Through a Glass, Darkly (Assassins of Youth MC #1)

I didn’t want to be born. Something went wrong along the way, and I’ve been unsure about my purpose on this earth ever since. If I was hit by a car, if I fell off a cliff, would anyone care? Living in Cornucopia with my sister wives under the watchful eye of our husband, Allred Lee Chiles, has turned me into a robot, unable to feel or think for myself. I’ve been looking through a cloudy glass, not trusting myself or others.

But a man came down from the mountains. I’m captivated by Gideon Fortunati, his name expressing all that he is—keeper of my fate, master of reality, teacher of my future. Gideon’s purifying power has enlightened me about my capabilities. I don’t have to let The Prophet take my daughter and marry her off to that old man. I was guilty of dirt and sin, but I can take my life back now.

GIDEON

I was exiled to this godforsaken wasteland in Utah by our MC Prez. My entire existence has been a struggle, a futile tirade against my maker. I ranted against my fate, and in answer I was sent Mahalia. A naive victim of that twisted false Mormon sect leader. He’s tried to mangle her like a spineless puppet, like he has all the other women—the other girls.

Before I met her, I was a child. Now I’ve given up childish ways, and I can see everything in a mirror, face to face. Faith, hope, and love were all handed to me, and the greatest of these is love. I’ve come too far. There’s no surrender now.

It didn’t look that far on the map.

Publisher’s Note:
This is a full-length, standalone novel with a HEA and no cliffhanger. Possible triggers include underage arranged marriage, forced oral copulation, and male prostitution.

Assassins of Youth MC
Book One

Layla Wolfe

Kindle Edition

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Cover Art by Natasha Snow Designs

Edited by Claudia Heikhaus

Regarding E-book Piracy

This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

About the Book

Title Page

Copyright Page

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

About The Author

More Books from Layla Wolfe

–Corinthians 13:12

GIDEON

W
e arrived here
by the vermilion cliffs in the dead of night. It wasn’t until I finally rolled out of bed the next morning after the long ride from Bullhead City that I saw how desolate it was there.

I stumbled out of the Motel 6 while buttoning my leathers around my thighs. No shower for me. I was going to get straight down to business and get the fuck out of there.

Holy shit on a crucifix.
There was a neat row of pine trees, obviously planted on the opposite side of the highway to blot out some unsavory view. If I looked toward the cinnamon mesas I was greeted by a giant, frisky bull on a tall pole. Dotted lines on his form showed me which cuts of steak I could look forward to.

Oh, and best of all. A weather-battered sign to my right—I suppose it had been neon before being bleached like dinosaur bones in the searing desert sun—told me I was right smack next door to the Sha-de-land Motor Home Park. I could also tell by the four dozen or so motor homes parked in the dust that this was not a shady land. At seven in the morning, it was already 63 degrees, according to the handy thermometer stuck to the wall sponsored by a lava rock quarry.

I wanted to kill Breakiron. He
would
have to get us sent to Cornucopia, Utah during August. This was all his fucking fault. I’d done nothing serious to deserve this exile. Papa Ewey would only send club members in bad standing to a hellhole like this, and it was 99% Breakiron’s fucking fault.

“What am I doing here?” I muttered, wandering to my scoot to get my cigs from my saddlebags. I’d been trying to quit for six months. Smoking had been banned from our clubhouse since Papa Ewey had had one of those lung cancer holes drilled in the pit of his throat three years ago, but there were still plenty of members smoking outside, so it wasn’t easy. I’d quit every night, flush them down the toilet, then thrash it first thing the next morning to the store to buy a fresh pack. I hadn’t flushed them last night. Too exhausted and pissed off at fucking Breakiron for getting us into this mess.

What am I doing here?
The dogs of hell must’ve been unleashed and chased me out of heaven. What did I do to deserve such a fate?
I’m going to get this mission accomplished, get the fuck out of here before I die
. Die of heat, dust, dehydration, or plain old fucking boredom.

I looked east toward the cliffs. That was all Zion National Park out there, named by Mormons after their promised land failed to pan out, I supposed. Suddenly the sun hit a cherry and wine colored rock formation, washing it in blazing righteousness, and a new feeling started to seep into my innards. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad run after all. We’d just be coordinating a shipment of high-grade military weapons with some yahoo fundamentalist leader nearby. I was his boots on the ground to get it all done. Once we set the place and date, we could go home.

Or so I thought.

“Whoo hoo! Bring ’em Young!”

I rolled my eyes. Tim Breakiron stood next to me, making a lame joke about Brigham Young. Breakiron had been nothing but a thorn in The Assassins of Youth’s side for quite awhile now. He was Veep, second in command to Papa Ewey, but it was like he’d been regressing to childhood the past couple of years. If he acted any more immature, he’d be a puddle of sperm and a wallet on the ground. I swear.

Not long ago, Breakiron was sent down to Gila Bend to work with a brother club, the Hellfire Nuts. Something had happened—to this day, no one had spilled exactly what—and Breakiron had been found wandering around the Mojave Desert severely tweaked, existing on berries or cactus flowers or whatever one ate out there. It was only through the help of some hippie “vision questers” chanting in some circle of life that Breakiron had even been brought back to civilization. Of course, in a motorcycle club, you didn’t exactly give people herbal tea and send them to bed, especially when they’d committed some kind of crime against the club.

So for his sins he’d been given this mission. And for my sins I’d been ordered along, like some god damned nursery school teacher.

“Bring ’em Young!” Breakiron made a fist and saluted the sky. “I say bring on these polygs!”

“They’re not
all
polygs, Breakiron,” I said, already weary. “Most of them aren’t, hate to tell you.” He was the sort of guy who probably thought the polygs just lay around humping all their wives all day. As if they had nothing better to do.

He elbowed me. I could already smell at this early time of day the sour odor of whiskey on his breath. “Can you picture it, Bigmouth?” He was the only one who called me Bigmouth. It was due to a six pack of Mickey’s Big Mouth I’d drunk once before eating out some lamb. No big deal, but it was the sort of thing that struck a guy like Breakiron with intense hilarity. “Banging six wives at once?”

“It’d actually be kind of hard, Breakiron, banging six gals at once.”

He slapped his own stomach. “Hoo, hard! Yeah, it sure would be
hard
, wouldn’t it?”

If I rolled my eyes any more strenuously they’d vanish into my skull. “Listen, Breakiron. I have to call this polyg. We still don’t have directions into their top secret compound, and I’d fucking like to get back to Bullhead before sundown, if you know what I mean.”

Breakiron didn’t know what I meant, so I stepped around the corner of the building to call Allred Lee Chiles. The colorful eroded plateaus of Zion were flaming with color now. Chiles had shipped a special burner phone down to Bullhead for me to use, explaining that “circles only call within circles.” I guess he had like thirty different burners for thirty different circles of people doing different things for him. That way he minimized his exposure. Smart.

I knew very little about Allred Chiles. He had a lot of wives, some of them under seventeen, which was why he’d been sort of forced into this little enclave. He was excommunicated from the mainstream church maybe twenty years ago, and then shunned once again, a splinter of a splinter faction. Papa Ewey had told me that the more fractured Chiles’ group had become, the more out there with their rules and regulations. We didn’t care, of course. We’d run guns with Charles Manson if he gave us a good price.

“Mr. Chiles.” I had no idea what to call him. He wasn’t
my
damned prophet. I didn’t give two shits about the Church of Good Fortune.

“Mr. Fortunati.” It seemed I’d made the right choice, calling him mister. His voice was calm, brittle, and reedy, like you could knock him over with one breath. “I see you got my package, so you must have gotten my directions.”

“Ah, no,” I had to admit. “My President just told me to call you when I got to the Motel 6 in Avalanche.”

“Hmph.” I could tell Mr. Chiles was irritated. Now he’d have to give me directions all over again.

There would be no signs for the burg of Cornucopia. There would be an elaborate stone wall, due to Chiles owning a couple of quarries, and a guard stationed remotely downtown would buzz me through the gate. As long as I identified myself as Reed Smoot, I’d be let in.

“Why Reed Smoot?” I was stupid enough to ask.

“Just do it, or you won’t get in.”

I had the feeling his “ask no questions” approach was the way Chiles handled everything. And why the fuck not? He was a prophet in his own way. He’d had enough vision to found this empire. He ran the show. He was the guy with three dozen wives. He must be doing something right.

“Okay. And what should my associate call himself?”

“Associate?” Chiles’ tone was downright nasty now. “I didn’t say nothing about no associate. Come alone.”
Click
.

Well. What the fuck. I was used to doing dirty work like this with dickhead customers like Allred Lee Chiles. I could handle it. If you go around taking everything personally in this world, you don’t get very far.

Breakiron, however, took it personally.

“What the fuck!” he fumed as I shaved in my room’s bathroom. “
I
was the one sent up here by Papa Ewey!
I
was the one entrusted with this run! You just came along for the fucking ride.
I
should be Reed Smoot.” He flexed his stupid biceps, his inked sleeve of an engine that said “Highway to Hell.”

I rinsed off my razor in the sink. “You should be Reed Assmuncher if that is what Mr. Chiles tells us to do.”

Breakiron fretted. “Mr. Chiles, my ass. He’s been hanging out at Burning Man too much if he thinks I’m going to just sit on the sidelines and do nothing.” Breakiron thought everyone in Nevada and Utah hung out at Burning Man. I think the hippies who found him wandering in the desert were on their way to Burning Man, so it stuck in his memory banks.