Wicked Warden Read online

  Breath held, I watched him drive us away from whatever had happened, his head turning, non-stop scanning whatever lay around us. He let out a heavy exhale, and I did the same, knowing the threat of whoever had tried to run us off the road no longer pursued us.

  My bladder somehow managed to hold onto the liquor I’d drunk while dancing my free night away. It twinged with discomfort, but I had bigger issues to focus on.

  My old life is gone; I knew with us on the run. Not that I’d ever had plans of continuing the business Dad had begun as a teenager when he found out he would become a father at age sixteen. Already broke and living on the streets, he had no family to turn to and had chosen a path that would provide for his small family.

  A horrible choice, one that shattered and broke other families, but he’d claimed it was just business.

  I knew Dad had secreted money away over the years, so we wouldn’t go without, but the thought of where we would go gnawed at my mind. In hiding, of that, I had no doubt. If he couldn’t trust his men, he couldn’t trust the two pilots that had spirited us around the country. He couldn’t trust the captain of his yacht sitting in Boston’s harbor.

  He had no other family to hide us. My mother’s parents had shunned my father after her death, and in retaliation, he’d kept me from seeing them. Not that I’d ever minded—they always used to put Dad down and talk shit about him to my face.

  He might be a stern prick at times, pushed off my attempts for affection until I learned to leave him alone, but he was still my daddy.

  “You okay?” he finally asked after a good fifteen minutes of stifling quietness.

  “Yes.”

  “Sit up and fix your seatbelt.”

  I made myself as small as possible in the corner of the backseat while taking note of the towering Hilltop sign glowing in Saugus’s lights as we sped up Route 1. “Where are we going?”

  “Topsfield.”

  My eyebrows pulled together. “What the hell is in Topsfield?”

  “The Vicious Vipers, and watch your language.”

  I blinked, processing. I didn’t know Dad had connections with the biker gang, but if the rumors I’d heard about the Vipers were true, we would at least be safely tucked away where no one would attempt to get their hands on us. The Vipers held a violent reputation, one built from long before I’d been born, before Dad, even. No one messed with them, not even the law.

  Messing with one, or anyone under their protection, meant a quiet disappearance of the idiot who thought himself untouchable and an unsolved case that would be boxed up and forgotten.

  My breath finally evened out, and I slumped against the seat, my head still floating from my buzz, the massive adrenaline rush leaving me depleted of energy.

  “How’d you know where to find me tonight, Dad?”

  “I have my connections.”

  I sighed. His usual answer kept me in the dark, but even though I loved having the money his business provided, I didn’t want to know the business.

  Fifteen minutes later, we approached a gated driveway, its fence reaching away on both sides until disappearing into the dark. A compound—more or less a cage to keep us safe.

  Dad hated to be confined.

  “You’re going to leave me here, aren’t you?” I asked as that truth slipped through my brain.

  “Yes.”

  “And where are you going?” I asked, a ripple of unease causing goosebumps to break out across my skin.

  Dad put the car into park and returned both hands to the steering wheel as a bulk of a man approached from the guardhouse. “To end this once and for all.”

  That tone meant nothing would stop him from doing what he planned, so I didn’t even bother trying, even though the thought of his going after Arturo churned my stomach.

  “You’d better return to get me,” I whispered as the hulking man cut off the floodlight atop the guardhouse and tapped on the driver window.

  Dad lowered the window rather than respond to me, and a heavy shadow slipped through my thoughts, tightening my chest once more.

  Chapter Two

  Drew

  A sense of foreboding hovered over my mind long into the evening, regardless of the party kicking at the club. I’d dreamed about her again, and even though I couldn’t clearly recall her face, her presence had haunted my head all goddamn day.

  Disturbed screamed through the new Bose system Vigil, our president, had installed in the lounge area of our club, but no one seemed to be listening. Brothers played cards, shot pool, and slammed back shots while the club girls sat on their laps or knelt between thighs, swallowing down Viper dicks easy as water.

  I sat at the bar’s end with a tonic, keeping an eye on everyone and everything. I’d earned the nickname Warden while prospecting since I felt responsible for damn near every friend I made—and the fact I ran a bodyguard service outside of the club during normal work hours.

  The sense of … something … kept me from sucking down a beer while one of the girls sucked on me. I felt the need to be on top of my game, alert, and ready for shit. Since the only other brother probably not getting drunk off his ass sat guard at the front gate, I felt it my duty as a Viper enforcer to watch over my brothers.

  Ryker, our Sergeant at Arms, and one mean son of a bitch who liked his real goddamn name, thank you very much, caught my eye from across the room, his cell pressed to his ear. His mouth moved while speaking to whoever was on the line. Seconds later, he stood and made his way toward me, shoving his cell in his back pocket, lips flat-lined.

  “What’s up?” I asked when he got close enough to hear me over the music.

  “Stone called. Said there’s someone at the gate asking for you.”

  I frowned same as Ryker and glanced at the club’s door as though I might see through the metal. “He say who it is?”

  “Ben Thode.”

  “Fucking hell,” I grumbled beneath my breath, the dream of his wife rushing through my damn brain again with an intensity that knifed at my gut. “Fuck,” I cursed again, pushed my tonic aside, and started toward the door, Ryker on my heels.

  “Why the fuck is the goddamn cartel’s kingpin here and asking for you, Warden?”

  I yanked the door open but didn’t turn to answer while stepping out into the cold night in my white t-shirt and leather cut. “We have history.”

  “Good, bad, or ugly?”

  “All fucking three.”

  My breath fogged as I strode across the drive toward the compound’s entrance, ready for the trouble I’d been anticipating all day, tension heated my blood, keeping me way too fucking warm.

  Ben Thode. Childhood best friend, the brother I’d never had. The man I’d given up my teenage crush for. He’d gotten the girl, then got her pregnant when we were all sixteen. Last I’d seen him had been the morning his wife and daughter had been kidnapped, the same day Joanna died—because I hadn’t been there to protect her as I’d been hired to do. Assuming my position as a bodyguard had been ended by my pissed off friend, I’d stayed away. Selfishness—the desire to live—had kept me from attending the funeral and nearing the Thode compound ever again.

  I had expected to be taken out for my failure, but the minutes, the days had passed without a single threat on my life.

  It’d been ten fucking years since I’d seen him.

  And the guilt still festered even if my own grief over Joanna’s death had faded a bit. But the dreams…

  I fisted my hands to keep them from shaking. Focus honed in on the idling car beyond the gate and the headlights keeping me from seeing beyond their glare, I approached with caution even though I knew Stone would have made sure Ben wasn’t packing.

  Ryker and I stopped a few feet from the gate, and I nodded at Stone in the guardhouse. Seconds later, a buzzer sounded, and the gate began shifting toward the right, the racket of metal rollers screeching in my head.

  I fought to keep my breathing even while eyeing the beat up, light sedan as it pulled into the compound a
nd stopped alongside me. The lowered driver window gave me a glimpse of the man I’d loved like a brother once upon a time.

  “Ben.”

  Lips pursed, he finally looked up at me, resignation, fear, and a whole other slew of emotions I couldn’t catch flitting over his face before he shut them down into the mask he’d created since becoming a big man in the drug world.

  He climbed out of the car but kept his distance. “Drew,” he said, his voice low, as though unsure of himself, something he never used to be.

  I nodded, quietly taking note of his rumpled designer suit, the scuffed leather dress shoes, the askew tie, and dark smear of what looked like blood on his neck. For him to show up at the Vipers compound, a far cry from his usual put-together self…

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, the hairs on the nape of my neck stirring.

  The car’s back door opened, and long legs—bare to the thigh where a black leather skirt hugged tanned skin—slipped out into view. She stood in expensive heels, her bared stomach flat and taut, gorgeous tits smooshed into a halter top that threatened to spill the goods.

  Her arms wrapped around her waist against the cold, and I lifted my gaze to her face.

  Joanna.

  I stared, dumbstruck, the air in my lungs strangled the fuck right off as our gazes collided.

  “Him?” she whispered with venom enough to kill a man while shooting a glare at Ben. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

  “Shaun,” Ben snipped, “language.”

  Shaun—his daughter. Joanna’s daughter. I stared.

  “Why him?” she all but spit as I struggled to find my voice. “He failed you once before and you—”

  “Calm down, Shaun.”

  “Calm down?” she hollered, hands fisting at her sides as my attention flitted back and forth between the two of them. “It’s his fault—”

  “I don’t have any other choice!” Ben’s shout clamped her lips shut, but she glared at him while letting a huff out of her nose and crossing her arms again.

  He let out a heavy sigh, his head hanging. “I know you hate him—”

  “Understatement of the year, “she muttered, shooting daggers at me with her eyes.

  “—but I know Drew, Shaun. He’s the only man I know right now that can’t be bought. He’s loyal.”

  “Yeah, well, he wasn’t very loyal to you back in the day,” she said, her lip curling as she took me in from head to toe.

  “That’s the past,” Ben said, his voice still quiet. “And neither of us is the man we were back then.”

  “Care to tell us what the fuck is going on?” Ryker asked, putting an end to their argument as I tore my attention off eyes as blue as a jay’s feathers.

  Ben kept his focus on my face, and I knew what he planned on asking before he even opened his damn mouth. “I need you to protect her.”

  I swallowed, my goddamn heart thundering in my ears. I’d dreamed of a second chance to prove myself to him, but… “Ben—”

  “Please, Drew,” the fucker cut me off. “You’re the only one I can trust.”

  Shaun snorted.

  “What happened?” I asked, ignoring her look of death as my brain came back online, computing the truth of that something I’d been feeling all goddamn day.

  “Arturo infiltrated my compound—quietly and thoroughly, buying off my men. I’m lucky I escaped.”

  I motioned toward my neck in the same spot blood smeared along his. “You injured?”

  “Just a scratch.”

  “The men at your place?”

  “I had to shoot my way out,” he said with a shrug, zero trace of remorse in his voice.

  “Oh, Daddy.” Shaun’s voice broke as though just learning that information herself, but she didn’t go to him, didn’t offer support. Just stood there, hugging herself.

  If Ben shot his way out, bodies littered his house and grounds. I had no doubt. The man knew how to handle a gun and seemed unmoved from having to take out some of his own men. He’d been on the path to becoming a cold-hearted bastard last I’d seen him. I guessed losing Joanna had tipped him off that goddamn iceberg.

  “Whose car?” I asked, eyeing the piece of shit.

  “Stolen, and I tossed my cell—there’s no way we were traced here.”

  I nodded, although my gut still twisted.

  “Shaun’s cell?” I asked.

  “Left behind,” she sniped. “Just like the rest of my goddamn life.”

  “Shaun!”

  “Sorry, Dad,” she muttered, glancing away, her shoulders finally wilting.

  “I blamed you for so long, Drew,” Ben said, his voice low as he turned his attention back on me. “No one will believe I brought her here—to you.”

  He spoke truth. Arturo’s men wouldn’t look for Shaun if she hid with the Vipers. Even if he did find out where Ben hid her, the fucker knew better than to come after a person under our protection—if Vigil would offer it to Ben and his daughter.

  Still, I hesitated from agreeing as a slew of emotions continued to ransack my brain, guilt holding the lead over dread, and the fear it might start a war I knew Vigil wouldn’t want.

  “You owe me.” Ben’s whispered words knifed my chest.

  Penance for my sins. I closed my eyes. Final nail in the fucking coffin.

  I inhaled until it hurt, and glanced over at Ryker, raising an eyebrow in silent question.

  “Bring them in back,” he said. “I’ll open Vigil’s office door. We can talk more there.” He turned toward Ben. “You packing?”

  “Glock’s right here,” Stone said, moving toward us to hand the gun over to Ryker.

  He took the piece, shoved it behind his waistband, and nodded his head toward Ben. “Warden.”

  I knew what Ryker asked, but my heart beat heavy as I approached Ben. “Arms out,” I said, my voice gruffer than necessary.

  I patted him down, wanting to hug rather than frisk while Ryker did a quick search of the car. I’d missed the fucker, hated that I’d been the reason Joanna no longer breathed and hated that I’d lost my best friend that day, too.

  “Pull around the right of the main building there,” I told Ben once I finished, motioning at the club’s main building behind us.

  Ben nodded and turned toward Shaun. She glared at me, eyes narrowed in a kill stare.

  “What?” she spit at me. “Don’t have the balls to pat me down, too?”

  I grinned, although no amusement induced my lips upward. She remembered me for what I’d not done—protect her and her mother—but I wondered if she remembered the man I’d been before that day. Rides on my shoulders. Tea parties with her dolls since her dad didn’t allow play dates. Walks at the beach. Countless hours at the park on swings… I’d been her big teddy bear.

  Gone. All in a blink because of my goddamn selfishness.

  And Shaun was no longer a little girl. That was for damn sure, but I needed to put my brain—and her attitude—in check if she was going to be hanging around the Vipers’ compound.

  Unable to help myself, I glanced down over her gorgeous, too-young body. “Sweetheart, if you’re packing beneath that tight ass skirt and top, squeezing the life out of your tits—”

  “I’ll do it,” Ryker said, but I shot out my hand in a sudden surge of anger and grasped his arm to stop his forward momentum.

  “You don’t touch her.” My words came out with a threatening tone, straight the fuck up possessive as hell.

  Instant tension flared to life between Ryker and me, but Ben chuckled. “And that is why I brought you to Drew, Shaun.”

  Drew. Ben didn’t know the man I’d become, the warden with a dozen kills to my name, and a reputation for violence when needed.

  I took a step forward as though to frisk her myself, but she yelped and scrambled back into the car, losing one heel and flashing white panties between her thighs in the process.

  Goddamn.

  The door slammed shut behind her, and I turned, teeth clenched against m
y dick’s sudden interest in the last woman I should lust after.

  Ben climbed in the driver’s side but caught my eye. “I trust you to protect her, Drew, but if you or anyone of these bastards so much as lay one goddamn finger on her—”

  “Pull the piece of shit car around back, Ben,” I cut him short, my usual tolerance for bullshit at zero. “You know I’d give you the skin off my back if you asked. That’s never changed. Never will.” I strode away, my shoulders tense as fuck, my head a goddamn kaleidoscope of emotion I didn’t know how to sort.

  My best friend and his hot as fuck, leggy daughter who looked almost identical to my first love had crashed into my life.

  What the fuck had fate slapped onto my plate? Or, had karma come knocking for her due for the life I’d chosen to live? Either one, I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty … or end well.

  ****

  “No fucking way, Dad,” Shaun said for at least the fifth time since we’d gotten to Vigil’s office. She sat with her legs tucked beneath her on a couch that had probably seen more action than my favorite boots I wore just about every damn day.

  We all ignored her, same as the other times she grumbled about her father’s plan to leave her behind.

  Ryker stood by the door leading into the club room beyond, arms crossed, anger still lining his face with deep grooves. I expected we’d have words over my touching his arm—the man hated when people touched him without permission.

  I’d do it all over again. I wasn’t about to let anyone paw at Shaun since she was Ben’s daughter—not because my dick wanted her all to myself.

  That’s what I told myself, anyway.

  I let out a slow exhale, focusing on Ben seated beside her, his gaze piercing—and pleading.

  “With Shaun safe here, I can focus on finishing what I’ve been working on for ten years,” he said. “I know I can get in and take Arturo out before he knows I’m there.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “How the fuck you gonna do that? You go all ninja shit or something since I saw you last?”

  Ben sat back, a darkness in his eyes I’d never seen before. He’d been hardened by a shitty life, that much was evident, even if he had the cash to burn and properties all over the fucking planet. “A lot has changed since Joanna’s death.”