Chapter 47 (Beauty's Breath) (Zero)
Chapter 47 (Beauty's Breath) (Zero)
Seattle is one place I dread, more than DC. The city brings back a notable amount of memories, bitter
ones at most.
I swing my leg off my bike and shove my helmet into my saddle.
The restaurant is a glass-encased feeding hole.
If I am to describe it, I would say its uptight formal taste is too much for me. But not for the man I am
meeting today. This set up fits him like a glove.
Since I left Kanla with Beauty and Killer to hunt Lucca, something has played on my mind, bugging me.
It’s insistent.
The last time something nagged my brain this much I ended up taking a bullet in my shoulder and lost
three men because one of my men betrayed me on the battlefield. Turning to the enemy.
It was the first time I met a shadow soldier as dangerous as Killer.
But where Killer feels nothing, this soldier felt everything as if he was the one betrayed.
He saved my life that day, taught me that a man without emotion is deadly but a man with too much
emotion holds the world in his fingers, for he knows and understands all too well the poison of mankind.
For me that poison is something I can eradicate, his name is Lucca Sanati. He is the leader of the
Outfit, and husband to the woman I love.
Just a few months ago he kidnapped Kylie Bray and Beauty, but we got them back. It wasn't in one
piece, but they are alive. Barely
That night is one thing I keep replaying in my head. Beauty's body tied to a chair, so fragile, broken like
the soul of its owner. The small chance that my brother helped put her there sickens me.
Beauty once told me that I stole the last piece of her, but what she doesn't know, she owns every
breath I breathe.
She is my owner, even if she doesn't know it yet, she will.
A testament to that is the reason I am here, instead of going with her and Killer to see Kylie.
The man I am here to see is sitting in the corner with an iPad in his hand, whilst his eyes are engrossed
in whatever has got him so unaware of my presence.
“Thorn,” My voice booms, breaking his occupied brain.
His green eyes that are closely identical to mine look up from his iPad.
He doesn't miss a beat as he lifts up his hand to shake mine. I pat his seated form on the back, pull out
the silver and black leather chair and seat my ass down.
My brother and I have always been on opposite sides of the world. Today is no different and it got
nothing to do with our taste in clothing, but the faults in our character.
Me? I chose a life like my pops. As a kid, growing up I never wanted another life besides the one I was
given by my pops. The life of a biker, a Satan Sniper, has always been the path I’d lead.
When I joined as a prospect almost twenty years ago it was as simple as breathing.
The day I joined the military was another thing I never had to think about. I remember I was barely
sixteen when I started researching about the different divisions.
One of the happiest times of my teenage life was the day I got my letter.
After two years in the army, I decided to join the navy. It wasn’t long after my training, I got recruited for
my first big mission in Iraq, then Namibia.
Got home a few years after that. Met a woman. Almost got myself married but the man upstairs took
pity on a fucker like me and killed her before I went down that road.
Thorn, the club and my pops were there to pick my sorry ass up. It wasn’t long after that fuck-fest I got
recruited by Rounder to join the Special Ops team.
It was way more than I wanted for myself, even my pops didn’t see that coming. Guess, I surpassed my
own expectations.
A biker’s life, becoming an Enforcer is all I have ever seen for myself before I met Beauty, even now, I
can’t picture myself without my brothers in my life.
Thorn never fitted in with The Satan Snipers. Growing up I watched my dad and his futile attempts to
get my brother to join, from the busty blondes to the fast bikes.
Thorn never wanted any of it.
Not saying my brother didn’t accept the occasional woman now and again.
I could have saved my pops a lot of time and explained to him that Thorn was never going to be a
biker, but I enjoyed the old Toad cracking his head.
Thorn, on the receiving side of my pop's attempt at bribery, wasn’t impressed in the least.
Since I could remember, my eldest brother has always been an ambitious man. It was encrusted in his
soul from the time he was young.
As we got older, had our own lives, his was spent wanting more.
The biker life too wild for the Fighter Pilot. Army life too crowded.
So, imagine my surprise when he came home one Christmas and informed the entire Club that he was
becoming a bounty hunter. He was great at it too. The club used him a time or few.
He made a name for himself and eventually a solid six-figure salary doing private work for some
businessmen.
Wasn't too long after, he opened up his P.I services.
It still boggles my mind how he ended up choosing to be a Private Investigator.
I still can’t picture him getting his hands dirty.
But now as I sit here, I admit that thought doesn’t hold its intensity of truth as it once did.
The waitress walks up to me. A flirtatious smile to match her seductive walk which would have had me
grinning a year back.
She has a huge rack. At one time would’ve appealed to me to the extent that I would have fucked her
on the side of this Uptight place for everyone to see. Now it has no reaction to me whatsoever. It
amazes me what power a woman has over a man with just a simple smile. I never thought I would ever
love a woman, the concept of it was foreign to me but now, how can I not love Beauty.
“What can I get you,” The waiter asks as she plays with the long-braided hair of hers.
“A coffee, black, and a breakfast menu.”
“Sure thing,” She winks and I don't need to look to know she is sashaying her hips and ass.
“You got me here, what is so important, that it couldn't wait 'till next week?” Thorn doesn't beat around
the bush.
He puts his iPad to the side of the table and his coffee cup to his lips, whilst staring at me.
“Amariya. We are looking for Lucca, and the way she sees it, you are the one who knows where he is.”
He chuckles in a low half-ass way my dad does, “What do you want me to tell you, Logan? You know
as much as I do. She probably told you that Lucca employed me years back. She was pregnant at the
time, and I was a dumb fuck tryna earn a big buck.”
His grimace is nothing to the sudden dread painting my insides. I don’t know a man who loves money
as much as Thorn.
“No, she didn't and I didn’t ask. Hence, why I am here while another man carts my woman around. I
want to know what happened all those years ago from you. We're family, so I want the truth Thorn. Why
do you have a bounty on her head? Or better yet BROTHER, what the fuck are you doing on my
girlfriend's hit list?”
He leans forward, as I lean back. Today will mark the second time I bear witness to my brother show
signs of discomfort.
His pupils dilate and the slight sheen on his forehead becomes visible to the naked eye as his attention
scatters everywhere in the uppity place beside my watchful waiting gaze that remains glued to him. He
is nervous, which means one thing in my book, my brother is guilty.
“She was pregnant. At first, when I got the job, I just wanted the money and the reference. When I
started looking for her, I found out she was sixteen. It was close to her seventeenth birthday when I
finally found her. I admit I grew obsessed with finding this girl that Lucca Sanati was willing to pay five © 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.
mill for. Nobody pays that money for anyone. She is like underworld royalty, the Cosa Nostra's lost
female, did she tell you that she has siblings.”