm in pain as I sent my knife into his stomach before slowly pulling it out, the gushing of blood following. It was like gutting a fish—a gutted cowardly fish. What did he think this was? A fucking lifestyle you could pick and choose to live? Once you pledged, that was it—your life ran through the codes and laws.

  I enforced those codes and laws. And right now, he had broken one that couldn’t be overseen, so as he bleed out in the alleyway between the clubhouse and the bar, I hoped he died a painful death.

  Hell, he was lucky to be awake for another few moments before he passed out from the pain and bled out in the alley.

  “Gasoline or burial?” Rage asked as we walked away from the dying ex-member.

  “Burial, ain’t in the mood to smell burning flesh.” I shattered his hope. Rage had an addiction to fire, loved to light things up, and that included bodies. Which, honestly, had come in handy more than once.

  “Yo, Prez!”

  I kept walking but then stopped. Fuck, I wasn’t used to that title. Never had been an acknowledged president, more like a silent factor and enforcer that appointed the presidents. Perhaps more powerful, but the mother charter always liked to pull rank on me.

  But Dash was no more.

  Thus, the empty position, and me being forced to take it as I killed the president responsible for murdering my wife. Broke a lot of laws that night, but leaving her in that room to bleed out had destroyed the human inside me. I was told by Ruby hours later, that Haylee had died. The only reason I hadn’t taken her to the hospital was because I knew there was no coming back from those injuries.

  I let her die following the code, following the laws, and she got the burial she deserved. Her soul was at peace, and I couldn’t say she was a peace while she graced this earth.

  “Some bastard put a hit on you,” Stone informed me, then shoved a phone in my face. “You want me to handle it, or you got plans for this fucker to die slowly?”

  I read the hit report. Basically numbers, but my number had been called out. I had a hit on my head. Wasn’t the first, sure as fuck wouldn’t be the last. “Nah, I’ve got plans for this,” I muttered numbly because I knew who had put the hit out—Harley. He wanted revenge for his sister’s death, and best of all, I was going to give it to him.

  I’d been ready since Haylee died to join her. For a few brief months, the woman granted me peace on this earth, and I was ready to feel that peace again. After all, I was doing things that even the club members frowned upon—going too dark for dark is a warning sign. But most of all, I wanted peace again. I just wanted to be with Haylee.

  “Stone, ya in charge till I come back.” I knew I wanted him to step up, so I gave him the order in front of everyone. The witnesses would confirm after I died that I had left the club in the hands of Stone.

  I’d lived this lifestyle for freedom, but in the end, it gave me nothing but a box.

  Walking to my bike, I didn’t even look back at the club that I had dedicated my life to. I was ready to join my wife.

  When the light disappears from your life, it is much like being buried alive. Because in the midst of night, there is nothing but darkness. My eyes ran over the dock, knowing my body would be going into that ocean.

  I always told myself I would not die quietly. I had once vowed to myself that my life would only end by someone who deserved to end it, someone who deserved the create the end Lucian Hunter life.

  Now as the waves knocked on the walls of the dock softly, I was ready to sink into it.

  I heard the car pull up, and considering that I was giving myself up, I was at least expecting a painful death. After all, I deserved it. I had killed many, and few of them were painless.

  It was a spilt-second, the pain washed through my body as the knife pierced the back of my thigh and I fell to my knees. I didn’t fight back. I didn’t even turn around. I was ready to die. Ready to end it all.

  Harley deserved this. Fuck, Haylee would want this. She would want her twin to have peace.

  The knife went to my side, and then I realised the pattern. Haylee had been stabbed in the same places. But how would Harley have know that? From blood loss, I looked over my shoulder, and that was when I saw the angel of death.

  Haylee, her hair was pinned back, her eyes calculating, and she pulled the knife away. She locked her eyes with mine.

  “If you survive this like I did, then we can talk.” Her words were as sharp as a whip, but to me, that sounded like chocolate-coated velvet.

  “I’ll be seeing ya, darling,” I said as she backed away, leaving me to bleed out on the dock. I wondered now, did she want me to survive this? I didn’t question if she was real or not, I didn’t even wonder how she was still alive. All I cared about was surviving this to get the answers I deserved, the answers I was willing to face death down for.

  Chapter 2

  Haylee

  “You went out?”

  I paused in the hallway, and wondered for a moment if I should lie. But then again, I didn’t have to answer him.

  “Tell me where to.”

  “Not my keeper,” I replied smoothly and coldly to him, then went to escape down to the cellar. After all, I had unfinished business waiting for me down there.

  “You went after him, didn’t you?” Harley sped past me, blocking my way down to the cellar. “I told you to let him believe you were dead. Why the fuck did you break the plan!” Harley had every right to be mad, especially after what he had been put through thanks to Hade’s Horsemen taking me.

  Harley thought he had won the lottery. The debt was paid to the Hade’s Horsemen, and he had gotten me back.

  “He was bound to find out.” I went with the only weak excuse I could think of. Harley and I had discussed the topic of Lucian finding out that Ruby had taken me to a hospital and had lied to the club. Luckily for her, she left soon after my ‘funeral’. I took care of her when I found her location, and by taking care of her, I mean I provided a place for her where no one would find her.

  “Not if we followed the plan,” he hissed at me like I had lit the town on fire with a hatred for us.

  “I won’t go quietly, I told you that. Nor will I be some coward bastard that goes and hides in another country. We had a problem, I dealt with it!”

  “Nah, ya fucking didn’t. You just started a war we can’t fucking win!” He took a step away from me, disappointment and rage boiling in his eyes. “I hope you liked sucking his cock cause that is exactly what you’ll go back to doing when he finds you. Ain’t calling war over this, not when there was another option.”

  That didn’t even surprise me, however, Harley was forgetting one factor. I took a step towards him, breaking that distance he needed to calm down. Call it a twin thing, or the fact that I knew his rage better than my own. “This has just only begun, but I can tell you now, brother—those men that answer to you are just as loyal to me.”

  A bitterness covered his expression when he realised I would cause a uproar ov
er our army of men and women before I went back to Lucian.

  “If you really think you aren’t his anymore,” his eyes dropped to the tattoo on my hand, “then get that fucking covered and stop wearing it with pride.”

  That was a low blow, but I supposed I deserved it. After all, I suggested I was going to rip his livelihood of men and women from him.

  I turned to head down to the cellar. Was I making a mistake? Then again, mistakes are mere decisions we learn from. I headed down to finish my business with the kidnapped informer, and wondered for just a second if Lucian would survive. I had gone deep but then again, it wasn’t really that deep because he could still talk.

  His ‘I’ll be seeing ya, darling,’ ran through my mind again, and a sick part of me wanted to see him again—just so I could kill him while looking him in the eyes.

  Chapter 3

  Haylee

  I didn’t die easy, never had, nor will I. I didn’t die when my parents locked me in that basement for a week, and I had survived more since then. So right now, as I stared down the man with a gun, I could count on my hand that this whole darn army thought they could take me out. But I had something they didn’t have, a lack of fear. Fear held those back from acting.

  When I was stabbed nearly to death in Lucian’s club, the fact that he didn’t even give me a fighting chance flooded my mind again. Frustration flared through me as my hand twitched for my gun. Pure boiling rage was spreading through my body. I needed to let the rage out and I looked at my prey. Within a one fluid, fast movement, I cocked the gun that was pointed at me up into his face. The man’s blood sprayed over my face and then I dropped to the ground, pulling my gun from my holster while also missing the bullets that were automatically being fired after I reacted.

  They thought they had won by out-numbering me, but they were wrong. With a Glock, I aimed, fired, and ended the life of four men; well, five if you include the first kill, who was my warm-up.

  The doors to the large industrial shed burst open, and in came my brother, late as usual.

  “When a meeting starts at eleven, it starts at eleven.” I wiped a spray of blood of my cheek. “Not at ten past, or at half past.” I walked calmly towards my brother. “Once again, I am left to do the deeds for this empire.”

  He was frustrated, perhaps a pinch annoyed that I had showed him up, but what really got under his skin was when his eyes dropped to the tattoo that I refused to cover. Because each wound, each tattoo, every scar, told a story. It makes me the person I am, it frames the person I am. I would not or will ever be ashamed of things that happened to me that turned me into the person I am today.

  Cold. Heartless and hatred, it would show on my skin. Every battle. Win or lose—it would be reflected.

  “I’ve been dealing with ya husband,” Harley hissed at me. “He wants to see you and until he does, he has cut our meth trade.”

  I kept control over my reaction, but even I knew that would hit us hard. It was a cost we couldn’t afford to pay. Meth was our major earner.

  “I’ll handle it,” I muttered, and Harley scoffed.

  “By what, going back to him?” Harley was looking for a fight, and he pointed his finger at me. “I told you to fucking lay low. But instead, you go after him, stab him nearly to death! But you couldn’t do the job fully because now I’ve got to fucking handle it.”

  “This isn’t you concern.”

  “When you gonna see it, Haylee!” he roared at me. “We aren’t a team! We aren’t anything but brother and sister. We, our empire,” he pointed to the men behind him, “is a machine, and you, my dear little sister, are nothing but just a part in that machine.”

  Harley always had a power over me. The ability to cut sharper with words than a knife in my life. He had the ability to shut down my ego and my willpower to think that I knew better. Harley had all this power, until the day I married Lucian and then that power went to him.

  So right now, Harley thought he could put me back in place, which was under him. To never let me think I could do this on my own. For the first time ever, I wasn’t ready to obey. I wasn’t ready to fall to my knees and accept the fact that he knew better.

  “Times are changing, Harley,” I said with confidence. I never had confidence when I spoke directly to him about the cause, our empire, or anything to do with business. For some unknown reason to me, I felt like I had this inner raging strength that could take him on. For the first time ever, I felt equal to Harley.

  “I’m not part of the machine, I’m the fucking driver of it. The owner and the controller.” I stepped towards him, daring him, baiting him to take me on. “Don’t forget that they fear our names, not your name, big brother,” I added, mocking him. “Now I’ve got to see a man about a dog, and I am referring to that bitch you brought into our house, who did everything but fucking drain my personal bank account.”

  “Don’t bring up Imogen.”

  “Don’t bring up Imogen,” I mocked. “How about you don’t bring leeches into the family?”

  He gritted his teeth. “How about you learn your place!” he roared, and his hand whipped across my cheek, blood swelling in my mouth. “Which is under me, Haylee!”

  Most girls would cry, some may even say sorry for causing him to snap, and others would internally blame themselves. Me? I punched him right in that big fucking mouth of his.

  “Fuck!” he cursed, holding his mouth while blood leaked from his lips.

  A few of the boys smirked—for some reason they always hated it when Harley hit me. I, however, should think Harley should know by now that I never take a hit laying down.

  “At least it wasn’t in the balls, I guess.” He spat some blood and looked back at me. His black hair was tied in a small bun, his eyes ran over me. I did look like a murder victim but then his eyes were back on my hand.

  “How about we agree to disagree?” I made an attempt towards peace.

  “Or . . ..” Harley paused and gestured with his head for the men to leave. If only he had done that earlier, then perhaps, we wouldn’t have had such a showdown. “We go get ice cream,” he said to me.

  I couldn’t stop the smile, even though it bloody hurt. “You really think you fucked up that badly?”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “Then in that case, ice cream it is.” I shrugged and looked at myself, I was a mess. “Meet you at home.”

  Chapter 4

  Harley

  My sister had a sweetness to her, one that no one saw, sometimes not even me. She had the ability to be cold and calculating, but when she loved, she loved with her whole heart. But being the cold machine she was, she never let anyone but me get close enough to love. Because when she loved, she protected who she loved and she was loyal, but most of all, once she loved them, she didn’t stop loving them.

  Haylee was sitting crossed-legged on the flood of our lounge. Cocaine lines on the coffee table and ice cream buckets open. I knew what I was doing wasn’t fair; however, she loved the man and this would lead her to him, even if she didn’t want to go.

  The thing with cocaine was that it simulates the need for sex, it makes you pure and rage like for it. She thought right now she was doing speed, but I had switched the bags. In ten minutes she was going to be called for a job, which I had set up with Lucian.

  Didn’t do it for him.

  Did it for my sister, knew as soon as she didn’t get that tattoo covered, she was in love with him. I tried to force her back to him by pulling rank and making her see that her future wasn’t with me anymore. She had taken another road, one with Lucian—and for all purposes, I had forced her down that road.

  On cue, perhaps early if anything, her phone rang.

  She frowned, and I waited for her to answer it to get called to the shipping containers at our rural property.

  “Why would Ethan be calling me?” She looked at me.

  Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Out of all my men, fucking Ethan was setting it up! Well, I knew then that this plan just went up in fire be
cause Ethan had a fucking thing for Haylee. I knew there was no way in hell he was letting her go back to Lucian.

  “Don’t answer it,” I said just as she did.

  Well, so much for a well-sorted plan. I went to message Lucian. The bastard of a prick still thought he had some power over me for doing all this. When really, I was the one with the power.

  Haylee spoke into the phone, said she would see him shortly.

  Now was my only option to step in and redirect her directly to Lucian, but then she will know it was my idea and not his. However, her happiness meant more to me. “I need ya to check on the shipping containers on the country property.”

  She scoffed, “I’m not going to the sticks.”

  “Haylee, the alarm went off. You and I both know what we have in those shipping containers.”

  Her expression tightened but she nodded her head. “Fine. But next time the alarm goes off, you’ll be going.” I knew her anger had more to do with her sex drive than the shipping containers. She had just thought she would get it on with Ethan, and I had put a stop on that. Now she needed another outlet.

  Was it wrong I was doing this to her? Forcing her back to him? But I knew in order for me to get Imogen back, Haylee had to go back to Lucian. Lucian would then let Imogen back in my life. And Haylee, well as cold as she is, she seems to like the bloke—as fucked up as that is.

  She needed to be forced back with him, and I hoped some cocaine and Lucian explaining himself would do it.

  After all, this was merely a game. As I lit up my cigar, hearing Haylee’s car leave, I knew that she didn’t see what we were really playing for. But soon she would. If she got back into Lucian’s world, she would make the connection between what I was after and how to get it through Lucian’s connections.