Restore the Night: A Destroyers MC Romance Novel

Book 7: Destroyers

by Calia Wilde

Genres: Action & Adventure Romance; Motorcycle Club Romance

Synopsis

The only thing deadlier than hate is forbidden love.
Nickel
—“It’s been five years, man.”
“I know.”
Love wasn’t the problem. Hate was.
Some grudges couldn’t be killed, and some memories wouldn’t stay dead. The divide between the Rebel Souls and the Destroyers was more than just a simple biker feud. They used to be our brothers. Our friends. An act of betrayal, and a legacy of revenge made our clubs bitter enemies.
I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Rachel, the Rebel Souls’ bartender. And I certainly wasn’t supposed to use her to spy on our former club. But I did. On both counts.
Then I pushed her away. It was for her safety, for her future, and for my club, thinking the sacrifice was worth the pain of losing her. That she’d be better off without me in her life.
Rachel
“What kind of biker wears glasses?”
—“The kind who can’t see well without them.”
I should have hated him, but I couldn’t.
Our nights were filled with passion, our love hidden from the world under the cloak of darkness. He was a criminal. I should have called the police when we first met. But there was more to this unusual outlaw than he let anyone see, and I intended to find out every secret that lurked behind his unassuming facade.
I spied for him.
I lied for him.
I cried for him.
Five years wasn’t enough to kill our love. But coming back to restore it might kill us both.

Restore the Night is a Destroyers MC (Motorcycle Club) romance novel of forbidden love, betrayal, enemies, lovers, and second chances

 

Read more

Release date: November 12, 2024

Publisher: Misfit Ink

Print pages: 314

Sample

Chapter 1

Nickel

There’s one thing bikers know best. How to cut a man when he’s feeling good.

“It’s pink,” Walt declared over my new-to-me FLSTC Softail Heritage.

“Blackberry Smoke,” I corrected.

Fin studied the bike, the paint job, the mods I’d ordered specifically for longer riding, then dusted the dirt from his driveway off his knees. “Nickel? That’s pink.”

“You tattoo color on people all the time. You know that’s not pink.” This was ridiculous. I’d spent over fifteen grand on my dream machine. Sue me for falling in love with the throaty roar of the 103 cubic-inch twin-cam engine. The resale sheet and performance on this model were sound. Plus, I got it at a steal of a deal. Shipping it up from Florida almost cost me as much as the bike and put me at my limit, but I didn’t have a choice.

Flying down and riding it back wasn’t feasible. The club was in the weeds of a major split. I’d followed Walt when he reformed the Hagerstown charter into a brand new Destroyers club. With the loss of over twenty members, people had to step up in big ways. Walt dubbed me treasurer and none of them numbskulls currently dissing my bike vetoed it. That meant I’d practically quit my day job repairing computers and dove into the rabbit hole of finance. Legal and illegal.

It left zero time to take a week off to get my new baby.

“Son, what color is blackberry juice?”

I thought for a moment. “Red.”

“And smoke is white, right?”

Fin was working up to a point, one I knew wouldn’t go in my favor. “Sometimes black.”

He tilted his head. “Sure, but you mix red and white, or even red and gray and you get pink.” His laughter was little more than a wheeze.

Walt squatted on the road-side of the bike, angling his bulk left, then right. “You know, I think Mary has a lipstick this color. It looks good on my dick.”

“There you go. Find a girl, make her wear Cherry’s lipstick, and compare notes.” Fin’s suggestion triggered loud laughter, at my expense.

My president stood up, tugged his pants out, and toggled his glances between the bike and his crotch. “Nope, your paint’s darker.”

I groaned. Without a job paying the bills, and all my money tied up on the bike, not to mention the insecurity of starting a fresh new chapter of Destroyers, I was fucked. These assholes would tease me about this bike until the day I died. Thank goodness they already dubbed me, “Nickel,” because if I didn’t have a road name, this moment would surely be the moniker I’d have on my tombstone. “Fuck off with that shit.”

They continued to razz me, but my phone buzzed. “What the fuck do you need now?” Every day, there was some new fire to put out. This time, it was Kid, a recruit we fast-tracked into membership because we needed bodies. Especially bodies who could knock down three-hundred-pound human gorillas with one punch.

His news wasn’t good. “What do you mean he can’t make the payment?”

Walt raised his chin to Fin, who stepped away discretely. That was new. Fin was old-school Destroyers stock. He knew everything and anything. Walt telling him to back off and him doing it meant we now had the respect of the mother chapter. I didn’t have time to catalog that because Kid was talking to

 too fast.

“What do I do?”

“You say someone took the money he had earmarked for us.” Damn it. I’d expected this but not so soon. I thought we’d get ahead of it before those idiots we left behind remembered my arrangement with Troy.

“Supposedly, he didn’t know.”

Of course, the bar owner didn’t. No one clued him in on the regime change because it happened so fast. I couldn’t let this slide, however. Troy was a major link in a budding business. He’d approached me a year ago with an offer. He promised to store any of our contraband, drugs or otherwise, and help us distribute to the local dealers through his bar. In return, he could keep a cut of the profits. We’d run so much through him, we’d arranged for a secondary pipeline. But if we didn’t have this month’s take, we were screwed, and our new source would walk.

Worse, we’d get a reputation as the chapter who couldn’t follow through with its promises. In other words, weak.

“You still there?” I asked Kid.

“Yup. Got him pissing his pants in front of me right now. But the waitress is threatening to call the cops.”

“Lock her down. I’ll be right there.”

“Trouble?”

I glanced at Walt. “Naw, this is a walk in the park among the stinking tulips.” Sarcasm was new to me. But the last two weeks honed my fresh skill into an art form.

“You need to get laid.”

“If I had time. Fucking Souls.” I muttered the last part under my breath. Walt didn’t need to know. But I didn’t hide it well enough.

Walt’s face turned red, a sure sign he was pissed. “Who?”

“Don’t know yet. I’ll let you know when I get things straight there.”

 

He yelled out to our brand new enforcer, Boots. “Yo, dickhead. Back Nickel up.”

“I don’t need a wrecking ball, ‘already got Kid there.”

“Take him anyway.”

A direct order. Damn.

Walt read my scowl. “Do it, Nickel. You ride up on that hunk of wax; no one’s gonna take you seriously.”

His shoulders shook with laughter. Didn’t stop the others from snickering out loud.

“I ain’t no waxer.” I rode

 more than polished.

Fin’s snort was loudest. “Son, it’s a good thing you’re pretty. ‘Cause you ain’t smart.”

That earned all of them the global flying eagle finger. I fired up my… pink bike, and Boots slid his piece of shit sportster beside me with a nod. “Let’s go kick ass.”

Finally, someone with respect.

“Or get our asses kicked.” He laughed and shot ahead of me, spitting up a hunk of gravel that pinged off my pristine front fender. Fucker.

As I peeled out to follow, Walt cupped his hands and yelled, “Mary’s got some lipstick that’ll cover that!”

The bar was a dive joint tucked in the basement levels under a defunct restaurant. Its only saving grace was its proximity to downtown, and enough parking to support foot traffic. But normal people got out of their cars and moved to the brightly lit street, not the shadows where the door sat, and dubious other things lurked.

Maybe that was the appeal?

It attracted clientele who enjoyed slinking along unlit alleys and lurking in dark corridors. Not that they advertised, or needed to. A few years back, the local college kids adopted this hole-in-the-wall as its unofficial hangout. Since the door only opened to a small walking alley between buildings, no one saw you enter or leave. It was the perfect place for dealers and junkies and foolish young twenty-somethings to rub elbows with the riff-raff.

Namely, the notorious local biker gang. Of which, there were now two. And that was not good for the business or those naive kids. I tromped down the stairs into the dimly lit cave of a bar.

Troy, the owner, dropped his stiff shoulders when he saw it was me. If I had to guess, he was relieved, which made me angry. He should be much more scared of me than he was. And yet, logistically, I understood his sentiment. I was the guy with the building plans, not the hammer. Maybe it was time to change things? However, that couldn’t happen with a witness.

Kid had the waitress trapped under one arm. She was spitting mad and demanded her phone back. He sent me an SOS with his eyes. “I tried talking to her.”

That triggered a small bout of kicking and screaming which Kid deflected or absorbed with the patience he was notorious for. It was astounding he ever got angry at all. But when he did? Bodies hit the floor. It was a pleasant surprise the thin hellcat was in one piece. “Let her go.”

She ran to the bar, but I’d planned for that. My hand came down on her phone and I pocketed it before she could slap the bare surface. “No one is in trouble here. We just want to talk.”

“You’re extorting him."

 She pointed at her boss.

I shook my head slowly. “Unh uh. He’s paying back a loan. Sure, one without pesky paperwork that would get him in trouble with the bank or authorities, or you name it. But trust me, this is benign.”

“Benign, my ass. If it were, you’d have been here, not some over-muscled ex-jock. He doesn’t scream benign at all. Why should I trust you?”

She scanned me from head to toe and back. It gave me a moment to do the same. She was a buck-twenty soaking wet, with arms painfully thin. I scanned them for track marks or bruises. There were a couple of red imprints from Kid’s hands, but nothing glaringly permanent. She didn’t look like a junkie.

Basically, she was an above-average-looking college girl. Tall and scrawny, with tanned skin and doe-like eyes that were pools of rich brown. Her deep brown hair was dark enough; it might be black. It was too dim in the bar to tell. She wore little to no makeup, and somehow that made her enticing.

The more I studied her, the deeper the silence grew between us and the prettier she got.

She was brave. I’d give her that. She didn’t flinch or break eye contact. For that, she deserved an honest answer about trusting me.

“You can’t. And shouldn’t. But you can choose to not escalate, which would help us all.” Simple truth. I tapped the diamond patch on my vest, designating me, and my brothers, as part of a small percentage of motorcycle riders who didn’t give a fuck about laws or society unless it served us to do so.

Her eyes dipped to it.

“You’re not wearing what the others were.”

“No shit,” Kid muttered.

I shot him a glare to shut him up. The last thing I needed was him breaking the connection I’d made with the waitress. Psychology. Get close, talk softly, and be honest, but not too honest.

“What’s your name?”

She blinked. Damn it. I screwed up.

“What kind of biker wears glasses?” She wasn’t as innocent or naive as my first impression.

“The kind who can’t see well without them.” I’d heard one variation or another of four-eye jokes my entire life. Early on, I found it was easier to smart back with uncomfortable truths rather than let it bother me. I smiled even though I didn’t feel like it.

Her head tossed back. Although straightened by product and a flat iron, her hair curled under her 

ears from the perspiration on her skin. It would do that after sex.

I ignored the whispers in my head and returned to diffusing the situation. “We’re not angry with you, or your boss. We just want information. You had one, two… other bikers come in here and get money?”

“Two.”

 

I nodded. “Tall, short?” Another smile, this one not forced because she made eye contact with me again. The light caught just right, causing them to spark once, like a candle flaring to life.

“One tall… big, one average and thin. He was a little shorter than I am, both blond. Both bearded. The thin one had straight hair pulled back in a ponytail. On the other it was kind of…” She motioned around her hair, mimicking curly and wild. She made a face as if disgusted. I knew exactly which two they were.

“Lodo and Grody.” I sent the two names at Kid and Troy. The latter nodded once. Lodo’s band played here almost once a month. But I thought he’d retired from the Souls when the split happened. Apparently, I was wrong.

“How long ago did they leave?”

The waitress took that moment to clam up.

“Two hours,” Troy said.

Kid’s call was twenty minutes ago, and he likely dialed me right away. They had at least an hour and a half head start, which meant they were holed up at their clubhouse along the county highway on the outskirts of town.

I addressed the bartender. “Troy? Ownership of our agreement always stays with me. Kid here has authorization to pick up the payments. He’ll be here the first Tuesday next month— before you open, though.” I left Boots out because he wasn’t the best for the job. ‘Unpredictable’ was putting it mildly.

And because I hadn’t included him, he cleared his throat and reached around me to shake the waitress’s hand.

“Name’s Boots. Do you wear lipstick?”

I elbowed him. He was always doing something stupid, like flirting with civilians.

“Oh, and this here is Nickel. He’s the guy you were just eye-fucking.”

There it was. I turned my back on the girl and snagged Boots up by the lapels of his jacket. “Knock it off.”

It was time to leave before Boots got us all in trouble. “Let’s go.”

“But I didn’t find out if she wears pink lipstick.”

 

Motherfucker. I shoved him up the stairs. He caught his balance and laughed at me while he danced up the steps.

“What’s that all about?” Kid asked.

We cleared the top step and walked to the back end of the alley where the bikes were. I pointed at my bike. “I’m getting shit about this.”

Boots waved his hands around like a game show model. “Behold! The chick magnet.”

Kid snorted. “It’s pink.”

“Et tu, Brute?”

“Ey-peaking-say at-in-lay,” Boots stage-whispered.

“Keep it up, and I’ll—”

“Hey!” The waitress ran out of the bar, waving her hand.

“Told you she was eye-fucking you.” Boots dodged my backhand.

“What?”

“You have my phone.”

“Put your number in it, dude.”

Kid laughed at Boots’s commentary, then shrugged. “She’ll need to be able to call you in case they show up and cause trouble.”

That was not only wise but a damn good way for me to get her name and number. “Unlock your phone.”

“Really?” Her tone was not curious. It was angry.

“Please?” I asked.

The sunlight glinted off the russet highlights in her hair. It also revealed the rich warmth of her skin. I clenched her phone tighter so I wouldn’t touch those silky waves.

Boots whistled and elbowed Kid. “Even without make-up, she’s a babe. Yo, Nickel, I’ll take her number if you don’t want it.”

“Ignore them,” I said.

 

Her smile peeked out. “Okay, I’ll take your number.” She did that thing… bashful but bold eye contact. I handed her the phone, and she unlocked it. “What is it?”

I rattled off the digits, and she typed them in. The phone at my hip buzzed. I glanced at the number, trying to memorize it quickly, just in case the worst happened. “Do I

 get a name?”

“Do I get your real name? The one that isn’t Nickel?”

Touché. “No.”

Her smile fell.

“Call her Foxy or Babe or—” Kid wrestled Boots under one arm and muzzled him for enough time to salvage the moment.

“It’s Rachel.” She darted away to the safety of the bar.

“That is one fine piece of ass, Nickel.”

“Shut up, Boots.”

“He’s not lying.”

“Kid,” I warned.

“Bet she’d look good in Cherry’s pink lipstick.” Boots snickered at me after he said it.

Kid’s forehead wrinkled with the obvious question. I gave him the Cliff Notes version and pointed at the lighter color on my gas tank. “Got any comments?”

He stared at the tank for too long.

“Let me remind you both who tallies the percentages at the end of the week.”

Kid straightened up. “Not a peep from me. She’s pretty, but young.”

No shit.

She probably couldn’t even drink at her place of employment. Which meant she was too damn  young for me. “Let’s get our money back.”

Chapter 2

Rachel

“You shouldn’t have done that.” My boss, Mister, ‘call me Troy,’ Lowry came out from behind the bar where I knew he had a gun stashed. He had a baseball bat hidden there as well. The fact he used neither meant I wasn’t justified in thinking Kid and Boots, or Nickel were a threat.

“Done what?”

“Everything you did, starting with threatening to call the cops. Right down to running after them. Why did you do that?”

“I needed my phone back.”

His jaw fell open. I held it up to show him.

“What did you give them for that?” He scanned my body like a pervert.

“Nothing.” Oh, my phone number but that wasn’t a big deal. I could just block whoever called. In fact, I should block Nickel right now, but we were behind on prepping the bar.

“Everyone gives something to get something.”

I wasn’t going to try with him. There were good people in this world. And far more who weren’t. So, in a twisted way, he had a point.

 

“You’re naive.” His blank look that held maybe a little awe shifted into a skeevy sleer—which was a cross between a leer and a sneer if you want to know—the same expression he always used around women under twenty-five.

I didn’t bother to address his “naive” comment. “I’m grabbing more vodka from the storeroom.”

He stopped me by stepping in front of me. I categorized Troy at a much higher threat level than any biker. It would take about one second for my knee to hit his nuts which meant he was too close. But I’d be damned if I took a step back. My grandfather taught me that. “Unless they’re holding a gun to your head, fight,” he once said. The meaning was, don’t let anyone tell you what to do if you don’t want to do it. Ever. With the caveat of “certain death” as the opt-out. His mother heard the conversation and took over to adjust the lesson.

“Rachel, dear, sometimes living is hard, but dying means you’ll never get revenge. Even if the revenge is living a long life.”

Was it brave to be a coward?

“Listen. You’re pretty,” Troy started.

If that was his best pickup line, he truly sucked.

“And because you’re pretty, you get a pass this time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you and your fat mouth.” His eyes dipped to my lips and stuck there. I let them smash together in ways that would eventually cause wrinkles, but this was warranted.

“And?”

“And, calling cops on bikers is wrong. Threatening to call cops on bikers is wrong. You don’t do that.”

“When you need help, you call the cops.” Everyone knew that.

“No. What happens is this. You call the cops. Maybe, maybe they come in time to help. They take your name. It goes on the record. And their inside man gets it. Then he hunts you down. He hunts down your family. When they know your habits and can have an alibi, POOF! You disappear. Or you get both legs broken. Or your father’s legs get broken. Or they beat you. And since you’re a pretty girl, maybe they’ll let you live, but they’ll rape you. Worse? Sell you to a buyer somewhere so you go through hell for years.”

“You watch too many made-for-small-screen dramas.” He made them sound like some ominous organization. The ones I’d met couldn’t organize to save their lives. I pushed around him to get on with my day. The last thing I wanted was to have nothing ready, then work twice as hard and probably stay late because of this delay. I had class later.

I’d taken the barback job because it fit nicely around my school schedule. But the promise of only working two nights a week turned into three the first week. The second week, it turned into four. I’d be working from sunup to sunup for this rat bastard who kept running his waitstaff off because he was a slimeball who used the bar like his own Tinder app.

“Rachel.” His hand hit my arm.

My back went straight. “Take that hand off.”

Troy looked down at where his fingers wrapped around my forearm. They touched because he was tall, and I was too damn skinny, despite working out and eating like a fiend. Stupid genetics. Come menopause, I’d balloon up like all my aunts, or maybe if I was one of the rare lucky few, avoid the health complications and stay skinny like my grandmother, and all the men in the family.

“You go toe to toe with not one, but three bikers. And, you have no fear of me. I like that. It’s sexy.”

“I’m not here for you to like or to be sexy. I’m here to do a job stocking the bar, assisting the bartender, and waiting on customers two to three days a week with stock and prep on Fridays when you need extra help. Would you grab any of the bouncers like this?”

Troy shook his head and removed his hand. “I’m going to try again. Roaches.”

I was looking at one.

“See one, there’s a hundred more, right?”

“Yes.”

 

“Biker gangs are like that. For every one you see, there’s a bunch that stay hidden. You don’t know about them until they need to take care of a problem. ...