Original syn iron wraith.., p.1
Original Syn: Iron Wraiths MC, page 1
Original Syn
Iron Wraiths MC
Book I
A.J. Downey
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Also by A.J. Downey
About A.J. Downey
Copyright
Text Copyright © 2023 by A.J. Downey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real except where noted and authorized. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events are entirely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or names featured are assumed to be the property of their respective owner, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Edited and book design by Maggie Kern at Ms.K Edits
Cover art by Dar Albert at Wicket Art Designs
Dedication
To Josh, and the Savannah trip in June of 2023. For making it so memorable and letting me prattle on about all things spooky, history, and this book without making me feel dumb or boring in the slightest.
Chapter One
Madisyn…
“Dammit, Zeke,” I swore under my breath as I eyed the biker standing outside the riverfront doorway. He was leaned back against the side of the building, flipping through one of those little notepads, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, bobbing as he counted under his breath. Ash fell into his light brown beard as he flipped and counted pages like it was cash. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I was looking for my older brother, Zeke, but honestly, the way our dynamic was working lately? I might as well have been the older sibling for all he was acting like a wayward teenage boy.
I sniffed and raised my chin defiantly. I wasn’t about to let this foolishness continue, so I squared my shoulders, kept my chin up, and marched resolutely forward. I mean, I’m sure I wasn’t exactly imposing, but I tried for what all five foot two of my frame would convey.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but there was only one thing that scared me more than the Iron Wraiths motorcycle gang of Savannah, and that was losing my brother.
I stopped in front of the biker and said clearly, “I’m here for my brother, Zeke. I know he’s in there gambling.”
The man slowly raised his deep brown eyes from his hands and the notebook in them and fixed them on mine. His eyebrows went up into a look of surprise, and his eyes widened in disbelief. He looked both this way and that, up the cobblestone street, and then around the corner and up the alleyway back behind the building.
“You talking to me?” he asked and he gave me a wolfish grin.
“Do you see anyone else?” I asked archly, crossing my arms over my chest, which just made his eyes drop from my face to my not insubstantial breasts.
I snapped my fingers at him and all but barked, “Eyes up here!”
He barked back, only not with words. No, he laughed. He took his cigarette out of his mouth between his fingers and laughed and laughed – until he didn’t. Stopping abruptly, he stuck the cancer stick back between his lips, sucked on it, and blew out a plume of smoke. Completely deadpan and completely serious, he said to me, “Fuck off, little girl.”
“I’m twenty-three goddamned years old, you rotten fuck, and I’m not leaving without my brother!” I practically screamed in his face, my frustration and anger boiling over.
He pushed off the building sharply at the insult and his hand flashed out faster than should be possible for a man of his size to move. He seized my arm above the elbow, his fingers digging in painfully. I reared back, throwing my weight backward and away from him, but he held onto me easily. He plucked his cigarette out of his mouth with his other hand and flicked the burning butt off his thumb out into the gutter with his middle finger.
“We don’t use names around here,” he said, giving me a vicious shake for emphasis and to make sure he had my attention. “Mine sure as fuck ain’t ‘rotten’ or ‘fuck,’ but you’ve got my attention now. I want to know just who you fucking belong to.”
I felt my mouth drop open at the implication that I was owned by anyone, like a-a-a cow or something. His much taller six-foot frame was dragging me through the door behind him before I could do much more than sputter in indignation.
Of course, once my panicked brain caught up to the fact that he was dragging me where I wanted to go, I stopped resisting as hard, but I didn’t give up the fight completely.
“I can walk. Get your hand off me!” I snapped. He unhanded me at a poker table in the dimly lit and sparsely furnished concrete basement of the building, and I set eyes on my brother just in front of me.
“Come on, Zeke. Let’s go,” I demanded coldly.
“Madi? What the fuck?” my brother demanded indignantly.
“I mean it, Zeke. Get off your fucking ass and let’s go, right now!” I didn’t have to force the venom into my tone. It was naturally occurring by this point. I had so fucking had it with my brother and the fact that he was here right now. With the Iron fucking Wraiths!
“Madi, get the fuck out of here. What are you even doing right now? Are you crazy?” Zeke demanded. He had gotten up, replacing the biker’s hand on my arm with his own.
“Specter?” a strong voice asked – a deep baritone with a rich timber that seeped out of the shadows at the side of the room. I almost didn’t see the man until he slipped off the top of the low cabinets against the wall. He’d been half-sitting on them, and observing the poker game. Where I hadn’t been super afraid at Specter of the heavy hand, this man made me freeze like a deer in the headlights, my heart stuttering harder than my voice had outside. Only there wasn’t anything indignant about this stutter. No, this stutter was one of fear.
Something about the way this new man moved, the way he glided in all that heavy black leather with barely a creak or a whisper, at how his heavy soled black boots barely made a sound against the raw concrete floor, and at how everyone, my brother included, froze at the sound of his voice, turning their attention to this man… well, it screamed that he was in charge. Not only did it scream that he was in charge, it telegraphed as clearly as a neon flashing sign that he was the thing in the room to be afraid of. Especially with how no one, and I do mean not a one of them, would make eye contact with him.
I swallowed hard and found my equilibrium as fast as I could as he stepped into the light. If we were going down, we’d go down together… idiot, I thought at my brother.
“Who’s this?” the man demanded, and his dark eyes fixed on mine. I steeled myself and gave as good as I got, meeting his gaze, and not backing down despite how my heart quavered craven in my chest.
“Madisyn, you’ve got to go,” Zeke demanded. My brother’s voice was tight with fear. I felt my mouth go dry, but I wasn’t about to give any of these idiot males the satisfaction of seeing me sweat.
“Madisyn,” I said. “Madisyn Reyn—”
“I just told you we don’t do names,” the first man, Specter, said, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter and drawing my attention away from the dark man from the shadows.
I snapped my eyes from him to the second man, the man in charge, as he took a further step into the light. My prey instinct told me to stay rooted to the spot, and not just that, but to not take my eyes off him. That taking my eyes off him could prove to be fatal.
Of course, with my fight-or-flight reflexes kicking in, gluing my gaze onto him, I had nothing to do now but look at him, and look at him, I did. He was older than me. Older than Zeke, too, but not so old any of his jet-black hair had started to thread with any silver.
He rasped a hand along the dark stubble coating his chin, his deep, dark, poisonous eyes flicking from Specter, to my brother, to me.
“Syn, I’m sorry. I don’t know what she’s doing here,” Zeke said, dropping his hand from just above my elbow and taking a step back. My rage at my brother went up a notch as he took that step away from me. Like, seriously? I come in here to save your ass from yoursel
Specter clapped his hands onto my brother’s shoulders and dragged him back away from me, pushing him back down into the seat he’d vacated right in front of us at the table. My anger wavered, my fear and empathy nudging it out of the way at the spill of cards and poker chips atop the maroon felt.
With a bravery I didn’t feel, and worry that I did, I flicked my eyes to Specter’s.
“Will you quit manhandling people?” I demanded coldly, my vision once again distracted, returning immediately to the dark man, the man in charge, as he took another step in my direction and barked a laugh.
“I see something I’d like to manhandle,” he said, eyeing me. I snorted, taking a reflexive step back. “Maybe there’s a deal we could come to.” His grin was wolfish.
“Real original,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
“Madisyn…” Zeke’s voice was tinged with a mix of desperation and exasperation. It had me shutting my mouth with an almost audible clack of teeth at the sound of it. I looked into my brother’s blue eyes, a match for mine. They looked desperate for me to shut my mouth, shining out from under his messy mop of sandy-blond hair just a shade or two darker than my own. It looked as though he’d been gripping it with his hands and the realization of his disarray hit me like a ton of bricks.
I immediately felt an answering fear to his own swell in my chest as the man in charge rolled my name around in his mouth like he was tasting it.
“Madisyn…” he practically purred, and I felt queasy. I’d be damned if I would show it, though.
“And you are?” I demanded archly.
“Synister.” Specter was grinning, but it wasn’t friendly. “President of the Iron Wraiths. Put some respect on his name.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” I snapped. “Zeke, come on. Let’s go,” I said and couldn’t help the note of pleading that had entered my voice at my last words. All sense of bravado was fleeing the quieter the rest of the men around the table got and the longer this went on.
Zeke made to stand up, but Specter clapped his hands onto his shoulders and forced him back down to sit heavily in his chair.
“He ain’t finished losing his ass, sweet – is it little or big sister?” Synister asked. His smile was a slow spreading of lips, showing very even and white teeth. His canines were naturally pronounced and it gave him this feral, if cunning, sort of vibe. The misgivings that’d been stirring in my breast finally crumbled completely into fear, my heart rate growing in intensity with the sheer unabashed audacity and intensity of the look that the man called Synister was giving me.
He'd been aptly named. He did give out a sinister vibe.
It was something raw and primal. He didn’t even bother to hide the naked desire in it, and if I hadn’t felt like some kind of prey animal in his crosshairs the moment before, I absolutely and for certain did now. I swallowed hard and tried my best to put on one hell of a convincing act.
“No, he’s more than done,” I said coldly and felt a slight surge of pride that my voice didn’t tremble or shake.
“Not until I say he is, and he ain’t leaving without paying something of what he owes me.”
“Zeke, get up. Let’s go,” I said and I put some steel in my voice.
“I’m good for it, Syn. I promise you. Just let me get Madi out of here. She doesn’t—”
My brother’s panicked pleading fell silent as Synister tore his gaze from mine and fixed it on Zeke. The expression on his face, which I didn’t find particularly attractive, but I didn’t precisely find him unattractive either, slipped from something resembling amused, to cold and unimpressed. My brother shut right up, which Zeke never did. Fear lanced me through the chest again, a javelin through my heart and out my back, pinning me to the floor where I stood. What Synister said next chilled me to the bone.
“You’re going to pay me something. What’s to keep me from holding little sister here as collateral until you do?” Synister demanded.
Specter was rubbing my brother’s shoulders, digging in painfully, and Zeke’s panicked look crumbled into downright terrified as his eyes flew to my face. I felt my shoulders knot.
Goddammit, Zeke, I thought dispassionately, sick of his bullshit, which had sailed right on past beyond the pale by this point and was rapidly plunging into the depths of insanity.
Fear ran an icy finger up and down my spine. I fought not to shiver in front of this pack of hungry jackals who were all but licking their chops like I was some prime cut of beef left unattended.
“How much does he owe you?” I asked tiredly. I didn’t know what I expected, but the figure Synister listed off so casually? That certainly wasn’t it.
“A hundred and eighty grand,” he said coolly, his expression growing bored. I closed my eyes and tried very hard to find a way to breathe around such a large figure.
A hundred and eighty grand? What the fuck, Zeke? How could you? And with them…
I prayed the thoughts stayed in my head and weren’t telegraphed on my face.
“Tell you what,” Synister said, and I opened my eyes to stare at my brother, whose eyes bounced back and forth, taking in my reddening face. “I’ll make you a deal, little sister.”
I flicked my eyes to Synister’s and didn’t blink or flinch. I didn’t say anything, either. I simply waited him out.
“I’ll let him walk out of here whole and take you as a down payment on his debt.”
“Madi don’t,” Zeke warned, sounding desperate.
“And just what is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
Synister’s eyes flicked from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet and back again, his gaze settling back onto mine.
“You agree to fuck me and I’ll knock five grand off his debt and let him go right now to find me the rest of what he owes me.”
I barked a laugh and shook my head.
“You’re insane,” I said bitterly. Or I was… I couldn’t decide which, because I didn’t want to lose my brother, but at the same time… shit, are you seriously even considering this Madisyn Jayne? I thought to myself incredulously.
Synister’s lips twitched in amusement as he saw my resolve begin to weaken and I knew it. I was really bad at this. My fucking face might as well have been the bouncing ball above a goddamn sing-along of my every thought.
“There’s more than one kind of currency in the underworld, sweet baby sister,” Synister declared, his grin wolfish once more.
The better to eat you with, I thought.
Chuckling swept through the room, seeping out of the dark and the cracks, swirling about the table in little eddies of terrible amusement at my expense, as I had to wonder if I had just said that out loud.
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll buy you dinner first,” Synister said, his grin growing into something that very nearly made hysterical laughter bubble up and out of my throat.
I felt my mouth drop open and I barely turned that hysterical giggle into a scoffing laugh as I said incredulously, “You’re actually fucking serious.”
“Madisyn Jayne, don’t even think about it,” Zeke warned, and again, lightning fast, Specter’s hand flew out and he grabbed my brother by the chin, ratcheting his head back at a painful and scary angle.
“Don’t!” I took a half-step forward like I could actually do anything, and my voice faltered as I finished my sentence. That icy finger of fear was now a hand wrapped resolutely around my spine and was gripping it tight, all the muscles in my back tense and aching. “Don’t hurt him.”
I turned on Synister and with all the strength I didn’t feel, said, “Five K is insulting. Do better than that.”
