Burning Daylight (A Devil's Cartel MC Series Book 2) Read online

  Burning

  Daylight

  A Devil’s Cartel MC novel

  Book Two

  BY

  S K Y L A M A D I

  Burning Daylight

  Copyright © 2020 by Skyla Madi.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: October 2020

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Book Pages By Design

  Cover Design: Deranged Design

  ISBN-13: 978-1-64034-906-3

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  For those still on this journey with me.

  Thank you.

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  THE DEVIL’S CARTEL

  HIERARCHY

  PRESIDENT

  DAMON JUDGE

  “JUDGE”

  —

  VICE PRESIDENT

  JAMES CREED

  “CREED”

  —

  ROAD CAPTAIN

  SOREN REYES

  “HAWK”

  —

  SERGEANT AT ARMS

  KYLE WILLIAMS

  “ARMI”

  —

  SECRETARY

  JASON ROTH

  “STOIC”

  —

  TREASURER

  MATTHEW ROYAL

  “CASINO”

  —

  PROSPECT 1:

  KACE RYAN

  —

  PROSPECT 2:

  IRIS SAITO

  —

  NOTABLE PATCH MEMBERS

  CYRYS “CY” AHMADI, SORA “RAH” KIMURA, AARON “AYR” ST. CROSS, MODO, AMANI LEWIS, HARLEI HART, PEARL HART

  —

  OLD LADIES

  ISABELLE LAURENT ♥ JAMES CREED

  TERMINOLOGY

  1%ER (ONE PERCENTER): The term was coined when the AMA (American Motorcycle Association) was said to make a statement in response to the 1947 Hollister Riot that 99% of motorcycle riders are law-abiding citizens. The remaining one percent belonged to outlaw clubs/gangs who took the term and wore it proudly on their cuts, usually encompassed by a diamond shape.

  43: The numerals that coincide with the alphabet letter “D” for Devil’s and “C” for Cartel.

  BITCH: Another word for “girlfriend,” a term of endearment.

  BRAIN BUCKET: A small beanie-like helmet not usually approved by the Department of Transport.

  CAGE: A vehicle that isn’t a motorcycle. For example, a car, truck, van etc.

  CABBAGE: Idiot.

  COLORS: The club emblem/numbers/insignias.

  CUT: Leather vest with club colors. Usually has no sleeves.

  DCMC: Devil’s Cartel Motorcycle Club.

  DRAG BARS: Low, flat, and straight motorcycle handlebars.

  FENDER FLUFF: A female passenger invited for a ride on the back of a motorcycle. Not an old lady.

  FLYING LOW: Speeding.

  MAMA: A woman who is willing to have sex with all members of the gang, usually at the same time (see “Pull a Train”). The term is only used for women who regularly associate with the club and entertain multiple members on a very regular basis.

  NOMAD: An individual who isn’t a member of a motorcycle group and isn’t locked to a certain territory.

  NORMIES: Civilians/towns people.

  OLD LADY: A wife or long-time girlfriend. It has nothing to do with age and is not a derogatory term.

  PATCHWHORE: A female who has sex with members of a motorcycle club, solely members who have been patched into the club. No one has ownership over these women, and they can have sex with whoever they like. Other variations include: Patchrider, clubslut, and clubwhore.

  PIG: A derogatory term for a police officer.

  PULL A TRAIN: The act of having sex with multiple (if not ALL) of the members.

  RUNNING 66: Riding without wearing club colors.

  SMOKE: Cigarette

  SNOW: Cocaine. Other variations include: Blow.

  “She conquered her demons and wore her scars like wings.”

  ― Atticus

  ONE

  Y A S M I N E

  Damon Judge. I heard the roar of his lonesome motorcycle before I saw him speed down the main strip heading out of town. The thundering of his bike sent goosebumps skittering over the surface of my skin and stirred warning deep in my belly. I knew better than to pull my white Ford Fiesta away from the curb and follow such a dangerous man, but I was desperate. I’d chased every lead and exhausted every option, and if the police wouldn’t help me get my son back, I was going to ask the one person who could.

  I didn’t know Damon Judge, but I knew of him. He was a criminal, a murderer, president of Exeter’s Devil’s Cartel Motorcycle Club, and I was certain he was the one responsible for the disappearance of Jonathan Laurent, our previous mayor. But despite everything Judge was involved in, and everything he’d done, I suspected he wasn’t an unreasonable man. It was obvious with the line-up of men and women he allowed into Exeter’s DCMC chapter. Across the states, The Devil’s Cartel MC were notorious for the ways they regarded women, the LGBTQ community, and people of color. They were treated worse than dirt under their boots, but the Devil’s Cartel Exeter chapter was the only place you’d find female, gay, and colored members, and that was all thanks to Judge. He was a businessman too, that I knew, but I had no money and no power to offer him. My only plan was to appeal to Judge’s paternal instincts since it’s public knowledge he lost his daughter to domestic violence.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and continued to follow Judge’s taillight out of town. Nervous, sharp-winged butterflies nibbled my stomach lining at the thought of asking him for help to get my son, Nicolás, back.

  At the age of five, Nicolás was as tough as nails, but his father knew how to break him. I knew Nicolás could heal any physical wounds his father inflicted. It was the emotional torture he stood no chance against. My ex-husband knew how to climb inside Nicolás’s sweet, beautiful soul and tear him apart. He knew how to make him feel like there was something wrong with him, even though I spent every day of the last five years telling him how perfect he was. I swiped at a hot tear that dripped onto my cheek. I hadn’t felt this useless in a long time. This fight had cost me everything—my job, my house, and the only family I had left. I’d experienced the worst of life, so chasing a biker down a dark highway in the middle of the night didn’t seem so scary.

  Judge rode for ages, into the thick of nothing. I followed at a safe distance, my speedometer indicating I was still going well above the limit. Nerves ate at my veins and my heart leapt into my throat every time he tu
rned his head. He had to know I was following him. I hadn’t turned off my headlights and the only things out this way were trees, a river, and an abandoned fireworks shack. Sure enough, Judge pulled into the drive of the abandoned shack and got off his bike to walk into the thicket, heading toward the river. I knew I wouldn’t be able to follow him any further in my car, so I pulled up, turned it off, and trekked the rest of the way. As twigs and leaves crunched under my worn sneakers, I stretched the sleeves of my navy sweater over my knuckles and wrapped my arms around my torso. I was more nervous than cold since I was intruding on something private, something Judge couldn’t do in town, or with any of his men. There was every chance he’d shoot me and throw my body in the river. I’d be found within days, of course, but no one would investigate. Thanks to my ex-husband, I was the town’s resident nutcase and everyone avoided me like the plague. He painted me as an anxious, suicidal wreck who had PTSD issues and paid sexual favors to a long list of bad, bad men. Everything he said was a lie, but he was an expert with his brush, and he stained my reputation with every stroke.

  The thicket thinned out and I strode cautiously toward the dry riverbank, glancing left and right. It was quiet, too quiet for a peaceful night like this. I straightened my posture and blew air between my lips. Judge was here, somewhere. Nature told me so. The frogs were quiet, and the crickets didn’t dare sing, so where’d he go? Then I heard it, the snap of a twig nearby. Gasping, I whirled on my heel and reached for my hip, as if I were carrying a gun. I wasn’t. I hadn’t carried a gun in a long time.

  I saw the moonlight shine on the damp end of his gigantic boot first and watched his dark jeans absorb it as he stepped out of the undergrowth and onto the riverbank. The notorious DCMC skull on the chest of his shirt pulled my attention and I fought a shiver. Seeing the Devil’s Cartel insignia on paper was one thing…seeing it in real life, on the towering frame of the infamous Damon Judge, was another thing entirely. It was as if…as if it were alive, demanding I hand over my body and soul right here by the water’s edge.

  “Lost, sweetheart?” he asked, his gravelly, demanding voice rumbling over the surface of my skin, eliciting goosebumps.

  I swallowed hard and lifted my stare to his shadowed face. He was taller than I expected. I wasn’t a tiny woman. I was slightly above average in height and carried my fair share of excess fat around my belly, thighs, ass, and hips, but standing in front of Judge, I felt small.

  Too small.

  And worse, from his shadow, he’d stolen my courage and my voice. All I could do was stare at him like a mute, equal amounts of surprise and fear tangoing in my belly.

  “Do you speak?” he demanded, impatience clipping his tone.

  “I…”

  The words I wanted to speak, the favors I wanted to ask, were on the tip of my tongue. I’d practiced it before bed more times than I prayed these last few months. Still, Judge rendered me speechless and I hadn’t even seen his face in the full light yet. I moistened my lips and swallowed again, then I straightened my shoulders and steeled my spine. “Yes, I speak.”

  He stepped into the harsh moonlight, perfectly silent. His leather didn’t rub and the dry leaves under his boots didn’t crunch. Strangely, it scared me that a man his size could be so stealthy. What scared me more was the way his dark, ocean eyes, pursed lips, and chiseled jawline made my entire body clench. Even before tonight, I knew he was terrifying in the most beautiful way…but I wasn’t expecting his arresting appearance to freeze me on the spot. A heavy, dark curl of dread twisted down the length of my spine. When I first met my ex-husband, Elias Vergara, on a yacht in the Bahamas, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He consumed my entire being with an angry glance, a glance much like Judge’s. My ex was tall and athletic, had luscious locks the color of midnight rain, and at the age of thirty with a ticking biological clock, I was no match for his smooth, tanned skin, and eyes that glittered like black diamonds. Men who looked like Elias—men who looked like Judge—were bad news, and I had more bad news than I could swallow.

  The click of a hammer being pulled on a handgun tugged me from my thoughts, and I flicked my attention to his large hand. I wasn’t afraid of guns. I’d lost count of how many I’ve stared down the barrel of.

  “I need your help,” I said, my voice holding a fraction of the confidence it did in my head.

  A gentle breeze blew by, moving thin strands of my burgundy hair out of my face. With it wafted his cologne, a rich, woodsy smell that kissed my nose and warmed my chest. I expected him to smell of blood, cigarettes, gunpowder, and B.O., but he didn’t. He didn’t smell like a criminal and, for some reason, that further cemented the fact he could help me.

  “My help?” His full lips quirked and his eyes warmed, as if I said something amusing. Exhaling, he released the hammer of his gun and lowered it. “I don’t help people.”

  He stuffed his gun into his waistband, then turned his back on me. I frowned. That’s it? He didn’t want to know what I needed his help for?

  “I can pay you,” I shouted at his broad back, loud enough for him to hear, but not loud enough to stir the demonic skull on his back. I glanced nervously at it, at the upside-down crucifixes that flanked each side of it. God. It’s creepy. “I can pay you a lot of money.”

  It was a lie. I had no money to my name.

  “Don’t want your money. Don’t need it.”

  Sticks cracked and crunched under his big boots as he walked away, and that made him seem more human, less godly, so I followed him. In a few strides, we were drowned by the shadows of the undergrowth and Damon Judge wasn’t so scary as he stomped alongside trees that towered over him.

  “If you just listen to me—ouch!” A rogue stick slipped between my sneaker and my skinny jeans and dug into my ankle, breaking the skin. I stumbled forward and, out of reflex, I reached out and grabbed his cut to stable myself. “Please, Damon—”

  A vicious growl ripped through the forest and I gasped, my entire body tightening. I glanced over my shoulder, expecting a ferocious black bear to be right on my tail, when Damon’s cut was wrenched from my hand. I barely managed to straighten before he grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me against the trunk of a thick tree. I hissed as the back of my skull connected with the solid wood and pain seared over my scalp, embedding in my eyes. Stars exploded then dissolved as quickly as they appeared, leaving me staring into the cold eyes of my last hope. How did my life dissipate to this? Me, Yasmine Garcia, begging the president of an outlaw motorcycle gang for help. I wish I never went to the Bahamas all those years ago. I wish I never met my ex-husband. I wish I never had my son, so I could spare his pure, beautiful soul this horrible life.

  “Please,” I whispered, hating how many times I’d said that six-letter word to him tonight. “I’ll do anything.”

  Judge pressed his hips to mine and dug the barrel of his gun into my jaw. It smelled like it’d been fired a hundred times in its lifetime. Would it take my life tonight?

  He was everything the stories made him out to be. No. He was taller, wider, more handsome than I ever imagined. He smelled of bad things, of leather, smoke, and burned rubber. Judge hit me with a glare so frightening, but in their depths, curiosity and concern swirled.

  “You’ll do anything?”

  I regretted saying it already. “Within reason.”

  “Reason,” he repeated, his upper lip twitching at the corner. Judge looked down at my covered breasts, then back to my face. “I’m not a reasonable man.”

  My stomach knotted. Men like him were rarely reasonable, but I knew Judge could be. There were too many stories for it to be a myth. I stared at Judge, kept my eyes on his, not daring to glance at his lips. He didn’t need encouraging and, if I was wrong about him, who was around to hear me shout for help? Then he grinned and I slipped and watched his lips as they curled, exposing his white, and surprisingly perfect, teeth. My heart thundered.

  “Mm,” he hummed, craning his neck to ghost his lips over mine. “Listen to that
shallow breath. You want me to kiss you…”

  I swallowed and shook my head. We were on a slippery slope and it confused me. I was a natural negotiator, born confident and steadfast, but in Judge’s presence, it was hard to communicate what I wanted. Perhaps it was because of all the things I knew he’d done—the things that weren’t so noble or lawful—that kept me from pushing him. Regardless, I was above exchanging sex for favors. I’d go back to my ex-husband long before I became the woman he told everyone I was.

  “I think you do,” Judge whispered, and he softly flicked the tip of his tongue against my lower lip.

  I gasped as my heart stuttered and my blood pressure went through the roof. Who the hell does he think he is?

  “Get away from me,” I growled.

  I thrust off the tree and slammed my hands against Judge’s wide chest. I gritted my teeth, clenched my jaw, and shoved him with everything I had. I didn’t thrust him off balance, hell, he didn’t even stumble, but he did step back, giving me the space I physically demanded. We stared at each other in silence and a nervous sweat formed in my palms

  He simpered, wide and ridiculous, then turned away from me. Oh. I lifted my eyebrows. He’s leaving? I balled my fists and steeled my spine.

  “Is that how Isabelle Laurent paid for your help?” I barked at him and he stopped, turning his head. “What kind of sick shit did you make her do?”

  Judge slowly turned around and faced me again. I remained unfaltering, unshrinking under his irritated gaze. I liked it better this way—with this much space between us.

  “I didn’t make her do anything since it wasn’t my help she wanted.”

  He was talking about James Creed, the club’s Vice President. I didn’t know much about Isabelle’s relationship with him, but I saw them around town enough to know he claimed her as his. It even said it on the back of the tiny leather cut she wore. There wasn’t much I could say about Isabelle Laurent. She looked out of place with the Devil’s Cartel men, since she still dressed like her father was in office, but she appeared happy, at least.