His Rival: Royal Bastards MC - Miami FL

  Addison Jane

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  His Rival

  Royal Bastards MC

  Miami, FL

  Addison Jane

  Copyright 2022 Addison Jane

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations, or places is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author. All songs, song titles, and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book contains graphic language and sexual content and is intended for mature audiences ages 18 and older.

  There is content within this book that may set off triggers click here for help.

  Editing by Swish Design & Editing

  Proofreading by Swish Design & Editing

  Book Design by Swish Design & Editing

  Cover Design by Lucian Bane

  Cover Image Copyright 2022

  All Rights Reserved

  Note for the Reader

  Below is a list of the other club chapters listed in this book and their authors:

  In order of appearance:

  Miami, FL – Addison Jane

  Tampa, Fl – K E Osborn

  Jacksonville, Fl – Kathleen Kelly

  FOURTH RUN

  B.B. Blaque: Royally Malevolent

  Morgan Jane Mitchell: Royal Road

  Crimson Syn: Wrecked from Malice

  Glenna Maynard: Claiming the Biker

  Liberty Parker: Property of Wrecker

  Amy Davies : Fighting for Una

  Addison Jane: His Rival

  Erin Trejo: Trek

  Misty Walker: Petra’s Biker

  Chelle C . Craze & Eli Abbott: Wiley AF

  KL Ramsey: Dizzy’s Desire

  Nikki Landis: Twisted Devil

  M. Merin: Wolfman

  Kristine Allen: Sabre

  J.Lynn Lombard: Derange’s Destruction

  Deja Voss: Forbidden Bruises

  Darlene Tallman: Brick’s House

  Nicole James: Keeping the Throne

  Shannon Youngblood: Kingdom and Kourt

  India R. Adams: parting for Thunder

  Jessica Ames: Into the Dark

  J.L. Leslie: Worth the Pain

  Nicole James: Climbing the Ranks

  Elle Boon: Royally Judged

  J.L. Leslie: Worth the Trouble

  Kristine Dugger: Familiar Taste of Poison

  Kathleen Kelly: Creed

  K.E. Osborn: Alluring Abyss

  Murphy Wallace: Injustice and Absolution

  Ker Dukey: Havoc

  Dani Rene: A Beautiful Monster

  Royal Bastards MC Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/royalbastardsmc/

  Website - https://www.royalbastardsmc.com/

  PROTECT: The club and your brothers come before anything else, and must be protected at all costs. CLUB is FAMILY.

  RESPECT: Earn it and Give it. Respect club law. Respect the patch. Respect your brothers. Disrespect a member, and there will be hell to pay.

  HONOR: Being patched in is an honor, not a right. Your colors are sacred, not to be left alone, and NEVER let them touch the ground.

  OL’ LADIES: Never disrespect a member’s or brother’s Ol’ Lady. PERIOD.

  CHURCH is MANDATORY.

  LOYALTY: Takes precedence overall, including well-being.

  HONESTY: Never LIE, CHEAT, or STEAL from another member or the club.

  TERRITORY: You are to respect your brother’s property and follow their Chapter’s club rules.

  TRUST: Years to earn it... seconds to lose it.

  NEVER RIDE OFF: Brothers do not abandon their family.

  Table of Contents

  Note for the Reader

  Authors and Information - Royal Bastards MC Series

  Royal Bastards Code

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Connect With Me Online

  About the Author

  Prologue

  EMMY

  Age Thirteen

  The blood.

  It was everywhere.

  Droplets of crimson red splattered across the living room wall of the single-wide trailer Mom and I lived in.

  “Emmy.” A hand grabbed me, and I jumped back, blinking furiously as I tried to bring the person into focus through the tears that wouldn’t stop streaming from my eyes. “Emmy, look at me.”

  Dad grabbed my face, the blood on his hands transferring to my cheeks. The wetness felt strange against my skin, slippery and slimy. I tried to keep my focus on him, but it was pulled away by the bent and stained golf club he had clutched in his other hand.

  It was my mom’s boyfriend’s. I hated having them in our tiny house—the large carrier with all the clubs inside took up more space where we were already too cramped. Every single time he brought them in, I knew it was just to show off to my mom.

  The clubs were always sparkling clean like they had never actually been used.

  Though, at least one of them had been now.

  As a murder weapon.

  “He was trying to…” I mumbled, attempting to breathe through the shaking that had finally begun to spread through my body as the adrenaline of the moment began to wear off and reality set in. “He was trying to…”

  Howard was older, balding, and he had bad knees. I knew this because he moaned and complained every time he walked up the three steps to our trailer. He liked to pretend he was sophisticated because he had a house out next to the ocean and drove a Rolls-Royce. I guess that was why Mom ‘loved’ him so much. He made her feel like she was classy when he talked about his days at the country club and how he golfed with some famous guy.

  Then he made her feel like shit again when he refused to take her with him.

  Because he had a wife and kids.

  Turned out, even with a wife and a mistress, he still couldn’t keep his dirty hands to himself.

  “Emmy, stop!” Dad ordered, tossing the bloody golf club to the side and dropping to his knees in front of me, his hands cradling my face. “I know. I know what he was trying to do. And when the police get here soon, we’re going to tell them exactly what happened. That I did this because he was hurting you. That this was self-defense.”

  “Daddy…”

  He shook his head, shaking me just a little and forcing me to focus on him and only him. Not the blood smeared over our bodies or the bloodbath surrounding us. It was almost like someone had seen red, and once they started, they couldn’t stop.

  “That’s what you’re going to tell them. I did this in self-defense. I want to hear you say it.”

  “Self-defense,” I murmured, glancing past his head to see the red and blue lights that were now flashing outside. “It was self-defense.”

  I wasn’t sure why that was important, but he was focused on it, so I kept repeating it to myself.

  “Police! We’re coming in.” The trailer door almost flew off its hinges, and a rush of police officers took over, yelling, screaming, and telling us to get down. “On the floor! Both of you, on the floor.”

  My dad dropped hard, lacing his fingers at the back of his head. My hands shot up into the air, but I shook my head. “Please, don’t make me,” I pleaded, searching the group of officers for the one who was going to hear my plea and understand it. “I can’t… he tried… please…”

  I didn’t want to get back on the floor.

  I knew the second I did, I’d lose it completely.

  I swear I could still feel his body on top of me, and his hips grinding down on me. The smell of vodka on his breath still lingered across my nostrils.

  Only it couldn’t be.

  Because he was currently lying face down on the dirty beige carpet, a puddle collecting around him that I knew we would never be able to get out with any kind of carpet cleaner. He just lay there.

  Not moving, not breathing because he’d been beaten bloody.

  A cop crouched down beside the body and pressed her fingers to his neck, pinching her eyes closed for a second as she waited to see if she could feel a pulse against her fingertips.

  The shake of her head wasn’t a surprise.

  The sign there was no life.

  “What happened?” one of the officers demanded, and my dad quickly answered
.

  “I caught him trying to hurt my daughter. I had to protect her.” A couple of cops pulled him to his feet and slapped some cuffs on him, their voices turning to a blur as they read him his rights while they dragged him out the door.

  A nice police lady came over and wrapped a blanket around me. “Come on, sweetie, your mom is on her way home. How about we get you out of this chaos and wait for her outside?”

  “It was self-defense,” I repeated, and the lady nodded.

  “He was trying to hurt you, and your daddy stepped in,” she said. “I know, sweetheart.”

  My mom’s boyfriend tried to rape me, and now he was dead.

  Beaten to death.

  It was self-defense.

  Chapter One

  EMMY

  “Only four years, three months and seventeen days to go,” I mumbled to myself as I stepped up in front of the daunting steel gates and pressed the buzzer.

  The black steel bars were over eight feet tall with elegant swirls and a crest decorating the point at the top. The gates had this looming presence, the way they stood over you like they were scrutinizing and evaluating you before they decided if you were worthy to enter.

  No wait, that was my mother.

  The queen of this damn castle.

  It was at least a few minutes before a loud beep sounded and the gates separated, though barely. Enough for me to literally squeeze through them with everything sucked in, popping out the other side with a gasp before they slowly eased closed again.

  The day I no longer had to walk up to this house would be a day of celebration.

  “Four years, three months, seventeen days… four years, three months, seventeen days.”

  That was how long it would be until my little sister, Bailey, turned eighteen, and I no longer had to entertain my mother’s blackmail in order to see her. She knew it too. She knew the moment I didn’t have to be here, there was no chance of me returning.

  “Emmy!” Bailey beamed as I stepped through the large wooden double doors and into the foyer. “Mom’s trying to make me change, but you like this outfit, right?”

  Closing the doors behind me, I eyed my teen sister’s baggy mom-style blue jeans and the black ribbed crop top she had paired it with. “It’s cu—”

  “Emeline,” my mother’s sharp, no-nonsense tone scolded as she stepped out of the formal living room to my left, a glass of wine in her hand. I hated that my mother still insisted on using my full name. Emeline. It’s kind of beautiful, I don’t dispute that. I really wish I could have loved it, but then Mother spent the better part of my youth screeching it at me whenever I did something wrong. “I swear to God, you best not be about to call her outfit cute. She has her stomach showing.”

  “Hold on,” I said, inching closer to my little sister. “Yeah, if I get really close and squint my eyes a little, I can see that little bit of skin right… there.” I reached out and pointed with a smirk.

  Mom huffed and stomped past me. “I don’t know why I bother. You always take each other’s side.”

  Um, yeah, we did. Because we’ve both experienced just how damn psychotic you are.

  “Come on, let’s have dinner, so you can go off and have your fun together.”

  And there it was.

  The poor me…

  No one loves me…

  Everyone leaves me…

  I couldn’t understand why…

  … bullshit!

  I hooked my arm around Bailey’s neck, both of us trying to keep our laughter and eye rolls to a minimum as we tramped through the entrance, past the kitchen which was busy with at least three professional kitchen staff cooking our dinner, down to the formal dining room that overlooked the pool and perfectly manicured back garden.

  Mom sat at the head of the table as per usual, Bailey and me on either side.

  It was the same routine.

  Every single Friday night.

  When I walked out of this house with my head held high at the age of eighteen, I had no intention of coming back and dealing with this woman who made it her life’s mission to point out every single one of my flaws, my failures, and remind me constantly how I didn’t meet her expectations.

  I also thought that she wouldn’t be so cold as to stop my contact with Bailey when I walked out.

  But as far as she was concerned, if I thought I was going to cut her off after everything she’d done for me, then I was going to be punished for that act of betrayal.

  It took a long time, years actually, but eventually, we came to an agreement.

  So this was what I had to endure—a weekly dinner.

  And with that weekly dinner, I got to have the relationship I wanted with Bailey, and she got to control me for about ninety minutes every damn week. She decided what we ate, when we ate, and where we sat, and we weren’t allowed to have any discussions she didn’t feel were appropriate.

  Or really, that she didn’t like.

  Which meant conversations which didn’t include my best friend, who was stripping to put herself through school, or my job at Waterton Correctional Facility helping inmates learn the skills they will need to transition back into society.

  It was a job I was proud of.

  But she was not.

  “What are your plans for tonight after dinner?” Mom questioned, picking up her knife and examining it as if she was a detective looking for prints.

  “I think we’re gonna go golfing, right Bailey?” I replied, sitting a little taller and grinning at my sister across the table. She pressed her lips together, nodding, and humming in agreement.

  Mom’s face lit up instantly. “Oh, thank goodness,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I’m assuming you’re going to the country club to golf. I’m so glad you girls are spending time there. We need to keep up appearances you know, or people will stop inviting us to parties, and we will just fade into the past like we never existed.”

  By us and we she meant her.

  Bailey and I had no concerns about fading away from the people who went to the country club she was a part of. But for now, we weren’t going to tell her that because then we would have to explain that by golfing, we meant mini putt at Pete’s Putt-o-rama.

  “What’s with the fancy cooks in the kitchen?” I asked, trying to move the conversation along. She usually orders in from one of the fancy places in town and gets the butler to plate it up.

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting something cooked fresh once in a while,” she answered defensively.

  “Okay… but you do realize I’d be happy to just eat mac and cheese or something?”

  Bailey’s eyes lit up, and she sat forward, her eyes flickering between Mom and me. “Can we have mac and cheese next Friday night?”

  My mother simply rolled her eyes. “This is not a mac and cheese house.”

  I scoffed loudly. “Um… I’m sorry but Shirleen used to make mac and cheese for Christmas dinner.”

  “Emeline,” she hissed under her breath, her eyes looking toward the kitchen, scared the fancy people cooking dinner or the handful of staff she had waiting on her hand and foot would hear all about the unflattering secrets she kept. Like how before she went by her high-class name, Catherine Dalton, she was just Shirleen Boone.

  Shirleen Boone of the Boone family of Pine Peak trailer park in Bristol, Tennessee.

  That was where I grew up until I was fourteen and my mom met Bailey’s dad, Finley Dalton, at a bar in town while he was passing through on business and saw the opportunity of a lifetime.

  A good man.

  A good rich man.

  One who she knew instantly would do the right thing if she accidentally got knocked up.

  When the lasers stopped shooting from her eyes, her mouth fell open, ready to tear me a new one for using her old name. But thankfully, the chef and his two helpers, each holding a single plate, paraded in from the kitchen and placed their dishes in front of us before stepping back.

  The mom that was ready to kill me was instantly replaced by someone else.

  It was as easy as putting on a mask for her.