Hunter: MC Romance (Hell Reapers MC Book 1)

Copyright © 2016 Liz K. Lorde All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter 1

You know your day's going bad when you find yourself having to recklessly speed downtown, I could hear my boss grinding his teeth just waiting for my late ass.

I'd slept late and though it wasn't like me to hit snooze on the alarm sixteen times; I forced my white 2002 corolla to slow down, taking a sharp right turn against a red light. Yeah, never mind, that sounds like me nearly every damn day. My tires screeched like a banshee in heat and a few people in traffic were kind enough to tell me to go and get myself laid.

Couldn't disagree with that solid advice.

I rolled my eyes briefly and sped onward to the Applegate Sun. They were of course, one of the more modestly sized newspaper companies, but a girl's gotta get paid somehow. It wasn't all bad, spending most of my days writing for people that thought less of me than the shoes they would come in to work with.

Alright, well at least the pay was still solid. Mostly.

Some of my co-workers saw me as 'lucky' for having our head writer, Amanda Childes, get a nasty case of bronchitis. Me? I found myself supremely
unlucky
. Not that, that was much different than how things usually were for me. With Amanda benched, my hard-ass and notoriously Machiavellian boss Franklin Gates, was on the hunt for her temporary replacement. Someone, and I’m not naming names – but it was probably Laura Tankretti, sly as a fox and total office BFF, had the bright idea to float my name in his ear. Can't say it was my cheery demeanor that caused me to make a good impression on people.

Whatever it was about me, it always seems to get me in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Wrong described my life all too well, and I was starting to get sick of the taste of those bitter ashes in my mouth. People in life always had the mind to mention that hard work and being kind led to good things, that something better’s always just right around the corner. Yeah, well, guess Fate didn’t get that notice – seems like nobody above, or below, knows my name.

Flying like a bat out of hell through another red light, I expertly weaved my going on six years now labor of love through a frantic sea of mechanical beasts, prowling the rough and tumbled streets. I could feel my nerves flaring up; a horrible mix of anticipation, fear, and eerie serenity. Horns wailed, but all I could hear was the cranked up smoothness of my rock ‘n roll; the flow and motion of the car as I turned and threaded the needle, so to speak.

Alright Jessica, get your head in the game - you keep this up you're going to hurt somebody. Keep cool. Everything around you is just a distraction, just noise.

Beat the noise.

The gripping tightness in my gut wound itself tighter when I had to slam on my brakes for the guy ahead of me. The four banshees screamed their displeasure, and my hand found its way quickly to the horn. When I was in my more rebellious youth, I tended to watch a lot of action movies and car chases were my absolute jam. Dad, when he was around, half expected I’d end up in jail for boosting cars or playing driver to some robbery. I always did have a knack for disappointing him.

This fracking guy, what the hell is he doing? He had no reason to stop. I blare my horn again quickly and check my mirror, switching over to the right lane and throwing up my favorite finger at the SUV as I pass him.

***

Rolling to a stop, I arrive in the parking lot at work. Even though I know I'm running late, I give myself a quick one over in the mirror; green eyes, framed by what an ex used to call 'fiery' orange hair, stared back at me. I wrinkled my nose and took a deep breath. You can do this, don't let them smell the fear on you. If Gates knows you’re afraid, he’ll rip you apart.

Getting out of my corolla, I slam the door shut and strut my way through the parking lot. I wasn't wearing anything particularly fancy; I liked to keep things casual and not too serious. Black workpants with a white button-up and my favorite pair of faux-leather lace-up boots.

Finding myself at the door connecting to the Applegate building, I went through and padded down the empty hall. Maybe I didn't want to dress too sharp after what happened, subconsciously I guess. Jerry was, well, a real piece of work. Just thinking about him made it feel like there were spiders crawling all over me, I could feel them. I could feel them and a cold shudder passed through me at the memory of his hands pushing me and shoving me, touching me and probing me.

I felt like I was suffocating all over again, and I knew that I had to reign myself in. Or else.

Don't think about that creep, I thought. He's dead to you now. I pushed the thought from my mind and spent a spell getting through the hornets’s nest of writers, editors, researchers, interns and a potpourri of other various journalistic specialists. The main office room was a series of cubicles, warm electronic lights and natural shafts of sunlight; of which, they poured from the large windows on the wall that faced towards the bustling streets and buildings outside.

There was one employee, my good friend Laura, who had the gall to actually come and notice my late ass. "Finally decided to show up huh?" She asked. She was a rough and tough country girl, probably more used to horses than to men. Laura liked to frequently eschew the normal dress code, even more so than me, and dress herself in a plaid top. I envied her though, for having a definitive style and managing to make it work for her.

I gave her a quick wave, hurrying myself along, "Yeah, well," I started, "you know. I thought to myself 'why come in today? If i come in, Laura's not going to have to get a damn thing done'."

She nodded her head sarcastically, "Right. You slept in," she called out matter of factly as I passed her.

"I totally slept in," I turned and admitted, started to walk backwards, and brought my arms out, giving her a look that said 'fuck me, right?' "I realize sleep isn't what they pay us in, but it'd be nice if they'd let us have some of it every once in a while. You know, just to pretend like we’re normal." I spun on my heel, turning away from Laura and continuing to Mr. Gates’s office.

Before me was the glass behemoth that no man or woman was ever supposed to come out of alive, or so I’d been told often enough. I'd only met the man a handful of times while I've been working the job, but every time I saw him he had a look on his face that told me. 'Hey, Jessica, if you could do me a favor and just lay still for me while I rip out your guts and feed it to the peanut gallery, that'd be great'. He had the most intense silvery eyebrows I'd ever seen, like someone had taken a hammer to his face and just forged him to be some pure machine of hate and disappointment.

I steeled myself for the moment to come and straightened down my clothes, trying to put out wrinkles that weren't there.

I reached for the door handle and turned it. I looked back briefly behind me, and then shut the door. He was sitting there, in his throne of a chair, a quiet rage seething just below his skin. Mr. Gates looked at me with those cold, appraising brown eyes. "Ives," he said simply. He had a receding head of wispy grey hair that was parted to the left, and a strong, historic jaw.

"Sir, I can explain--"

He put up a hand and shook his head. I could feel my heart tapping against my chest. "No need to explain," he let out a breath like he had been practicing since he realized that I was going to be late this morning, as though it were the one thing that gave him joy in his life. "Can't expect the best when you don't have the best."

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