Mistletoe and Outlaws: (Novella 5.5) (Renegade Souls MC Romance Saga) Read online

  COPYRIGHT

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Names and characters are the property of the author and may not be duplicated. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

  No Santa’s, Christmas trees or snowmen were harmed in the making of this festive biker book.

  Mistletoe and Outlaws

  Jacket cover: shutterstock.com

  Cover Design: V. Theia. ©2018

  Interior formatting by V. Theia 2018.

  All Rights Reserved

  To those who always keep Christmas in their heart. And for those who love dirty bikers who do bad things under Christmas trees.

  Happy Holidays to all the biker babes.

  SYNOPSIS

  For once those Renegade Souls boys and their old ladies are going to have a peaceful Christmas. Or so the plan goes.

  Join Rider and Zara while they host the first Renegade Souls MC holiday party amid her pregnancy aches and Rider’s stress to rid his town of the bratva once and for all. All he wants is to make his girl happy with the help of family and some dirty shenanigans. Maybe this was the year she’d say yes to his proposal.

  Preacher and Ruby are learning how to be parents while dealing with someone from Ruby’s past. Is it a seasonal time of goodwill and forgiveness? One thing’s for sure; Preacher is always what his festive angel needs.

  Grinder discovers the hard way what it means to get on the wrong side of his explosive wife. There’s nothing quite like the holidays for love and a volatile temper as Luxe is more than happy to show her boy.

  Hawk and Gia are awaiting the pitter patter of tiny sociopath feet. Is happiness about to be ripped out of his hands just when he’d finally got it? Christmas brings surprises to the VP’s household from unpredicted sources.

  Who said Christmas time can’t be dirty?

  This novella is intended as a catch-up for the first four couples so far featured in the Renegade Souls MC series and not a standalone. It’s meant to be read as an add-on and runs along the same timeline as Finally Winter.

  Can you handle the outlaw festive mush?

  Table of Content

  COPYRIGHT

  SYNOPSIS

  Table of Content

  December 8th

  December 9th

  December 10th

  December 11th

  December 12th

  December 13th

  December 14th

  December 15th

  December 16th

  December 17th

  December 18th

  December 19th

  December 20th

  December 21st

  December 22nd

  December 22nd

  December 23rd

  December 23rd

  December 23rd

  December 23rd

  December 26th

  December 31st

  “Who the fuck said let it snow again?” – Rider

  December 8th

  Rider was a Texan in every aspect the minute he cursed at the white stuff squeaking under his boots, as he left his F-150 in his parking spot within the club compound, and then trekked the five feet inside while his bones shivered under the thick wool coat yanked up around his ears.

  Colorado snow in December was a given. Rider bitching about it was also the norm. He might’ve lived here more than half of his life now, considered it home, but the damn snow bothered him more than the Russians, Mexicans and the Diablo Disciples combined because it meant his bike was garaged more often than he got to ride it in the winter months.

  Yeah, stupid reason. But there it was.

  He was a bike man, not a four wheels cage man.

  Heavy snowflakes fell in giant globs onto his beanie covered head. His girl would get a kick out of him being drowned in her beloved snow. For Zara it didn’t snow enough and only for her sake did he tolerate it when it began to piss the white stuff out of the sky.

  It was laid thick enough to have it crunching under foot.

  She’d been in captivity for three years. Hadn’t seen snow, hadn’t played in it or thrown a snowball for three years. So, if his old lady wanted to roll around in the yard at two am then Rider pulled on his hard-worn leather biker boots and joined her holding an extra coat and making sure her hat came down over her cold ears.

  This was gonna be their third Christmas together and it was particularly hard for him around the holidays and her birthday to know all the occasions she’d missed out on.

  He still blamed himself.

  It would never change.

  The domino effect never meant much until his prick move on pushing his girl away resulted in her being taken by a sadistic, twisted fuck and had her life stalled for over a thousand days.

  Those days he couldn’t ever give her back. He could only ensure the ones in front of her were the best he could make them.

  Tension crept up into his shoulder blades, buried in his thoughts, as he crossed the threshold to the clubhouse, he accepted how the guilt would always live with him. He could only try to appease it day by day somehow. Fill her life with joy. Love his Icy-girl harder than ever.

  Warmth enveloped Rider along with the early morning sounds of his men grabbing food before they got down to work or recovering from a heavy night of partying.

  Sounds of “Yo, Prez,” drifted over.

  He stopped for a few minutes, talked a few more, it was only when he listened to a voicemail that he grabbed his jacket and headed out once again.

  By rights he should have Snake with him.

  As the club bodyguard he took his duties seriously to the point he’d probably pout like a fucking girl if he knew Rider was going to meet a dangerous man without him.

  But then his bodyguard brother had his head elsewhere right now and Rider had a feeling the guy would choose to stay right where he was.

  Thirty minutes later he pulled in outside the diner next to the blacked-out Mercedes.

  He found Grigori sitting alone with a steaming cup of coffee at the far end. Rider nodded to the diner girl, the one Reaper was obsessed with, every-fucker had noticed that. The pink haired girl beamed a smile and lifted the coffee pot. Rider shook his head and pulled out a chair.

  “What, no goons with you?”

  Grigori rose his eyes, otherwise his face was stony. “I find myself without many said goons. Do you have any idea why?”

  Rider shrugged. Of course, he did. They were dead. Between Jamie Steele and two of Rider’s enforcers those Russian capos wouldn’t be returning from the dead any time soon, or ever. “What do you want?

  “I thought it was time we spoke again. Face to face. I can recommend the Americano coffee. The girl makes it strong.”

  Rider ignored the offer of a drink. He wasn’t here to be friendly. If anything, he wanted to reach across the table and stab the fucker in the neck and watch him bleed out like a stuck pig. Rider had a long memory and every wrong doing against his club this guy had done, Rider held onto it.

  The Russian’s had almost killed Grinder, Rider hadn’t forgotten.

  “I’m here. Speak.”

  The older man looked pensive in his long sheepskin coat. Probably packing something under it.

  But then. So was Rider.

  He wasn’t dumb.

  You don’t go to a gun fight with a knife.

  And you don�
�t have a sit down with a bratva underboss and not have protection.

  He hoped he didn’t have to use it, but he never knew which way a situation would go.

  “We have taken many turn, I feel. We were once business allies, da?”

  Not even close.

  “If that’s the way you want to think. Talk is you have the run of Chicago. So, what I want to know is why you’re trying so hard to take Colorado.”

  Rider knew more than Grigori presumed.

  For one, Rider was in close contact with the police sheriff, Charlie Timmons, who was all too aware of the Russian influx this past year and was on the same page as Rider wanting them gone.

  The bratva were a much bigger operation. Grigori wasn’t even the head of the snake.

  Rider’s mountains and shipping ports were too attractive for the Russian’s to just pack up and leave. That’s why the MC needed to persuade them.

  By any means possible.

  Starting a war with an operation as vast as theirs wasn’t something he’d go into lightly. Rider had been weighing it up for fucking years now. They’d all but stripped every bank account Grigori had. They’d shut down the means for him to get into the ports with his drugs. What Rider really wanted to do was kill him.

  Being a family man people would assume he’d grown soft.

  If anything he was more feral than ever. Because now he had something to protect and fight for.

  He just had to be smart about it. He wasn’t a dumb-fuck who would rush in without the consequences being considered.

  “We got off on wrong foot, Rider. What can we do to change such things?”

  “Nothing.” Rider answered the heavily accented man truthfully. There was a host of things he’d rather have first, and that included hernias on his balls, before he’d do business with Grigori willingly. He’d fucked up his one and only chance by being too fucking greedy. “You’re workin’ with my uncle and you’re trying to sell shit to kids. Both of those things individually would put you on my shit list.”

  Stony silence from the elder man. Not a flicker of confirmation.

  “I’m a paranoid man, Rider. It has saved my life many times, da? So, you should know I do not speak out of turn.”

  “The thing about paranoia is it gets you in the end, man. Jumpy ain’t a friend, you get me?” He hoped so, because Rider was sick of doling out this shit and not getting results. But as he promised himself, this month was for family.

  Truth be told, he was tired as fuck.

  Tired of being at war with one enemy after another.

  He got to his feet, saw Grigori arch an arrogant brow as if to tell him silently their meeting was only over when he said so. Fuck that. Rider didn’t dance to anyone’s tune but his own.

  “Six month, Russian.”

  “Da?”

  “You got six month to clear your organization out of my territories and I mean all of it. I don’t wanna see a hair of you in Colorado after that and I don’t wanna have to repeat myself about this. You quit dealing your dope at schools. Treat this as your Christmas fuckin’ miracle that I’m not killing you like I wanna.”

  The underboss of one of the world’s most feared mafia’s in long history turned a purple color under his pale skin, murder in his eyes.

  Ask Rider if he cared.

  “Six month, I don’t wanna see or smell any of you in a thousand-mile radius of here, you getting this? Take your losses or believe me it’s only gonna get worse for you.”

  “You cannot do this. You’re forgetting who I am. What I can do. What I have done. A few minor setbacks are nothing, da? You kill my men, I replace by the end of the day. You steal my profits I have more before nightfall.”

  Rider rolled his blue eyes. The bluster was getting old. “You can’t prove shit, Grigori and what you don’t fucking get is, this is my throne. I’m the one who allowed you in. And I’m the one kicking you back home. Now it’s your choice whether it’s on your own two-fucking-legs or we send your body to the pigs. As I said. Six month. Take my advice and run. You don’t wanna be my enemy and I don’t wanna be yours. You don’t even wanna be here, am I right?” The other man clenched his jaw. He wouldn’t speak out against his pahkan, but it was more than evident this guy hated his assignment in the states. “Choices,” Rider said. “It’s up to you how you play it, but this game is on my board. With my pieces. And my rules. I don’t play fair, so take this warning as me being nice.”

  He walked away and left the underboss stewing with his cup of espresso.

  Threats used to mean a whole lot more when he first became the MC president.

  He did a lot more killing back then.

  Not that he wouldn’t now. He just knew how to rule differently.

  He wasn’t soft.

  He was smart.

  There was a difference in being a Prez with a head on his shoulders and being one like Rex or Hades who went into things half cocked.

  And only Rider ruled now so who was the winner?

  Didn’t mean he didn’t want to paint the walls red with their blood.

  He was just trying to stop a full-scale war with the entire bratva.

  If it came to it, then he’d deal.

  Grigori might never realize what Rider just offered him.

  A chance to live out the rest of his life with the people he cared about and not buried in his mountains. It might have appeared he gave the underboss a reprieve to get gone on his own steam, but Rider had plans B and C waiting in the wings which included knowing every detail of Grigori’s personal life, thanks to Lawless’ meticulous snooping. He had names and places of everyone the underboss cared for. Rider would pull the trigger and blow his whole fucking life apart if Grigori didn’t adhere to the advice given.

  Hurt first or be hurt.

  Switching gears in his mind, he swiped a snowflake from his eyelashes.

  His mind going to his Zara.

  Her first gift was arriving today.

  And if Rider knew Zara as much as he thought he did, then she was going to lose her mind over it.

  Making her happy was his vocation.

  Sure, he loved making money, thrived on it sometimes. The chase was his adrenalin.

  Being top dog, another high. Even when it brought headache after another.

  But his girl’s being happy with everything they both could possibly need?

  Rider had no ceiling on what he wouldn’t do for Zara and Harper.

  It was her favorite holiday, so he was busting his balls to make it the best yet.

  He couldn’t take credit for her beloved snow she’d squealed over through the window at 4 am this morning, nearly deafening him.

  But picking one of her gifts up at the airport in a few hours.

  That was all Rider.

  December 9th

  “You’re going for husband of the year, aren’t you?” Zara beamed poking her fingers into Rider’s side where she knew he was most ticklish, before curling into his chest. Having his arms wrapped around her, safe and warm, was still the best thing in life.

  She felt him drop a kiss to the top of her blond head.

  “You’d have to marry me first for me to have a chance at that award, Icy.”

  She poked him again just for his sheer cheek.

  This wasn’t a new conversation, but he never pushed her.

  If anything, his crusade to get her down the aisle sustained in power.

  “It’s Christmas and my parents are in the next room, let’s not argue.”

  She scooted in closer to her big bad biker-man, laying her cheek against his chest, rubbing her skin with his masculine fragrance.

  The love she had for him grew every day.

  So much.

  Impossible to fathom, true, nonetheless.

  As surprises go, Rider arriving home yesterday afternoon with her parents holding suitcases walking in behind him was one of the best yet.

  And Zara thought she was pretty-good at catching him out with things.

 
; Like when he tried to spring date nights on her, but Zara had known about it for hours. What did he think; she was dressed up in heels and lipstick for no reason?

  But this? She hadn’t stopped smiling yet.

  “Have I told you that I love you for bringing them here?”

  Music from the tv was coming from the other room but what Zara could hear most was both her parents talking to Harper who squealed her delight back at her grandparents. They’d invited Zara and Rider to Boston and the plan was they’d go right after she gave birth, which she hoped was any day now because her belly was just too much.

  Not that Rider would agree.

  He loved her pregnant.

  Two babies, both under one.

  They must be crazy.

  Strange then that Zara couldn’t feel anything but happiness at the prospect of having two screaming babies in the house, filling their home with more love than they had already.

  They wanted a lot of kids. So, what if it happened quickly.

  “You did tell me. Twice last night in our bathroom with your face muffled in a towel while I fucked you over the counter,” he announced, smug as could be.

  And she adored every gloating inch of him.

  Entirely.

  For a man who guarded his privacy and his home like a castle, it was a big deal for Rider to have her parents staying until after New Year. They were going to be on top of each other all the time. Their house wasn’t that big, he’d offered to build her something bigger and they were thinking about it on the compound land, but until the kids couldn’t have a room of their own she loved their house as it was.

  It was the first home in a long time she’d felt safe and relaxed, so she was reluctant to leave it.

  Rider shifted her to his other arm, keeping her right into his body while he busied himself pouring four mugs of coffee. She’d wanted eggnog, even pouted over not being able to drink it and the virgin stuff was vile.