Page 1 of Saint's Sinner

Chapter 1

(Saint)

He who is without Sinn

“Relax.”

If there was ever a word spoken in the human language that had the ability to cause the opposite effect it was intended to,relaxwas that word. In fact, Saint couldn’t think of a single instance in the history of the wordrelaxwhere someone had responded to it by calming the fuck down. His brothershouldknow that but judging from the way Mark was kicked back in his chair nursing his beer, he’d clearly forgotten what it was like to have it uttered athimwhenhewas stressed.

“Brutha,” Saint cautioned, slamming his empty bottle on the desk, and taking satisfaction in seeing it shatter, “if you tell me to relax one more time, I’m gonna forget we’re blood and kick your ass to the beach and back.”

Mark didn’t even have the decency to look at him as he swallowed the last of the liquid in his bottle. “Save your energy for when we find Sinn.”

“You meanifwe find Sinn!”

“We’ll find him.”

“You can’t promise that!” Saint raged, “You can’t promise he’ll be okay either!”

“No, but what Icanpromise is that whoever has done this will be made to pay.”

Snarling, Saint slammed his hand down and wound up with a piece of glass embedded in it. “And that’s supposed to be comforting?”

“Did I say…”

Saint cut Mark off by whipping a heavy glass ashtray at his head. Fucker didn’t even have the good graces to try and get out of the way. Would have been nice if he’d pretended it had come close to hitting him, but Saint’s aim had always been shit when it came to throwing. Mark probably figured moving would be what got him hit. That or he just didn’t give a shit. He didn’t flinch when glass and plaster exploded outward from the dent the ashtray put in the wall, nor did he twitch when shards slit his cheek and sent blood spilling down it much like the flow trickling from Saint’s wounded palm.

“If this was Teddy, Kat, or god forbid, one of my nephews, you’d have destroyed half the town by now!” Saint roared.

“And you’d have been right there with me.”

“Then why the fuck aren’t we out their doing it now?”

The casual way Mark reached up and brushed glass fragments out of his hair took Saint to a whole other level of pissed off. “Because we’re older and supposed to be wiser at this point in our lives, and we both know the cops are itching to swarm this place and lock us under the jail. Between those fuckheads taking a shot at me in the diner and sending Lucky to the hospital, and the brawl with Shaw’s crew, we’re on thin ice with the local authorities, or have you forgotten the warning they issued when Kat bailed us out that day?”

Saint groaned and rolled his eyes, knowing his brother was right, despite not being in the mood to hear him sound reasonable. “Wasn’t going legit supposed to keep them off our asses?”

“Could be we underestimated how difficult it was gonna be to keep the personal from spinning sideways even when the businesses were on the up and up.”

“You think!”

“Saint! Cool it! I mean that shit too. I can’t think with you going ballistic every twelve seconds and I’m tired of telling you that no one has called in to report the smallest damn thing.”

“Well, what the fuck are they waiting for?”

“To find something would be my guess!”

The low rumble of approaching Harleys quickly turned to a roar. Someone, maybe multiple someones, had taken the baffling off their bikes, making them extra loud, which meant it was no one in their club. Town noise ordinances had cured them of straight piping years ago, when they got hit with so many fines they had to throw a rent party just to pay them. Saint grabbed the sawed-off shotgun and headed for the door, his brother at his back with the pump action. The gate was engaged, no one would get through without the code, but that didn’t mean they’d go away peacefully.

Mark cast a glance at the looming antebellum house they shared with Kat and Teddy, a reminder of the life they’d fought for and the people they loved, one of them absent. If the fuckers roaring up to their gate had anything to do with Sinn’s disappearance, then there was going be hell to pay.

It was the second time this year they’d gathered everyone for a lockdown. Enemies these days were cowards, or maybe they’d always been, and he and his brother had just been too deep in the bloodshed to realize it. Terrorizing one another over territory and criminal enterprises had always been the outlaw way. Parents, siblings, children, spouses, anyone connected to a patched member was fair game in a world where playing the long-odds and cutting corners was the only way to get ahead.

As young men, riding on the wrong side of the law had been a thrill. A way of thumbing their noses at a society they felt was designed to keep them from ever rising above their dirt-poor beginnings. Now in their fifties, their mission was to leave the next generation of their family with options they’d never fathomed when they’d assumed the mantle of leadership over the Jokers from their old man.

If that meant blasting holes in a few fuckers along the way, then let the fireworks begin. One thing the club had always guaranteed was that a member’s family would be provided for, their homes and bikes would be maintained, and there would always be money on their books.

Resolved, boots crunching gravel as they approached the gate, Saint thought he was prepared for anything, only to be thrown at the sight of Cody, Bellamy, and Wreck flanked on either side by seven other bikes, each rider bearing the same colors Bellamy had on his kutte before his patch over.

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