DAMON: A Bad Boy MC Romance Novel Read Online Free
Author: Meg Jackson
anything.
Tricia looked over her apartment. All the clothes she cared about, all the things she cared about, fit into a duffel bag at her feet. There were books on the shelves, still. Flowers in a vase on the little desk next to the bay window. DVDs haphazardly arranged in a pile beside the TV in the living room. Pots and pans and plates and glasses and all the detritus of a human’s need to eat in the kitchen. The comforter still on the bed. She looked for anything else she might take. She didn’t take anything.
Tricia looked over the Main Street of Duvall, Massachusetts. Tiny and bucolic, and not entirely unlike the town she was returning to. Now, in the first true blush of a Northern summer, potted flowers hung from the streetlamps and stores left their doors open to give passers-by a reprieve from the heat, a brief blast of air. There was no litter on the sidewalks. There were people walking to and fro, looking happy or unhappy; either way, it was no business of Tricia’s. She hadn’t made many friends. She didn’t take anything from Duvall.
All she had to take – all she could claim as new – was the feeling that she was better off than she was when she came. That she spent most of her days functioning perfectly normally. So perfectly normally that if you were to sit her down at a bar and swap stories over drinks, you’d be aghast and struck with disbelief when the truth came out.
Tricia thought that might be the reason she hadn’t managed to make more friends in the little town. Her coworkers at the library were pleasant and unscathed, all with decent marriages and simple stories. When she’d finally opened up about what had brought her there, they were sympathetic to a fault. And they never really treated her the same. They treated her like she was an orphan, or something too tender to touch. They meant well. They meant exceptionally well. She didn’t blame them for making things worse.
She loaded her duffel bag into the trunk of her car and sat behind the steering wheel. In a movie, she might have paused before starting the car and driving off – a long and poignant moment where she gathered her courage and everything else inside her into a tight bundle, prepared herself to propel into the past and the future at the same time. But she didn’t, just turned the key and pressed down on the pedal and left the town behind.
It had all started the previous autumn, when a motorcycle club, the Steel Dragons, came to the Volanis brothers looking to take over the marijuana business in Kingdom – they wanted to start introducing some more heavy-duty drugs to the small town, and didn’t want any competition from the gypsies. When the brothers refused, the Steel Dragons fought back, and they fought dirty.
Tricia’s involvement in the affair was pure, unfiltered bad luck. That bad luck had a name, incidentally; its name was Paul Tiding.
Paul was Tricia’s boyfriend that season. And he liked to show his affection with his fists. Tricia never thought of herself as the sort of girl to fall in with a man who’d abuse her, but there she was, being choked by her boyfriend outside the local bar. Cristov Volanis acted as her savior, running Paul off and bringing Tricia back to his trailer to spend the night in safety. The next morning, as she was leaving the trailer, someone saw her and made an assumption – an assumption that would change her life forever.
The bikers had confused Tricia for Ricky, thinking that it was Tricia who Cristov loved; they kidnapped her, intending to hold her hostage until the gypsies promised to leave town for good. For one awful night, she was at their mercy, tied up and bound. When she struggled and screamed, they punished her by putting her out in the frigid cold. Tricia had truly believed they would kill her. But they never got the chance.
Because Damon Volanis killed one of them first.
And, in doing so, Damon made sure that she would never forget him. He’d been the one to wrap
Tricia looked over her apartment. All the clothes she cared about, all the things she cared about, fit into a duffel bag at her feet. There were books on the shelves, still. Flowers in a vase on the little desk next to the bay window. DVDs haphazardly arranged in a pile beside the TV in the living room. Pots and pans and plates and glasses and all the detritus of a human’s need to eat in the kitchen. The comforter still on the bed. She looked for anything else she might take. She didn’t take anything.
Tricia looked over the Main Street of Duvall, Massachusetts. Tiny and bucolic, and not entirely unlike the town she was returning to. Now, in the first true blush of a Northern summer, potted flowers hung from the streetlamps and stores left their doors open to give passers-by a reprieve from the heat, a brief blast of air. There was no litter on the sidewalks. There were people walking to and fro, looking happy or unhappy; either way, it was no business of Tricia’s. She hadn’t made many friends. She didn’t take anything from Duvall.
All she had to take – all she could claim as new – was the feeling that she was better off than she was when she came. That she spent most of her days functioning perfectly normally. So perfectly normally that if you were to sit her down at a bar and swap stories over drinks, you’d be aghast and struck with disbelief when the truth came out.
Tricia thought that might be the reason she hadn’t managed to make more friends in the little town. Her coworkers at the library were pleasant and unscathed, all with decent marriages and simple stories. When she’d finally opened up about what had brought her there, they were sympathetic to a fault. And they never really treated her the same. They treated her like she was an orphan, or something too tender to touch. They meant well. They meant exceptionally well. She didn’t blame them for making things worse.
She loaded her duffel bag into the trunk of her car and sat behind the steering wheel. In a movie, she might have paused before starting the car and driving off – a long and poignant moment where she gathered her courage and everything else inside her into a tight bundle, prepared herself to propel into the past and the future at the same time. But she didn’t, just turned the key and pressed down on the pedal and left the town behind.
It had all started the previous autumn, when a motorcycle club, the Steel Dragons, came to the Volanis brothers looking to take over the marijuana business in Kingdom – they wanted to start introducing some more heavy-duty drugs to the small town, and didn’t want any competition from the gypsies. When the brothers refused, the Steel Dragons fought back, and they fought dirty.
Tricia’s involvement in the affair was pure, unfiltered bad luck. That bad luck had a name, incidentally; its name was Paul Tiding.
Paul was Tricia’s boyfriend that season. And he liked to show his affection with his fists. Tricia never thought of herself as the sort of girl to fall in with a man who’d abuse her, but there she was, being choked by her boyfriend outside the local bar. Cristov Volanis acted as her savior, running Paul off and bringing Tricia back to his trailer to spend the night in safety. The next morning, as she was leaving the trailer, someone saw her and made an assumption – an assumption that would change her life forever.
The bikers had confused Tricia for Ricky, thinking that it was Tricia who Cristov loved; they kidnapped her, intending to hold her hostage until the gypsies promised to leave town for good. For one awful night, she was at their mercy, tied up and bound. When she struggled and screamed, they punished her by putting her out in the frigid cold. Tricia had truly believed they would kill her. But they never got the chance.
Because Damon Volanis killed one of them first.
And, in doing so, Damon made sure that she would never forget him. He’d been the one to wrap
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