Venom's Prize (Devils Riot MC: Originals Book 10) Read online

  “Affles,” Lincoln yells excitedly.

  Shit.

  I still can’t believe I have a kid. A kid who’s three. I’ve missed so much of his life.

  “Oh, by the way, brother, you’re welcome,” Whip mutters, reaches behind his back and tosses a bundle on the bed.

  Glancing down, my brows furrowed.

  “Never burned ‘em for you,” he grunts.

  Fuck.

  Sighing, I lift the stack up and look to the date on the top. This must have been the last one she sent. I open it up and quickly scan through it and then look at the pictures it incased.

  Oh fuck. Amaya tried to tell me about my kid, sent me pictures of him as well. Motherfucker, I should have read hers. At least then I would have known.

  Clearing my throat, I pick up the stack and flip through them these are all the ones from Amaya. What about the ones from Emilia?

  Do I even care?

  Not really. I’m over the bitch. I’ll admit now, I never should have let her blind me from what I wanted in the first place.

  Amaya.

  I open the nightstand and toss the envelopes into the drawer and close it. I’ll see if I can’t find time at a later point to look through them to see what all Amaya had to say to me. Straightening, I turn on my heel and head to the bathroom. For now, it’s a matter of getting my woman out of the bathroom, getting ready, and going to feed my kid.

  My woman.

  My kid.

  Damn, if I’m not liking the sound of that.

  Then again, Amaya should have always been mine, straight from the start. I wonder if I’d gone to her and spoken to her if she and I would have been together during all that time.

  Shaking my head, I try to snap myself out of it. I can’t be thinking shit like that. The past can’t be changed. It’s what we do in the now that sets us up for the future. And the now I’m in has Amaya in it, meaning the future can only brighten up even if it’s the slightest bit.

  It took all of us about thirty minutes to get ready and instead of taking my bike like I wanted, I put Amaya and Lincoln in my truck. After getting a good look at the condition of her car this morning, there was no way in hell, I’m having her in the hooptie. Nope, I sent a text to Cyprus and told him to come by and pick it up with the tow truck and haul it to the shop. It needed to be put out of its misery. For now, if she wanted to go anywhere, I’ll take her or get someone else to. Once I know she’s not gonna leave, I’ll find her another car that is far safer than that rust bucket she’d been driving.

  On the way to the clubhouse Amaya stayed quiet. She’s been that way the entire time really. Not speaking unless she’d been spoken to. I wanted to demand she tell me about her scars, to tell me what I want to know, but Whip’s right. I’ll hold off until after speaking to Nerd.

  I pull into the clubhouse parking area and park the truck.

  “Where are we?” she finally asks quietly.

  “The clubhouse, little man wants waffles and I’m pretty sure there’s either waffles or pancakes in there for breakfast.” I shrug.

  “Affles,” Lincoln yells. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him throw his arms in the air.

  “He loves waffles,” she mumbles.

  “Yeah, come on, let’s get out and head inside,” I mutter, clicking the button to undo the seat belt. I hate being in a cage but when I am, I always wear the damn thing. I snag my cut from on top of the center console and throw it on over my shoulders as I get out.

  I make it to the other side of the truck just as Amaya opens the door to the back and starts to help Lincoln get out.

  “Here, Sweetness, I’ll get him,” I say, gently sliding Amaya out of the way. I don’t want her to feel I’m trying to push her away because I’m not, but I need to do these things for Lincoln as well.

  Unlatching his harness, I pull him out and hold him up in one arm and grab Amaya’s hand with the other. Whip joins us as I guide my woman up to the clubhouse.

  “Who’s ready for some breakfast?” he asks, getting a squeal of excitement from Lincoln.

  Whip goes in front of me and opens the door wide for me to guide Amaya into the building. All talk stops when we step into the room.

  I glance around and find all eyes are on us.

  “Brothers, like you to meet my kid and ol’ lady,” I announce to the room as a whole.

  “Since when do you have an ol’ lady and kid?” Tracker asks, standing to his feet. Stoney follows suit along with a few of my other brothers.

  “Amaya’s pretty much been his for four years,” Whip states jokingly.

  “Um, what? I’m not . . .”

  “Sweetness, shut it.” I grin.

  “Wait, did you say, Amaya?” Nerd asks, stepping forward. His eyes glued to my woman.

  “Yeah, why?” I demand, becoming somewhat protective.

  “You from Texas?” Nerd mutters, ignoring my question.

  “Um, yes,” Amaya says quietly.

  “Your last name wouldn’t be Lucas, would it?” I tense at his words. How the fuck would he know her last name?

  Amaya nods and somewhat moves to step back enough to position herself behind me.

  “Oh fuckin’ hell. This shit is great,” Nerd announces with a grin.

  “Want to fill us all in?” Stoney demands.

  “Prez, this here is the person I’d been telling you about. I’ve been trying to get in contact with her for the past week,” Nerd says the grin clears his face. “She’s Cyber Reign.”

  Excuse me?

  “She’s the cyber investigator you wanted to speak to?” Tracker asks.

  “Yeah. And fuckin’ miracle she’s here because a bounty just went out for her three days ago.” At Nerd’s words I feel myself tense and the air in the room thickens.

  This shit can’t be happening.

  Chapter Twelve

  Amaya

  If the earth could just open up a nice big hole and swallow me whole that would be great. I knew immediately when the guy asked me my name who he is. There are few people who I work with in the cyber world who know who I am by name. Though they never use it when speaking to me.

  We all have a code we follow in the cyber world and one of those rules we all abide by, is never mentioning our names through the devices.

  To have Nerd standing here and calling me by the name I go by when working, isn’t surprising. He’s good but some things he has told me about and I’ve helped. Didn’t know him at the time but I helped because of what it had been in regard to.

  “You want to say that again?” Isaac asks.

  Nerd pretty much dropped a nice bomb announcing the hit on my life.

  I knew it would come eventually. This is why Lincoln needed his dad. He’d be able to protect him where I couldn’t.

  “Cyber Reign or as you know her Amaya Lucas, has a bounty out for her worth fifty million dollars.”

  Oh boy.

  I’m not worth that much.

  “Shit, who would want to pay so much?” one of the men in the room asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “They’d pay a shit load of money for her because she’s a motherfuckin’ genius when it comes to computers,” Nerd announces proudly.

  “You are?” Isaac asks, pulling me around and into his side.

  “No, I simply work through programs that find the answers people need. I’m a cyber investigator. Nothing more,” I murmur quietly. Not liking the attention on me.

  “Affles,” Lincoln says loudly, gaining the attention of the room. I could literally kiss the little boy right now.

  “How about you all talk about this stuff later? It seems we have a little one here who wants waffles.” The woman who’d been standing near a man wearing a cut with the name Stoney on it says. Isaac explained to me and Emilia four years ago how the cuts they wear are not vests. Confusing as all get out but it’s not my business.

  “Thank you, Rach, any way there’s any left?” Isaac asks.

  “Yep, you’re in luck. Ha
rlow cooked breakfast this morning and made lots of waffles and pancakes,” the woman Isaac calls Rach says. She then looks to me and holds out her hand. “Hi, I’m Rachel,” she greets me and then nods her head to the man she’d been standing next to. “This is Stoney. He’s the President of this club and my ol’ man.”

  I find it hard to speak but I take her hand and shake it in greeting and nod my head.

  Isaac, for some reason, clues into my nervousness and speaks for me. “Amaya here isn’t used to being around a lot of people at a time. She got in last night and is the shyest person I know. Even more shy than Harley.”

  “Hey, I’m not shy,” a woman I suppose is Harley pipes in.

  “Babe, you are,” Isaac chuckles. “Get over here and meet my ol’ lady.”

  “Whatever,” Harley giggles but comes forward. “You need to feed your kid,” she says but her attention comes to me. The woman seems apprehensive in holding her hand out to me. Almost as if she were sizing me up at the same time judging me for who I am. “Hi, I’m Venom’s sister. Well, not his real sister but he’s adopted me as such and so here I am his sister.”

  Clearing my throat, I nod. “Um, hi.” Then I look up to Isaac. “Lincoln is hungry and needs to eat.”

  “Yeah, Sweetness, and so do you,” he mutters with a grin.

  I nod but wonder if they have anything here, I could eat. The smell of bacon is intense, and it makes me want to throw up. Why? Because I’ve not been able to eat meat since the day my father shoved a thing of raw sausage in my mouth forcing me to eat it.

  This isn’t something anyone wants to experience and the reason I don’t eat meat or anything it touches and why I could barely eat the pizza last night without puking.

  Isaac pulls me with him and sets me at a table with Lincoln and then leaves the room. Others retake their seats and go back to eating. A couple of the women look to me as if they want to come over and speak but don’t. Instead, they take their spots at the tables where they were sitting before.

  Whip is the first to come back and sits at the table on one side of me, I reach out and grab the chair next to me and bring it close enough to put Lincoln in it. He’s glancing around the room in excitement. When he looks to me, he shocks me. “Aya, Daddy’s family is big,” he says loudly, causing several of Isaac’s brothers to chuckle.

  “Why does he call you Aya? Aren’t you his mom?” Rachel asks.

  I shake my head at the same time Isaac sets a plate down in front of me. I don’t have to look down to see what’s on it and already my stomach is turning. Oh God, I can’t eat this.

  “Amaya isn’t his mom but she’s his guardian. She got in last night and we still have a lot to speak about but one of them won’t be about Lincoln’s mom. The bitch, I’ll be speaking to her personally when I call her to ream her a new asshole,” he announces.

  Um, what?

  He’s going to call Emilia?

  Oh boy.

  I just know she’s going to show up and charm her way back into his arms again. Then what? I’ll have to watch yet again as she takes Isaac away from me.

  Whoa, he’s not even mine. Doesn’t matter what he says, I’m not anything to him. How could I be when I’m nothing. I just need to hightail it out of here and get gone. They don’t need me here and I don’t want to cause them any issues. Especially now with a fifty-million-dollar bounty out for me.

  Those men will do anything to get their hands on me and I’m not about to let that happen. I won’t do as they want. I know who it is, and I refuse to work for them. They tried to get me to work for them in the past two years, but I deny them each time.

  My work is to help people not hurt them. Well, at least I don’t want to hurt good people, like they do.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Venom

  Sitting next to Lincoln I keep switching my gaze between the two of them. Where my kid is tearing his waffle up and eating the bacon, Amaya hasn’t touched her food.

  To say the least she’s surprised me in a lot of ways this morning and none of it she’s said a word about. I sure as fuck wouldn’t have thought she would be the woman Nerd has mentioned, in church, working with in the past. Or that she’s the one he wanted to bring in on finding the men who wanted to auction off the women we’d found months ago.

  Let’s just say she doesn’t seem the type, but then again, I can’t be surprised she’s a beautiful woman who is quiet and keeps to herself. For her to do something that could potentially be dangerous, she’s kept herself guarded.

  Amaya, at twenty-four years old, seems to have been through more shit than I can imagine, and I don’t even know what it is. I can only sense it in her. My question right now is why the fuck she’s not eating anything on her plate.

  I glance from the two people who now belong to me to Whip then Stoney and Tracker. The three of them have noticed this as well. She’s not touched a thing in front of her.

  “Are you okay?” Rachel asks, leaning forward so she could look at Amaya from her spot next to Stoney.

  Amaya nods her head, keeping her gaze cast down to the plate in front of her.

  “Sweetness, you need to eat,” I say, urging her to eat.

  “I can’t,” she utters so quietly I barely hear her.

  “Why not?” Whip asks, piping in.

  “Um . . . I . . . um don’t eat meat or, um, anything it touches,” she whispers. I don’t miss the wobbling in her voice.

  Fuck.

  She’s embarrassed.

  Standing to my feet, I look to Whip with the unspoken question for him to watch over Lincoln. He nods and I step closer to Amaya, reach out and grasp her wrist and pull her up. I then guide her out of the room away from everyone else. In the hallway, I turn my woman to face me pressing her back into the wall.

  “Is that why you looked like you were going to puke last night?” I ask, thinking of when she’d eaten the pizza.

  Amaya nods her head but doesn’t utter a word.

  “You want to tell me why?” To this she closes her eyes and shakes her head in answer.

  “Amaya, Sweetness, look at me,” I murmur, stepping further into her space. My hands go to her waist, holding her in place and wanting her to feel my touch. Slowly Amaya opens her eyes and lifts her gaze to mine. “You might not want to tell me, but eventually, you will. Right now, I’m going to tell you something and I want you to fuckin’ listen to me good. You don’t hide something like this from me. I’m not going to have you sit there starving yourself because you don’t eat something and it’s on your plate. No way in hell am I gonna have you doing that shit. I want you to be you and no one else. If something’s bothering you, or you’re uncomfortable, tell me. I’m not going to allow you to hide Amaya. You’ve done that enough already.”

  With wide eyes, her mouth parts and I release her waist with one hand and lift my hand to cup the side of her face and stroke her bottom lip with my thumb. I tilt my head down and press my lips to hers for the first time, unable to stop myself. I keep it brief, even though I want nothing more than to keep it going.

  “Now, how about you tell me what you would like for breakfast,” I say, pressing my forehead to hers.

  “Um, I normally eat fruit for breakfast,” she whispers.

  “We have fruit,” I murmur and step back and pull her with me. I keep her pressed into my side as we walk back to the main room. I take her over to the table and help her back into her seat then head into the kitchen. I grab some random types of fruit and put them on a plate and went back out to sit down. This time when I set the plate down in front of her, she thanks me and slowly started to nibble the grapes.

  “Aya loves fruit,” Lincoln says, gaining my attention.

  “Looks that way, kiddo.” I grin and pluck him out of his seat. “You want to go play with some other kids?” I ask him.

  “I’ll take him to the playroom. Luca and Corinne are in there playing with James,” Rachel offers.

  “Thanks, Rach.” I nod and put Lincoln on the floor. />
  Rachel nods her head and stands to her feet. She reaches out and takes Lincoln’s hand.

  “So, brother, when were you gonna tell us you were a dad?” Coyote chuckles.

  Giving him my middle finger, I scoot to the seat right next to Amaya and throw my arm along the back. “If I hadn’t been a stubborn fucker four years ago, I would have known about him.”

  “Where’s his mom?” Victoria asks.

  “Out of the picture,” I grunt, not wanting to think of what Emilia did to my son. What parent tries to drown their kid?

  Nodding, she doesn’t ask anything else.

  “We’re having church in an hour,” Stoney declares. “Got shit to go over and it seems we need to discuss some things. One being why your ol’ lady has a bounty on her head and by who.

  “I know who put it out there and I know why,” Amaya says quietly without lifting her gaze to meet anyone else’s.

  “You want to let us in on it, darlin’?” My Prez seems to be taking to Amaya. I don’t blame him Amaya isn’t like the other women here. Shit, she’s not even like Harley and she’d been the most timid of all of them.

  Amaya slowly lifts her head and looks to my Prez then me and everyone else in the room. “They put the bounty out on me because I refuse to work with them. I won’t work for those who want to hurt others. I’m good at what I do and I can get into just about anywhere. If at first, I’m unable to I normally find another way in. They call me Cyber Reign, due to the fact I rule over the internet. Nothing goes on without me finding out, if I want to know. Well, for the most part, I should say. The people who want me, they want me so they can lock me away and keep their dirty little secrets from getting out. Seems certain people are getting too close for their comfort.” She stops speaking with her gaze locked on Nerd.

  “The Supreme Masters?” he asks, to which she nods her head.

  Shit.

  “Do you know who these men are?” Tracker asks.

  “Not all of them, but I know some of them and can easily figure out who the rest of them are,” Amaya says and goes on to shock the shit out of us all with her next words. “One man you may all know him as Mr. Travis Billington.”