Girth Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Girth (Marked Skulls MC #1)

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Sneak peak at Rodeo (Marked Skulls MC #2)

  Sneak Peak of Knox (The Rebel Skulls MC #1)

  More Books by Savannah Rylan

  Second Chance

  Rider (The Fallen Reapers MC)

  Nico (The Rossi Mafia)

  Hawk (The Road Rebels MC #1)

  Gunner (The Bad Disciples MC #1)

  Enzo (The Gambani Mafia)

  Mailing List

  About Savannah Rylan

  Copyright © 2018 by Savannah Rylan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Girth

  Marked Skulls MC

  Book One

  By Savannah Rylan

  Chapter 1

  Lila

  My hands were covered in grease when I slid myself out from under the car I had been working on for the past hour. My overalls were covered in grease too and my hair smelled like engine oil.

  I must have been lost in thought, thinking about something inconsequential, about the foster care center maybe and the kids I was going to meet soon. Working in an auto body shop was obviously the kind of job that nobody could have pictured me doing. For a petite girl with golden blond hair and light blue eyes, I was the kind of woman who everyone would have expected to lead a life of leisure. It was definitely the kind of life my dad expected me to have but I couldn’t just sit around the house and do nothing.

  I had always wanted to work with my hands, and growing up around the auto shop, watching my father and his friends work on automobiles had taught me everything I wanted to know.

  I just wasn’t sure if I would ever get a job in any other shop like this if I decided to leave the family business and work somewhere else. Not that it was going to happen anytime soon.

  I’d gotten into the habit of tying my long blond hair in a fishtail braid when I worked at the auto body shop. I also had to keep up a regular routine of manicures so that my hands remained soft and well maintained. I was aware of the damage working on cars could do to my hands and nails if I didn’t look after them.

  I stood up from the ground and wiped my hands with the rag stuffed inside my overalls’ pocket. My dad and the boys; Rodeo, Abe and Fred were sitting on their usual chairs drinking beer.

  I rolled my eyes when I walked towards them.

  “Thanks for the help, guys,” I quipped and Abe raised his can of beer to me.

  “You know you didn’t have to spend all that time on her,” Dad said. He was sitting in the middle of the group as always, and I stood over him with my hands on my hips.

  “We run an auto body shop. It’s our job to fix the cars that come in!” I said, with a laugh in my voice. We’d had this conversation over and over again in the past two years that I’d started working here. Dad waved his can in the air.

  “Our job isn’t to fix cars, Lila,” Abe said wisely. Abe was the real gearhead in the group. The only one in the MC who really knew how cars and engines worked. I’d learnt everything I knew from him, but even Abe had given up working on the cars these days.

  Rodeo cracked open a can of beer and held it up to me, but I shooed it away. It was four in the afternoon. I’d be damned if I was going to allow myself to turn into one of them!

  “Why do we run an auto body shop then?” I snapped at Abe, and Fred exchanged a knowing smile with my dad.

  “Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear it,” I said and shook my head. I didn’t even know why I was having this conversation with them again. I knew what the real deal was. The shop was a front, for the vehicles that the MC stole and sold. Clearly there was big money in it, because dad paid me more money than any mechanic made in the country.

  The others at the MC got paid big bucks too, for doing nothing. In fact, I wasn’t expected to work on any of these cars and I’d still get paid. However, I couldn’t just sit back and drink all day and make thousands of dollars a month for doing nothing.

  “Lila, mouse, don’t be like this sweetheart,” dad teased me, calling me by the nickname he used when I was little. He was trying to appease me. He knew how strongly I disapproved of what went on at the shop behind my back. In fact, I strongly disapproved of their whole lifestyle.

  They were bikers, members of the Marked Skulls MC, of which dad was the leader. I’d known this ever since I was a child, ever since mom passed away and dad was the only family I had left. He’d tried to keep me shielded from his lifestyle while I was growing up, but now I was twenty-three. I could see it for myself.

  I rolled my eyes at him again and crossed my arms over my breasts.

  “I’m the only one who gets any work done around here,” I complained and dad only smiled at me. He’d gotten used to my complaining.

  “You don’t have to do nothing, sweetheart. You’ll still get paid,” he said and Fred nodded in agreement. Fred was dad’s second in command, muscular like my dad but with silver hair and light grey eyes. He was like an uncle to me, and I loved each of these guys. They were family. But it didn’t mean that I had to approve of their life choices.

  “I’ll do the work if I’m getting paid, dad, you know that,” I said and breathed in deeply.

  “And then you’ll spend all that money on your little foster care project,” dad said, still jokingly, but he was making a point too. He wanted me to know he knew where all my money was going. I stuck my chin up in the air proudly.

  “Those kids need help. That center is doing good work and I want to support them,” I said and dad shrugged his shoulders and took a large sip of his beer.

  “I’m not complaining, sweetheart,” he said and I knew he was. He wanted me to spend my money on nice things like clothes and jewelry instead.

  “Okay, leave her alone, c’mon, get out of here, you’ve worked long enough now,” Fred interjected and with a glare at my father, I turned from them and walked into the little office at the back of the garage.

  I could hear their loud voices, talking and laughing out in the front where they were still sitting and drinking.

  I changed out of my overalls, while I wondered if things would ever change around here. Would my dad and his friends ever get tired of living this life? Would my dad ever go legit with his business? Chances were that they wouldn’t.

  I hadn’t chosen the MC life, I was born into it and as much as I loved my dad and the other guys, I couldn’t just accept this life. I had no reason to.

  I threw the overalls into the washing machine in the office and looked down at my jeans. I was going to go to the foster care center after this, but I couldn’t go looking like this! I decided to go back home first, to shower and change.

  ***

  I hadn’t known any other home other than Orlando. The sun suited me, I loved the palm trees that danced in the sea breeze and there was alw
ays a saltiness in the air. I couldn’t imagine how people lived in the gloom of the East Coast, but these days, I had started daydreaming about a life in New York, or Boston or Chicago. Away from the MC.

  I knew it would be hard, starting afresh. I’d have to get a part time job at some grocery store, maybe several part time jobs. I wasn’t an expert with cars, not like Abe was, but maybe I could get a job at an auto body shop somewhere out there too? As an apprentice?

  I was aware that I didn’t really look like an able mechanic. For starters, I was a girl and secondly, the first impression I made was that of being a dainty petite flower. I got my looks from my mom; of a slim figure and delicate shoulders and pouty arched lips. My dad on the other hand was gruff with a long silver beard. I knew that if I walked into any auto shop looking for a job, I’d get a whole lot of laughter and be shown the door. Unless someone gave me a car and paid attention to the work I was doing.

  I was fairly good with cars and I knew I’d get better with the right guidance. The MC’s auto shop was just not the place for me to learn and grow. However, leaving Orlando and moving anywhere else would be impossible under dad’s watch. I was his precious little daughter, his only child. He wanted to keep me as close to himself as he possibly could.

  So, these days, my only real escape was working with the kids. I’d started visiting the foster care center on a whim and very soon, I realized that I liked spending time with the kids. They needed to be looked after with patience, they needed someone to hear them out while they waited to go into foster care. These were kids who were in the system through no fault of their own, and I wanted to do my best to help them.

  In the past four months, I’d saved enough money to help the center install better heating in the building. My next project was going to be to renovate the girls’ toilets. It was a communal toilet for the whole center, but it could do with a lot of repair and I was saving money for that now.

  I looked at my watch as I hurried down the road towards the center. I’d promised the kids that I’d get there by five-thirty and we could go out for ice cream. I’d never been responsible for children before, but the matron had approved this outing. So it would be me and eleven kids ranging between the ages of eight to thirteen and we were all looking forward to our ice cream trip.

  I had a smile on my face as I walked hurriedly towards the center. Spending time with the kids calmed me down. They distracted me from the troubled thoughts I had about working at the auto shop. They helped me forget about my fantasies about leaving Orlando and moving somewhere nobody knew me. Something that my dad would never allow.

  I was thinking about New York again. I’d allowed my mind to wander. A tall concrete jungle, away from the Marked Skulls, where nobody knew me. How liberating would that be? What kind of a life could I lead there? It would mean leaving the kids too, but I would still send money to the center. I’d still get the bathrooms repaired.

  I shook my head and smiled at the thought. That was never going to happen. Dad would never let me go.

  I heard the raging roar of a bike behind me as I walked. I was used to that sound, it was the kind that my dad and the other guys at the MC rode. So, I didn’t turn to look, I kept walking in a rush.

  It was only when I heard the tires screeching to a halt and the gasps of pedestrians around me that I stopped in my tracks and turned to look.

  The bike had come to a stop in the middle of the road, several feet away from me. There was one man riding the bike, without a helmet on so that I could his face.

  I knew instantly that he was part of an MC, but he didn’t have the Marked Skulls patch on his leather jacket. It was something else, I squinted my eyes to read the patch’s logo while he glared at me directly. I knew he wanted something from me, and I was confused.

  I stood there while other people hurried past me. I was frozen to the spot till I saw him extract a gun from his jacket pocket.

  He was pulling out a gun! I saw the black metal glint in the harsh Orlando sun, as he pointed it straight at me. Cars whizzed past him and he didn’t move from that spot. He aimed the gun at me and I ducked.

  I might have screamed, but I couldn’t hear my voice any more. It was an unreal moment. I had never been shot at, nobody had ever pointed a gun at me. This was in broad daylight, surrounded by traffic and people and everything seemed to be taking place in slow motion.

  The bullet grazed past me and struck the wall of the shop behind me. People screamed around me and ducked.

  I covered my ears instinctually, with tears gushing down my cheeks and fell forward on the pavement. I was so sure that the man was going to take another shot, but instead I heard the sound of tires screeching again. The biker was riding away. The place was too crowded, too exposed for him to take another shot.

  I could hear myself screaming now. I was lying on the pavement, screaming and crying, with my ears still covered. How was this happening to me?

  Chapter 2

  Girth

  I knocked on Elwood’s office door. I’d gotten a call that morning from one of my brothers to go see Elwood at the bar. It could only mean one thing, a private meeting like that; Elwood wanted to give me new responsibilities.

  I’d been inducted into the Rogue Rebels as a prospect for the past three years now, and I’d been waiting for this moment. The moment that Elwood would call me into his office and tell me I was ready to handle my own missions. This was the moment I’d been training for.

  It was the only life I knew. The only family I had now, was my brother, who was living by himself, trying to get through high school without spiraling out of control the way our parents had, or most of the kids in our neighborhood.

  I worked hard and I saved money and my intention was to put my brother through college. My hope was that at least one of us, would have the liberty to choose the kind of life they really wanted to lead. At least my brother would have a shot at ‘normal’.

  After the Marines, especially after my tour in Iraq; I’d felt like I had no direction any more. I knew how people looked at me. I was a big thug, dangerous looking and war torn, and yes, Iraq had torn me and I knew I was spiraling out of control. My rage and my nightmares had overtaken my life. The Rogue Rebels and my brothers at the MC had given me the direction I needed.

  I was good at this. It was the only life I knew. After I quit the marines, and before I found the MC; I could feel myself descending into the abyss of the life that my drug addict mother and my drunk father led. It was what I had been brought up around, it was the only ‘normal’ I had known. These days, I was grateful that neither my brother, nor I saw much of either of our parents. It was some relief to leave our childhoods behind.

  Now when I woke up at night, from a nightmare about dead children and the blast of landlines going off in the distance—I knew that I had my own band of brothers here to work with. At the MC we were doing good work. I didn’t give a shit about what the law said. We lived by our own rules and a moral code of conduct. We didn’t pick our battles with civilians and we made sure that none of our work affected women or children.

  We drank a lot, rode our bikes, had each other’s backs and made money. This was the life I had chosen for myself, and it was the best life I could have hoped for.

  I heard Elwood’s voice now; commanding and firm, as he invited me to enter.

  He was sitting behind his large desk when I went in, and he tipped his head at me as a nod.

  “You asked to see me?” I said to him, as I approached his desk. I was excited at the prospect of new responsibilities. Elwood knew I did good work at the MC. I was his strongest man and I was a damn good shot.

  “Sit down, Girth, we need to talk,” Elwood said and I did as I was told. Following orders and doing what I was told was a value that was instilled in me by the military. A habit that was pretty hard to shake off. But following orders worked well at the MC too, and Elwood was aware of it.

  He took in a deep breath now as he fixed his eyes on me. Was he going to
make me responsible for the new weapons shipments coming in?

  “You know the Marked Skulls?” he asked and I crossed my brows in confusion.

  “Up in Orlando?” I asked, referring to a small MC in Florida that I had heard about in passing. They were probably less than half the size of us, and didn’t wield much control in Orlando either. As far as I knew, they dealt in petty businesses like stolen cars and shit. I had no idea why Elwood was talking about them.

  “Yeah, the very one. You know, their Captain, Lewis, he and I go way back. We used to be in the same MC together in our twenties. He’s a pal,” Elwood explained and I nodded my head.

  “The Storm Rebels?” I asked and Elwood nodded and smiled, like he was thinking about the good ol’ days.

  “Mad bastard. I’ve never seen any man walk into a rain of bullets like that guy, and he always emerged untouched from a fight. Don’t know how he did it,” Elwood continued with a faint smile on his face, and I still had no idea why he was telling me about the captain of the Marked Skulls.

  “Why’d he move to Florida?” I asked and Elwood sighed.

  “Oh, the usual. He married his old lady, who wanted him to leave his MC life behind. He probably wouldn’t have, if she didn’t get pregnant. They had a daughter and his old lady finally wore him down. He moved to Florida to start a new life,” Elwood explained and I smiled.

  “And he started a new MC there instead,” I added and Elwood smiled too.

  “Yeah, but only after his old lady died. Poor guy’s been raising that daughter of his all by himself,” Elwood shook his head and clucked his tongue. I could see that he still felt connected with his friend and I thought I could imagine what that might feel like. I’d have felt the same way about brothers from the MC too.

  “Anyway, so, his daughter is all grown up now. Twenty-three, is what Lewis told me, and apparently, a real firecracker,” Elwood continued and I stared at him, hoping he would get to the point soon.

  “She talks like her mother now, nagging poor Lewis about the MC and the likes,” Elwood said with a laugh. I had never been much of a gossip, and this was a ton of useless gossip that wasn’t going to do me any good. What did the captain of the Marked Skulls in Florida, or his twenty-three year old daughter have anything to do with me?