My end iron fiends book.., p.13
My End (Iron Fiends Book 10), page 13
Sloane and Dove doubled over in laughter. They called this.
“You are not showing her the forty-seven pictures of your cows right now,” Wrecker muttered and dragged her gently toward the theater.
“I’ll text you!” Alice called over her shoulder. “I promise they’re good angles!”
I was still grinning when Stretch slid up beside me and wrapped an arm around my waist.
“Everyone loves the paintings, sweetheart.”
“They turned out great,” I admitted. “Even Saylor said they’re thinking of doing this for every season.”
“Please tell me you get a little break before they make you start the next ones.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I’ve got time. Alice said they haven’t even started filming yet.”
He leaned down to kiss the top of my head. “You ready to see how crazy life was for the Iron Fiends?”
I looked toward the theater doors. “Honestly? Yeah. I know the stories. I’ve heard the jokes and the nightmares, but it’s going to be fun seeing it all on screen.”
We turned back toward the paintings. People were still milling around, pointing, taking selfies with their favorites. But my eyes went right to Stretch’s again. That look in his painted eyes? That look hadn’t faded.
That look was my reality now.
I slipped my hand into his. “If someone had told me Boone’s insanity would lead me here…”
“I would’ve called them full of shit,” Stretch finished.
“Exactly.”
We stood there for a long moment, just breathing it in.
As much as Boone had messed up everything, ripped apart lives, put people in danger, and made me question everything, I couldn’t deny that his chaos had led me here.
To this.
To Stretch.
To our end.
And damn, what a beautiful beginning it turned out to be.
Coming Soon
September 29th
Fallen Dove
About the Author
Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Winter Travers is a devoted wife, mother, and aunt turned author who was born and raised in Wisconsin. After a brief stint in South Carolina following her heart to chase the man who is now her hubby, they retreated up North to the changing seasons, and to the place they now call home.
Winter spends her days writing happily ever afters, and her nights being a karate mom hauling her son to practices and tournaments. She also has an addiction to anything MC related, puppies, and baking.
Winter loves to stay connected with her readers. Don’t hesitate to reach out and contact her.
Check out the first chapter of Property of Anchor
Chapter One
Anchor
Skull Island came alive after sunset.
It came alive in the very real, very loud way that only a haunted house and ghost boat tour run by a motorcycle club could—screams, boat horns, the smell of kettle corn, and the sound of fake chains dragging across wooden floors.
From the main dock to the haunted house perched near the edge of the bluff, every inch of the north side of the island was crawling with wide-eyed visitors and fake blood. Fog machines hissed. Chainsaws roared. Actors in torn clothing lunged at teenagers who were more excited to record it on their phones than to actually be scared.
And me? I was doing crowd control with a cup of stale coffee and a front-row view of the chaos.
The haunted house stood like an old Gothic manor, all faux weathered wood, black wrought iron accents, and windows that flickered with timed LED candlelight. Behind it, tucked further back into the trees, was our real home: the clubhouse.
Long, low, and built like a fortress, the clubhouse stretched out behind the haunted house in a rough L-shape under the cover of trees. The center of the building was the common area, a massive open space with a bar, couches, a pool table, and our Church room where club meetings went down. To the left of that were six bedrooms, mine included. To the right? Seven more. Every patch holder on the island lived there, and every one of us worked the business.
Kings of Anarchy, Michigan Chapter.
We ran Skull Island. The haunted house. The ghost boat tours. The money that rolled in. All of it. Ours.
This was our territory. Our kingdom. Our show.
And every night, we gave the people exactly what they came for.
“Anchor!”
I looked up from my spot near the dock entrance. Skull, my Vice President, approached with his usual scowl and a fresh streak of stage blood across his jaw.
“We’re short three actors on the boat rotation,” he said. “Pull got hung up at the front gate breaking up some fight, and Wannabe’s still puking from whatever mystery meat he ate for lunch.”
“Send Lost in his place,” I said. “And tell Bob to fill in until we get through the first round.”
“Copy that.” Skull peeled off, already barking orders at anyone within earshot.
I took another sip of my coffee and scanned the dock. The members of the club were the vital moving parts of the island, but we also had about fifteen actors and workers that made the island run smoothly. They did their job of scaring visitors, and then they were off the island, too.
Three boats were loading now with full tours, packed with tourists from out of town. Each one would cruise across the narrow stretch of water toward the far end of the island while the island history and a ghost story played through speakers. Over there, we had a full-scale ghost town set up. Broken saloons. Collapsing mine shafts. Actors dressed as everything from colonial ghosts to feral mutants lurked in the shadows, ready to terrify anyone who stepped off the boat.
They’d walk the path through the ghost town and come back wide-eyed and screaming.
It was all fake.
And all profitable.
I turned to head back up toward the haunted house and stopped short at the sound of awkward giggling. My eyes tracked the noise until I spotted two teenagers, probably sixteen or seventeen, groping each other like they’d just discovered skin for the first time.
They were backed up next to one of the garbage cans behind the snack stand, half-hidden in the shadows, hands under shirts and lips locked in some sloppy tangle.
I sighed.
“Alright, break it up,” I called out and walked toward them.
The girl jumped and let out a squeak. The boy turned red instantly as he adjusted his jeans and tried to look innocent.
“This ain’t that kind of tour,” I said and crossed my arms. “You want to play adult, do it somewhere other than next to the dumpster.”
“S-sorry,” the boy stammered.
They nodded quickly and scurried off into the crowd.
I shook my head and kept walking. My boots crunched over gravel as I made my way back toward the haunted house.
Inside, the actors were rotating for the next wave. Screams echoed down the halls, speakers blared thunder and ghostly whispers, and the smell of fog fluid hung thick in the air. Piney stood near the entrance to the torture corridor, his makeup half-rubbed off, leaning on a prop skeleton.
“You good?” I asked.
“Had some kid scream so hard he pissed himself,” he said proudly. “Think I found my calling.”
“Try not to traumatize the guests too much. I don’t need parents suing.”
He grinned and ducked into the next hallway.
I took a slow lap through the house. Themed rooms lined the interior: cobwebbed dining halls, cursed nursery sets, flickering sconces, dripping red paint. The crew worked it like a well-oiled machine. Every jump scare was timed, every corner built to lead visitors into a scare zone.
Down the hall, Vin was resetting a hanging corpse rig while Cross and Push reset lighting in the rotating tunnel. Everyone had a job. Everyone pulled their weight.
We might’ve looked like chaos on the surface, but the Kings ran tight.
Always had.
Back outside, the sun was gone. The boats continued their cycle, ferrying screams back and forth across the water.
They paid us, and we gave them nightmares.
Now that was the definition of a dream job.
Check out the first chapter of Twister’s Salvation
Chapter 1
Meg
Chapter One
Twister
I didn’t come to Madison to make friends.
I came to take over.
“Pull around back!” I shouted and waved off Magnum as he coasted past the front of the building on his Dyna. “More room back there.”
Magnum nodded and peeled around the block with Wheels and Gramps behind him.
I parked my own bike right out front. Centered, bold, and unapologetic. Let the neighborhood know the Saint’s Outlaws were here and didn’t give a shit who saw it.
The building looked like hell. Two-story brick and the kind that hadn’t been power-washed since the ‘90s. A busted neon “BAR” sign hung crooked in the window. The street over, State Street, was full of college kids, grad students, and tourists, but this street? It had dust. It had cracks. It had potential.
Perfect.
I shoved open the heavy steel door, and the smell hit like a punch to the face: dust, mildew, and stale beer. I grinned. “Home sweet fuckin’ home.”
Swift was already inside with his sleeves rolled up, and his eyes scanned the place like he was trying to figure out how many bottles of bleach it was going to take to clean the place.
“Main floor’s gutted,” he called out. “Upstairs needs work. Office in the back’s moldy as hell, but the bones are solid.”
“Good. We’ll gut it and rebuild.” I stepped through the doorway, and the creak of the warped floorboards echoed. “Start fresh.”
Wheels came in next, and he carried two toolboxes and a crowbar. “Got a stack of paint cans and a sledge in the truck. Hodge is unloading now.”
“You see the back alley?” I asked.
“Wider than expected,” Wheels said. “Clubhouse parking for ten bikes, easy. Maybe more if we squeeze.”
“I’m not squeezing shit,” I muttered. “I want every bike clean and lined. First impressions matter.”
Rev strolled in behind him, holding a rolled-up blueprint and a travel mug that probably wasn’t filled with coffee. “I mapped the street radius. We’ve got eight bars within a two-block radius. Plenty of options to get a drink if we don’t feel like being here. Though ours is the biggest property.”
“If only this place wasn’t a dump,” Podge grunted as he joined us. He flipped through a thick folder of permits and city forms. “But it’s ours now. Legal and clean.”
“About fucking time,” Swift added with a smirk.
The front door creaked again, and Gramps walked in, breathing hard like the stairs outside had insulted him personally. “You boys better not expect me to sweep this place.”
“You’re the treasurer, not the maid,” I said.
Gramps flipped me off without breaking stride.
I stepped up to the bar, leaned my palms on the dusty wood, and looked around the room. Pool table sagged in the middle. One ceiling fan spun half-assed. A flickering light in the back hallway.
“I want it stripped, cleaned, and decent by Friday night,” I said.
“For who?” Hodge asked as he entered with a box of locks and chains. “We don’t know anyone here.”
“We will,” I told him. “By the weekend, half this block will know who we are, and the other half will be wondering how the hell they missed us.”
Chewy came through the back door next, Nugget and Sully behind him with duffels and supplies. Cord and Plug were already stacking cases of beer in the tiny walk-in cooler that hadn’t worked in years. The clubhouse was coming alive fast.
We moved like a unit. Everyone had a job. Everyone had a purpose. That’s what made us dangerous.
“What’s the deal with the upstairs?” Wheels asked as he wiped sweat from his brow.
“Seven small rooms. One’s already got a mattress and,” Nugget paused, looking back at Sully, “shackles on the radiator.”
I blinked. “Shackles?”
“Deadass,” Sully said. “Bolted down and everything.”
Swift raised a brow. “That wasn’t in the listing.”
“No,” I said, and walked toward the back hallway. “But it tells me we’re not the first outlaws to use this place.”
“And we probably won’t be the last,” Hodge added.
The back office was mostly empty, with one half-broken chair, a desk that looked like it had been used as a battering ram, and a single file folder on top. I opened it.
Blank pages.
Except for one thing—a sticker, peeling at the edge.
The Saint’s Outlaws skull, grinning in black and silver.
I’d left it there six weeks ago when I came through solo to scout the property.
A promise to myself.
A mark.
A warning.
We were coming.
And now we were here.
There were three other rooms back here that I planned to split to make rooms for all of us to have our own space, and also a room to have Church. For the time being, we would use the main room for Church. Everyone would have their own room. Well, Cord and Plug were going to have to share a room. They would get their own room when they became full members, which was not going to be anytime soon.
I walked back to the main floor as every bootstep echoed.
“You all feel that?” I asked and turned slowly to face the club. “That shift in the air?”
Nobody answered, but they all knew.
“That’s what it feels like when we take root. When the city changes. When we fuckin’ take over.”
Winter Travers, My End (Iron Fiends Book 10)
