Tough as Steele (Steele Bros Book 1) by Elizabeth Knox
Logan began to laugh at me. "She wants a whole football team, apparently," he teased me, looking to his brothers.
"No, I want four, which is just short of a full basketball team. In fact, maybe we should be good Samaritans and adopt the fifth?" I asked, making everyone break out in laughter. It felt so natural, like all of us were family. Jordan and Christian never treated me like anything else.
I looked back down at Emmett and saw that he had fallen asleep in my arms. I knew that other mothers would probably say I was spoiling him, but I couldn’t imagine him sleeping alone in his room when I was perfectly comfortable holding him. He would probably wake up in an hour ready to eat anyway.
Making conversation, I looked to Christian. "Whatever happened to that girl form the other day?" I asked him.
“The girl?" Logan asked, both him and Jordan looking to their younger brother for answers.
“Yeah, Christian saw a girl at a party a couple of weeks ago, and he never got her number or name or anything. But then he saw her again a couple of days ago. Did you get her number this time?" I asked him. Christian shook his head. I couldn’t believe it. "I didn’t, but I will."
"I can’t believe you didn’t get it!" I chastised him, trying not to wake the baby.
"I got her name, though."
"Well, that’s something, at least," I told him.
"What do you know about the girl?" Jordan questioned.
"I know that her name is Selena and that she is mine, even if she doesn't know it yet."
“You sound just like your brother” I laughed.
Look for
Stripping a Steele (Steele Bros. #2) Available Soon.
Free Chapter (REIGN)
REIGN
A Skulls Renegade Novel
Book #1
www.elizabethknoxbooks.com
Chapter 1
Elena
“Are you sure you want to do this? You haven’t been in the field in six years. I’m not just your handler; I’m your best friend. I’m worried about you.” Kristie was my best friend; we had met at Quantico and went through the same training program. It was a pleasant surprise when we both were assigned to the Cincinnati field office. Kristie loved being a handler, but I didn’t. I took the job when things with Rich got serious because he expressed how worried he was for me if I was on the field. So, I made that sacrifice, for our relationship; I stopped doing what I loved and became a desk jockey.
I loved being in the field, the rush, the thrill of it. The adrenaline pumping through my veins gave me the best feeling in the world. I felt invincible, and I was. I was until I got shot in the shoulder. The docs said I would never be able to return to field duty, but I never was one who liked to be told what was or wasn’t going to happen. So, what did I do? I proved all the docs wrong and came back stronger than ever.
“Kristie, I need this. I gave up so much of myself for Rich, and then that bastard lied and cheated, throwing everything I did for him in the trash. I need to go back to being Elena, the kick ass field agent. I need to take down some bad guys. I need to feel like myself again.” It was the absolute truth. I was beginning to realize that over the past five years I had felt like a robot. Like I had only been here to please Rich, not to do anything for myself, but everything for him.
“I can’t condone that your shitty love life is the reason for going back in the field. But as your handler, I know what type of asset you are to the bureau.”
Because I’m kick ass, she doesn’t have to say it, but we both know it.
I leaned back, slightly sinking into her couch, pulling her fluffy blanket closer to my chest. “So, what’s my assignment?” I grinned like a kid on Christmas morning. Ironically, it was Christmas Eve, but still. I was experiencing the same effect.
Kristie handed me a folder, and I opened it, skimming over the documentation and photographs. “Skulls Renegade MC, huh?” I flipped through the rest of the paperwork, looking at the photographs of the main members, plus some history on each of them. There wasn’t much intel, just birthdates, socials, where they were from. “They’ve kept quiet,” I muttered. Kristie took a sip of her bottle of wine.
“Yes, they have. But not quiet enough. We have an informant saying they’re doing some major drug trading and they’re in a prostitution ring. You’re going in to find out what’s really going on. Gather enough intel, issue warrants and get out. These are brutal criminals, El. Taking them down would blow up both of our careers.”
Like I needed to know what kind of men are in the MC lifestyle? I didn’t need a reminder. “I’ve got it covered.” Kristie handed me another folder.
“This is your cover story.”
I opened it up, looking at the profile they’d created for me. Kristie knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t use it, so what was the point in even showing me? On every assignment I’d ever been on, I’d been given a profile to study: dates, times, life events, other crap. I had to make my cover real. I understand the important of that, of course, but it had always been easier for me to alter my own profile. That way I didn’t slip up. The bureau never did like the way I operate, but they didn’t say a damn thing anymore because I always got the job done.
Kristie handed me a burner phone. “You’d better call me every Monday at ten in the morning with updates. I mean it.”
I smiled at her. “You got it, boss.”
***
I left the next morning; Christmas Day. There wasn’t a point in staying around now that there was nothing tying me down. Plus, I needed an outlet for my anger and pain, and quick. This was going to be my redemption job. My way to being the Elena I could recognize when I looked in the mirror.
I packed two duffel bags full of necessities; clothes, shampoo, and makeup. I hopped in my 2017 Ford Mustang and hit the road.
Destination: Tennessee
It took me six hours to get there; the MC was located right in the mountains in the small town of Gainesville. It was truly a small town. There’s a bank, a couple restaurants, a grocery store, law office, daycare, school, and not much else.
I found a half-way decent room at the only motel in town. From the looks of it, it probably had roaches. The sooner I could get into the club, the better. I wouldn’t be getting an ounce of sleep in that shit hole.
I took a quick shower, cringing because the white tile was yellow. They had a ‘cleaning service,' but I doubted it had been properly cleaned in years.
I dried my hair, applied some makeup, and dumped all my clothes out on the bed. My plan? Go to the biker bar, get a few drinks, and make my presence known. My tactic? Easy.
I was going to dress like an Ol’ Lady, not like some stupid little skank who comes to the bar just to suck their cocks. I learned from my mother how to dress the part. Ol’ Ladies aren’t there to service the men. I sure as hell would not be there to do that either. I was going to be walking in like I owned the place because I did.
These bikers were going bow on their knees when I walked in because I bet you no bitch had ever dressed as I was about to.
I grabbed a pair of black leather leggings and black heels; the heel so thin that stepping the wrong way could crack it. I found a thin, jersey type tank top and paired it with my emerald green leather jacket. I pulled my hair out over my jacket, the loose curls bouncing over my breasts. I went into the bathroom, applied a little more eyeliner and touched up my neutral matte lipstick. I slid on my metallic aviators and went for the front door.
I was good to go.
Free Chapter (Promised)
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The Clans
Book #1
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Chapter 1
Ion
I turned my green eyes towards the window of my penthouse apartment which overlooked the upper west side of Manhattan. I flicked my wrist to make the scotch in my glass slosh around impatiently as if I expected her to just show up on the street someday, looking up towards me as if she could see me. Yet, I spent eight yea
The she in question was Mariana Vasile, the last remaining heir to the Romanian mob; a princess in her own right. She was the rightful next in line to run the clans, but she was a woman, and Romanians just did not see fit for a woman to be a leader. Maybe the Russians or the Irish did it, but the Romanians were all about tradition. So, the clans would pass on to her husband instead.
That would be where I come in.
She was promised to me when she was just days old.
Mariana was to be my queen, and I would be the king of the mob; the power of the infamous Vasile clan passing onto my shoulders as it had been planned since the day she was born. By now, I should have been married to her for at least six of the years she had been missing, but someone had seen fit to slaughter the Vasile line and take her, the last of the bloodline as the prize, probably believing that one day they would have the claim to the throne. The saddest part of it all is that she was she had only been 16 when they took her. I’d been working tirelessly, putting all of my resources into finding her. It had been years, and not one single trace of where she could be found had surfaced.
I’ll look, I’ll hunt, and one day I will bring my Ana home. She took my heart when she was just a child, at one of the few times we met. I knew from the time I was a small boy that she was mine, and that first meeting she took my heart with her.
Whoever it was who took her must not know me well. Ion Petran was the name I would shove down the throat of my enemy before I made him rue the day he tried to take that blood right from me. Nobody was going to take what was mine and get away with it – Ana – my promised throne, none of it. I didn’t care if my brown hair turned gray by the time I found her, I was going to get what I was promised and save her from whatever horrible fate she had been forced into all these years.
Just as it began to rain, water droplets pelting dramatically against the glass, I was pulled away by the incessant buzz of my cell phone. I was not in the mood to talk with anyone; obsessing over my next move to try and find the woman who was the key to everything I ever wanted, but I had to answer. The person on the other side could always have news of Mariana, and I was not going to miss that for the world.
"Buna," I said impatiently into the receiver, waiting to hear why one of my men had disturbed me.
"Domn, we have news that we thought you would like to hear," the thick voice of one of my associates came through the receiver. He was the leader of one of the several groups of men I had hired to hunt down those responsible for Mariana's disappearance and the murder of her parents. I’d spent millions on her search. It’s about time that they have something useful for me.
"Vorbi repede! Speak quickly! What do you know? What have you found?" I asked in a state of excitement. I waited with bated breath for the answer to my unworthy prayers over the last eight years, when I had shifted from a hopeful young man to an angry one with a vendetta.
"We believe we have a lead on the whereabouts of Miss Mariana Vasile." My heart skipped a beat at his words, and I wondered if I had misheard or maybe dreamed it. It had been years, and now they suddenly find a lead? What changed?
"Meet me at my office immediately. We have important matters to discuss," I ordered, recovering almost instantly. It was the best news I had heard in a long time, and I hung up, downing the rest of my scotch before I went to the closet. I pulled out my black Armani coat and pulled it over the button down I still had on from my investment meeting earlier. Even a man of the mob had to keep up appearances. The upper west side was full of men just like me, pretending to be something they weren’t while doing devious but lucrative things in the dark of night or the privacy of their lofts. So, as I climbed into the back of the black car with the tinted windows, I faded into the idea of the rich, mysterious, New York man, while I pondered on how much information my associates would be able to give me.
Eight years I had spent waiting for news of my Mariana, but her trail had gone dead far too soon. I had fallen into a routine of waiting; waiting for my life as head of the clans, beginning with, Mariana Valise by my side. No one could question me like the way they did now amidst the chaos that had become of the mob clans since the Valise king and queen had been brutally dethroned. If there was ever the perfect timing to find her, this was it.
I tried to relax in the back seat of the car, pouring myself a flute of champagne from the supply my driver kept well stocked for me, but not even the bubbles served to calm my nerves. Champagne is a custom, a common one for celebrations. Maybe today I will be celebrating the news I’ve been waiting years to hear. I was on some kind of high as I took the elevator up to the office space I rented out for the purpose of making it seem that I ran a legitimate business. Part of being a mob leader was mastering such deceptions. My father had taught me well.
As I sat on the only version of a throne I was afforded, for the time being, I looked expectantly at the man with the mustache and slicked back hair who was there representing his team of misfit investigators. They were the kind of men who were too dirty in their searching techniques for even the most crooked of police precincts.
The man’s gold-capped tooth glinted in the light as he smiled with a sinister gleam in his eye. “We know who has Mariana, domn,” the man offered happily.
I sat up in my seat, ready to leap into action at any moment. The name of my enemy was on the tip of this man’s tongue, and in knowing the name, I would have the power to bring my bride back to me. I could almost see her white blonde hair before me and smell her sweet scent that I remembered from when we were young children. She left that kind of impression on me, but maybe that was the powerful blood of hers and the smell of victory.
“Who was it?” I hissed impatiently.
“Jonas Masterson”
Coming Soon - Blackjack
Blackjack
Ashley
With marriage, there are things you can and can’t live with.
Harry, my abusive husband, made that clear enough when he beat me like a dog, forced a miscarriage on me, and tried posing me as a hostage to my father’s notorious biker gang, The Reapers. I was lucky enough to get out of my marriage in one piece but it’s only a matter of time before he picks up my trail and hunts me down. Blackjack––swears he’ll kill him the second he steps foot in town. I know he means well but there’s something about his stare when he tells me I deserve better. A part of me wants to believe I deserve someone like him and yet my bruises are telling me never to trust another man again. But Blackjack isn’t like any other man. Is he?
Blackjack
When I enlisted into the army, I didn’t think I’d have anything or anyone to lose––except for her. Ashley Monroe, the blonde wild-child of Montana’s Reapers MC. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when I came back home years later to find out that she left town and ended up married. Life went on of course and I was fortunate enough to have Dex, a son of my own. Three years later, Ashley came back beaten and broken from her marriage. I’ve never wanted to kill a man so bad in my entire life. Just one look at her and I’m drowning with the urge to hold her in my arms and tell her that she’s safe with me, truly. Sometimes I wonder if there’s still enough strength in both of us for a second shot in life.
Coming Soon – Stripping a Steele
Stripping a Steele
(Steele Bros. #2)
Selena
The moment I laid my eyes on him I knew he was trouble. Problem is, I’ve always loved a little trouble. When my dad died and my mom abandoned my family I took over all responsibility. I’m the bread-winner, I’m the primary provider for my younger siblings. For a time, I just want to feel irresponsible. I just want to feel. Christian Steele, he makes me feel things I never thought possible and not just between the sheets. He’s stealing my heart too.
Christian
There were only three things I care
Excerpt:
I don’t know why I’m so attracted to him, it’s like a magnetic field is forcing us together. He’s everything I shouldn’t want, arrogant, cocky, demanding, self-centered, and worst of all he’s entitled.
Yet, here I am, standing right in front of him biting on my bottom lip like some horned up teenager.
Christian walked us into his apartment, his hand staying at the small of my back, ushering me in through the doorway. I shouldn’t be as nervous as I am, it’s not like I haven’t been here before, and he’s seen me naked. I have absolutely no reason to be shy, but he’s pulling at my heart strings. He lifts me up in his arms and I instantly wrap my legs around his waist as his lips brushed against my ear, sending electricity through my veins.
“I want you to scream for me tonight”