Jager
“What the fuck am I looking at?”
On some level, the answer was pretty fucking obvious. I was looking at a woman. Tall, blonde, nice body. What I really wanted to know was what she was doing here, seeing as she wasn’t straddling the lap of one of my brothers or grabbing him a beer. She was passed out on the damn couch—and not the lightweight who passed out at a party either. Her arms and legs were bound with duct tape, a strip of which was also adhered to her mouth.
Behind her were two motherfuckers in suits who had no business at all being in the Savage Disciples’ clubhouse, let alone when most of the brothers were out on a run and wouldn’t be back until morning.
And, lest I forget, that meant not for another seven hours or so seeing as it was three in the goddamned morning.
Ace, who was still recovering from a couple gunshot wounds and hadn’t gone with the rest of the brothers, spoke up. “These two fuckers said she told them we would buy her.”
Buy her?
“The fuck you say?”
One of the suits decided to take that one. “She recently came into the ownership of our employer,” he explained. The words came out stilted, like he was remembering a script. Probably because whoever his “employer” was—and I had a pretty solid guess—wanted his lackeys to sound moderately intelligent, if not sophisticated. Seemed he wasn’t quite getting the product he was after.
The goon went on with his thesaurus routine. “She was quite adamant the Savage Disciples would be willing to pay for her release. Our boss is not a frugal man, but he does like to turn a profit. He is also disinterested in trouble with motorcycle gangs. Selling her to you dispenses the need to find another buyer and pay for the man-hours involved in such an endeavor.”
Jesus Christ, but I was getting twitchy. I focused on cracking my knuckles to keep from burying them in one of the fuckers’ faces.
Motorcycle gang. Fuck, I hated that phrase. We weren’t a damn gang, running around in the streets shooting each other and dealing dope on corners. But that was beside the point.
Whoever the chick was, she’d thrown our name out when she’d been taken. I had no doubt that was what happened. The Disciples weren’t in the trade—even back in the days when the club’s shit wasn’t clean, we didn’t deal in pussy—but trafficking wasn’t completely unfamiliar to us. You live outside the law, you see shit. Peril of the life.
This woman—chances were she was an innocent victim in this case. Taken off the street, sold by her parents, who knew. What it meant was she was in the hands of some seriously not good people who had plans for her—plans she was certainly not going to like.
I looked her over again, trying to force any sort of recognition, but there was still nothing. She was cute, no doubt any guy here would be glad to have a go at her, but that didn’t explain why we’d buy her. If she had a connection to the club, it wasn’t one I knew about.
Even as I conceded she was a stranger to me, I kept my face passive. There was no reason for the hired muscle in front of me to know one way or another whether she was familiar.
I shot Ace a look, but his answering stare and the minute shake of his head told me he wasn’t having any more luck with identifying her than I was.
We were stuck in a shit situation, but the club was under my charge while our brothers were away. It was on me to make a decision.
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand.”
Fuck. This could blow up in my face, but it didn’t seem I had much choice. If I said no, they’d find another buyer—and from the look of the girl, they wouldn’t have a hard time with that. Most likely, she’d end up in some pimp’s stable, selling her ass for his profit. And that was probably one of the better possible outcomes. I couldn’t risk that. She named us, which could mean she was important to one of the brothers.
“Twenty-five,” I shot back.
The other goon chose to chime in then. “You’s already gettin’ a damn deal.”
Seems he was instructed not to talk by the big man because he had even less of a way with words than his buddy.
“Your boss wants to avoid the hassle of selling her. I want to avoid the hassle of going after the asshole for taking a woman who belongs to the Disciples. Twenty-five.”
The one who’d pulled rank since they walked in studied me. I met his stare straight on, not hiding the fact that I knew I had the upper hand. If he failed to make the sale or brought the wrath of the Disciples to his boss’s door, he was fucked. He had no moves.
“Twenty-five,” he submitted.
With a nod, I turned to Ace. “They don’t fucking move until I get back,” I instructed. A jerk of his chin met my demand.
Without a word, I left the room. Stone, the pres, had left me the key to his office. It was a good fucking thing too, seeing as the safe was in there. I felt like shit about taking twenty-five large from the club’s funds without the okay from my brothers, but it had to be done.
I carried the fat stack of bills back out to the main room and handed them off, mentally cursing every-fucking-thing about this situation. The goon with half a brain took the cash and counted it out—twice—before nodding.
“Everything appears to be in order.” Jackass.
“You’ve got your money. Now, you got one minute to get the fuck out of our house before your boss can make his way down here himself to pick up directions to your fucking bodies,” I explained.
The two of them decided to waste a whole twenty seconds of that minute staring me down. A dare. After ten, I grabbed my piece from the back of my jeans and held it down against my thigh. They spent the next ten sizing me up. If they knew jack shit about anything, they’d know I’d have them both down before either could get to the guns clipped on their belts.
Whether they read that or not, they moved just about the time the countdown hit thirty. Neither said a word—which was a good call with the way my trigger finger was twitching—as they left. I moved my attention back to the girl who had just cost the club twenty-five grand.
“Go strip one of the rooms. One with a bathroom. Nothing left that could be a weapon. You know the drill,” I instructed Ace. “And call Slick in. Need to flip the lock around on the door. You know how he gets when we touch his work.”
“On it,” he answered.
I called after him as he walked away. When he turned, I added, “Take the room across from mine. Want to be able to hear if she wakes and gets up to anything.” With a nod, he got to it.
I crouched down in front of the girl so I could get a better look at her face. Damn, she was a beauty. Real fucking cute. If goons one and two were working for who I thought, then she had no business being in their hands. Those boys weren’t known for being gentle—or waiting for a “yes”.
She might be a trap. Could be she was meant to report back on anything she could get her eyes or ears on. Until we knew for sure, she’d be guarded. Still, I couldn’t help but hope she was clean. Fucked as it was to think it in that moment, I wanted a taste of this one.
Review
There is nothing that gets me more intrigued than a brooding male character, an MC, and a sassy kick-ass female character. Drew Elyse gave me all of those things and so much more to swoon over and swoon I did. Ember wakes in the middle of the night to a rattling in her house that she knows isn’t supposed to be there. Seconds too late, she is drugged and taken from her home. Her only chance of survival is throwing out the name, The Disciples. Jager, one of the Disciples MC, is left with the decision to buy these bound and unconscious woman who somehow knows about the MC or let these burly men take her back from whatever cell they brought her from. Little does he know that this woman will either be his undoing or she will be his savior.
Drew Elyse is not an author that I am familiar with and for that I am very sad. Thankfully, I was given the opportunity to read this amazing book and become another crazed fan of hers. Engage left me feeling so many things that I don’t even know what to do with myself (aside from buying all the other books in the series to see what the hell I have been missing out on!). This book is one of those reads where you are so caught up in the pages that you forget about the world around. Of course, that is until you get to one of the hot as all get out sex scenes that has you turning red in either embarrassment or lust, sometimes both. I seriously encourage everyone to go out and purchase this series. Believe me it is hot, hot, hot. Not to mention it has one of those storylines that has ready for more.
