Claiming the Biker (Royal Bastards MC: Charleston, WV 9)

I watch video Link sent me for the fifth time. Watching the prospect about get ran down at the gate has kept me in stitches all morning. Fucking dumbass.

I look up and see my sister.

“Guessing this isn’t a social call.” I stare across the desk in my office as my sister takes a seat. She called yesterday and said she’d be coming to town.

Always the smartass she can’t resist throwing attitude. “Nice to see you, Astrid. You too, brother,” she clips.

I lift off my chair and let a big fart rip. “Let me break out the celebration and light some fireworks.”

Her faces scrunches up and I look away. “Real nice, Torsten.” When she makes that face, she reminds me of our mother. A woman too weak to do what was best for herself and her children. Should have left our father but she stayed and let him beat on all of us till I was old enough to fight back. Been fighting every day since it seems like.

The sooner she tells me what she wants the better. Love my sister but she’s problematic. Trouble follows her everywhere she goes. She goes by the road name Karma in the harlots but to me she’s always going to be Astrid, my bratty sister. “Out with it. Why are you here?”

She loses the stink eye she was shooting my way and her face softens. “I’ve got a situation.” No shit. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Anyone else I could call.”

I snort. “Way I hear it. You’re doing all right. Found your way straight into Hound’s bed.” I raise my brows. “He can’t help you figure out this situation you’re in?”

“How do you know about that?”

It’s no surprise that she went straight to him. They had a thing a few years back before she left him high and dry. Ran off and joined an all-female motorcycle club. A sister club to Royal Bastards called Royal Harlots. “It’s not every day a harlot rolls up to the gate and nearly runs down a prospect. Fucking Link saw it on the security feed and sent the video to everyone in a text this morning. Funny shit.”

“So happy I can entertain you.” The worried expression framing her face isn’t lost on me.

I know my sister better than anyone. She’s scared and she’s not one for scaring easily. I know it must be serious for her to come all this way and to come to me. Astrid has never been big on asking anyone for help. As kids we were taught not to talk about our problems. Not to friends. Not to anyone at school. Hell, even to each other. Our mother loved putting on a front like we were all so damn happy. Picture perfect. Alcoholic father who showed love with his fists. A mother scared of her own fucking shadow and cared way too much what the rest of the world thought.

“What’s going on?”

“You ever heard of the Sanchez Cartel?”

“The skin traders?”

“That’s the one. I didn’t know when I got involved with Archer that he was dealing for the cartel. I also didn’t know that the harlots are in debt to them and laundering money for them through Buzz’s. Archer got hooked on the product and was in for a lot of money and Carlos made a deal with him. He’d not kill him if he gave me to him for one night. Archer made it sound as though he had bargained to get the harlots out of bed with him as well. I felt stuck and I didn’t want Archer to die so I agreed.”

Her words move through me like fucking venom. I pound my fist against my desk, and roar, “He whored you and you let him. What the serious fuck, Astrid?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t given much choice. I got there and Carlos said that Mona had been skimming money and he wanted me to get proof. I did what I had to for the club. What was I supposed to do?”

“Kill the piece of shit. Jesus. My sister.” I can’t stomach looking at her. I’m no better than fucking Archer or Carlos Sanchez. The situation isn’t the same but fuck me I’ve been whoring Andi to Justice fucking Masters. Because I’ve been so consumed and blinded by my hate for the man.

Astrid keeps talking and I wish I could tell her to stop, but I need to hear it and she needs to say it.

“After it was over his driver took me back to Archer, and I found him in bed with Gia.”

I blink. The fuck. Gia was like the sister she’d always wanted.

“We fought and I kinda vandalized his truck before taking off.”

There’s my sister and her famous Temper. The corner of my mouth twitches with pride.

“I went to Buzz’s. Got wasted. Rosie woke me up when she came in. I just wanted to grab my stuff. Ya know? Gia and Archer could fuck off for all I cared. Except when Rosie and I got there…they were dead. Both of them. I panicked. I know that it was Carlos. To show me his reach if I didn’t do what he wants. He’ll make it appear as though I killed them. I had to run.”

Fucking hell. Shit. Prez is gonna go ape shit.

“And how long do you think it will be before this Carlos comes looking for you to collect the rest of his payment? How do you know that Archer didn’t kill Gia then himself? The fuck. Who else knows about this shit?”

“Rosie, but Carlos doesn’t know to look for me here.”

“You’re dumber than you look if you think that.”

“That’s not nice.”

I throw my hands up. “Oh, forgive me. Want me to braid your hair and sing you a lullaby?”

“Just forget it. I’ll leave the country or something.”

“And then what? Spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder? I gotta call Prez.”

“No. You can’t. I don’t want your club involved.”

“Bit late for that shit. You tell Hound why you’re really here?” The guilt in her eyes says it all. “He’s going to go ape shit.”

“You can’t tell him.”