The Devil’s Reward: An Opposites Attract Romance (The Devil’s Soldiers)
The Devil’s Reward: Chapter 1

They call me Shadow for a reason, and people best remember why.

Darkness normally makes people wary, if not completely fearful. Me, I embrace it. I enjoy it. Darkness is where I do my best work. They don’t call me Shadow for nothing. Hell, even my team called me a ghost during missions in the heart of enemy territory. The work I did then is nothing like what I do now, but we’re heading into another kind of war. This one I welcome.

When I was discharged from the Special Forces, I was lost. Not only had I lost my entire team, I lost my career, and I lost the confidence I had in myself. I had no one on the other side of those gates to welcome me home. Sure, Sam’s parents kept in touch with me, but their daughter was dead and eventually they drifted away. Every so often, they reach out, but it does nothing more than remind us all that Sam is gone.

That I am the only one who survived that hellhole.

Then I met Bullet in a run-down bar where I had a shitty job as a bouncer. The bar owner liked my size and the way I could scare people off with a look. Wasn’t the best-paying job, but it was one I could do without thinking, and I got to bash some heads together, which helped manage my aggression and anger. My former boss took notice of my skills, as did some of the bar’s more unsavoury patrons and their associates.

It just so happened that on the night they approached me for some work that would surely have ended with me in prison or dead, Bullet and a few of the brothers arrived. There weren’t as many members then, but it had struck me instantly how they moved together. They were a unit. A team. The very thing that I no longer had.

I resented them at that moment, and I’m not proud of it. I was six months post the shit that changed my life, and I had so much anger and PTSD that I was nothing more than a shell of anger and resentment. I’m not sure what Bullet saw in me, but after enjoying themselves for a few hours, he approached me.

I can’t even remember what he said now, but I know he got my wheels turning, and the next day, I quit my job, packed up my meager belongings, and headed to the clubhouse in my truck with the address Bullet gave me in hand. It was impulsive, but probably the best damn decision I ever made.

I’m smart enough to know that a different choice would have eventually landed me in a cell or a grave.

Instead, I prospected for the club for a year. I realized pretty quickly it wasn’t going to be a cushy gig, but that didn’t hold me back. The club had the camaraderie I craved, and it was the family unit I never realized I needed. After patching in, I worked my way up to Enforcer, and then Viper and I started our security business.

The years have been so damn busy that sometimes I forget about where I came from. On nights like tonight, though, it comes back in full force. Not because I want a walk down memory lane, but because of what threatens the life I have now.

No, not what. Who.

My lip curls as I think about our mole problem. A problem that won’t be a problem much longer.

In an MC, membership is a brotherhood, and brothers should always have each other’s six. Instead, we have to worry about one of our own stabbing us in the back. What’s worse is that one of our women has been hurt.

It’s one thing to target club brothers, but to go after our women is a death sentence. To make matters worse, the mole is involved with the mafia, who want to take over our territory and peddle their poison through our streets.

I’m going to enjoy discovering who our mole is, and then I’m going to make sure he feels every ounce of pain I give him before I kill him. No mercy. I learned from the best. Uncle Sam likes to train his soldiers for every possibility, and I was one of the few to learn a bit more than the basics.

Our unit had been highly skilled, and we went on a lot of missions. Which is why we were constantly on the move and spent so much time together. We worked well together, even training other teams when needed. That training is what’s going to help me solve the mystery of our mole.

A deep pang hits me as I think of how much Sam would have loved this. The thrill of the cat-and-mouse game, of trying to sift through the tangled mess.

Samantha Nolans had been the only woman on our team. It had been a bit of a problem in the beginning for some on our team, but she made them eat those words. She was kick-ass, and from the beginning, I wanted her. Our chemistry was off the charts, but we never acted on it. I finally asked her out during our last mission, right before it went to hell.

I try not to think of Sam. Remembering her always ends in nightmares.

When I first joined the club, I hid them pretty well, only sleeping when no one else was around. Until I became a patched brother, and the floodgates of my subconscious opened. My nightmares picked up, and the more I partied to cope, the worse they became. Finally, after an incident with a club girl, Rose forced me to talk to a shrink.

I resented her for it, but Bullet backed her and made it an order. I hated him for that, too. What the hell did he know? At first, every session I only sat in silence until my hour was up. Then one day, my therapist, Dr. Jay, said something that struck a nerve and I unloaded. Like a cork popping from a bottle, everything inside came spilling out. The one thing he said that stuck with me was that I needed to honor her and them by living. Living my life so that their sacrifice wasn’t for nothing.

By the time I finished, I had been so exhausted that I didn’t notice my therapist smiling at me. From then, he poked and prodded until I gave in and just talked. For the first couple of months, I hated it, but then I noticed the nightmares lessened, and I wasn’t so angry anymore.

I hated to admit it, but Rose and Bullet had made the right call. I had been on a path of self-destruction even though I didn’t realize it.

Therapy also helped me work through my guilt about Sam and my team. I realized that he was right when he said I need to honor them, and live my life. It was a tough and bitter pill to swallow, but now I know he’s right.

Sam wouldn’t want me sitting here in the damn dark, all melancholy. She’d tell me to get off my lazy ass and get back to work. Which is exactly what I’m going to do. First, by getting ahead of this damn mole problem. That’s the club’s immediate concern. The mafia is a bigger problem, but eliminating their source of information will give us the in that we need.

Everything started coming to a head when Sage came into town. King’s woman is as crazy, if not crazier than Rose, and she was the one who discovered that the mafia was back in town. All because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She unintentionally took a picture of Dmitri Norikov, the Obshchak of this area, and he went after her almost immediately.

We became aware of our little rodent problem and thought we dealt with it, but then Torque’s woman came into his life. Isabella Mills stepped right into trouble by working at a garage owned by Dimitri and his men. Then, she stumbled on how they were using the cars they serviced for their drug smuggling operation.

Which led us to the other night. The night we realized our mole was indeed still alive and kicking. The Prospect we dealt with before was nothing more than a decoy. Sure, he was on Dmitri’s payroll, but nothing like this.

Our mole tried to kill Izzy by injecting her with a cocktail of cocaine and heroin. Thankfully Rose found her in time, otherwise, we’d be burying her in the damn ground right now.

Except our mole fucked up. Now we know he’s back, and we know he’s hiding in our clubhouse. Not to mention, he’s obviously forgotten who we are. Who I am. I will not rest until I find him, and God help him when I do. My phone vibrates softly in my jeans pocket. I should be sleeping since it’s past two in the morning, but I’m glad I’m not since it’s a message from Bullet.

Bullet: Usual spot. Ten minutes.

Looks like it’s time to get to work. A grim smile pulls at my lips as I move silently away from the window and towards the door. I avoid the boards that will squeak with practiced ease. I hear some light snores as I make my way down the hall towards the stairs. When I reach the common room, I weave around the chairs and tables and head out the door.

The only light I have to guide me is the moonlight, but I easily make my way to an outbuilding that is out of range from the cameras. Unsurprisingly, Bullet and Viper are already there. Both men look at me in the darkness, their eyes glittering in the low light as I stop a few feet away from them. “Who else are we waiting for?” I ask in a low voice.

“Cryos, and the boys are coming,” Bullet answers. “Well, except Torque. He’s staying with Izzy.” A six foot two brick shit house with crystal blue eyes, Bullet is our club’s President, and he is not a man you want to piss off. He and Hammer, another club member, are the only two that remain from the original club before they forcibly took it over.

I nod. “For the best. Sniper coming?”

Sniper is our club’s VP, and one tough son of a bitch. He’s former military, and his road name is exactly what his specialty was. He can give Viper and I a run for our money on being the most intimidating out of our bunch, but I haven’t eliminated him from my list of suspects. He’s in the perfect position to fuck us over, and privy to all kinds of information from Bullet.

Cryos is our resident hacker and tech expert. When he was sixteen, he hacked into the FBI database, and instead of arresting him, they recruited him. He’s wicked smart and knows it. If we need information, he’s the guy to get it for us. Which is exactly why he’s still on my list. We’ve figured out our mole has either a jammer device that affects our cameras, or some knowledge of how to mess with them. Cryos has the skills to do that. If he wanted to throw us off his trail, he could pretty easily give us misinformation to have us chasing our tails.

Movement behind me has me shifting slightly, and I can make out the figures coming our way. King and Stone walk side by side. Stone is the spitting image of Rose, but Bullet’s dark hair and striking blue eyes. While King is a mixture of the two, and has Rose’s caramel-colored eyes. Stone is stern like Bullet, where King is more free-spirited like Rose. Until you threaten Sage, then you see just how much like Bullet he is.

Slightly behind them are Cryos and Sniper. Cryos is a couple inches under six feet, with pretty boy looks. Sniper is a few inches above six feet and a bit more rugged. The horrors he’s witnessed during his time in the military have given him a hard edge.

When they reach us, we step in close, careful to keep our voices down.

“Alright, boys, we need to make a plan,” Bullet says darkly. The anger in his voice is clear. “I want to find this fucking mole and make him regret betraying us.”

“I say we do some old-fashioned interrogation,” King suggests. “A little torture, and I’m sure a few will sing like canaries.”

“Most of our brothers are former military and can withstand a hell of a lot,” I remind him mildly. “What we need to do is figure out who we can exonerate.”

“How the hell are we going to do that?” Stone asks, frustration clear. “Everyone is going to be playing it close after Dad made his announcement in Church. Everyone is suspicious. Us of them, and them of us.”

“Fucking hell, I thought this was over,” Bullet snarls. “Bull did this shit back in the day, and we fought so many damn wars until we finally made it through to the other side. Here we are again, worrying about the same shit.”

“We won’t let it get that far,” Viper assures him. One of our two patched African American brothers, Viper, is a big bastard. At six four, he has icy blue eyes, long dreads he wears in a ponytail, and is our club’s Treasurer. A former SEAL, he’s lethal with an edge of danger that has most giving him a wide berth. He and I run the club’s security company, and he’s the closest thing I’ve had to a best friend since my teammates.

Bullet gives him a cool look. “It doesn’t take much to get that far, brother. The entire reason Bull kept power for so long was because he dealt in the shit I vowed never to touch again. We were drowning in drugs and booze, running guns, and at one time, people. That was the beginning of the end. I refused to stand for it. If our mole is in league with Dmitri Norikov and his band of miscreants, then chances are he’s already neck deep in that shit too. Being a member of our club, and one that Dmitri knows about, means we have two possibilities.

“One, our mole is trying to save up his money before he gets out and lives a life of luxury. Or, two, he’s working on dragging our club into a turf war with the mafia. A war that we won’t win if we’re not smart. And I, for one, will never let those assholes win.”

I nod, along with the others. There is no way we can let that happen.

“But our mole forgot one thing,” I mumble. “He forgot what brotherhood means, and that we will never let him drag us into this mess. He made a mistake in coming after this club, and it’s time we reminded him of that. Fuck Dmitri Norikov. We’ll fight back harder, and we’ll win.”

“Not to mention,” Viper says with amusement, “all we need to do is sic the women on them to make them regret stepping foot in this town.”

Everyone chuckles. Rose and the girls are well known for their crazy antics, but he’s right. If it came down to it, those girls would deliver some pain. It won’t come to that though. Not if I have anything to say about it.

“So, what’s our plan?”

“Our plan is to flush him out,” Bullet answers. “It’s time to apply pressure, and see what squeezes out. When they’re cornered, moles either attack or burrow deeper. We need to be ready for either, and make sure he doesn’t bring in any others behind him.”

“I’m doing a full run again on every brother, Prospect, and woman in the clubhouse and on the grounds,” Cryos assures him. “This time I’m going as deep as I can. Between all of us, we’ll find him.”

“We better,” Bullet replies. “Because if we don’t, we prepare for war.”

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