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Beauty’s Breath

(The Satan Sniper’s Motorcycle Club)

Book 4

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Shan R.K

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

BEAUTY'S BREATH

First edition. January 2, 2020.

ISBN: 978-1540126115

Written by Shan R.K.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Beggar

Zero

Beggar

Zero

Beggar

Zero

Beggar

ZERO

Zero

Beggar

Zero

Beggar

Zero

Beggar

Zero

Beggar

Zero

Beggar

Zero

Beggar

Zero

Beggar

Further Reading: Kylie Bray

Also By Shan R.K

About the Author

Dedication

This book has been rewritten and is dedicated to my Grandmother, Marie Valerie Perrett. Her flesh and bones now lay as ash, while her spirit glows within the ones fortunate to have breathed her air, as memories, and moments from the past become those that define our future. In my life some of those are memories and lessons that she has taught me, not just by words, but by actions.

She gave me the tools to be a strong woman, and at times I admit I struggled to stand, but my grandmother held me by both hands at those times and lifted me up. Then she let me go, because she knew, she knew all along that one day I would need the strength to stand on my own. To lift my own daughter by her hands and learn to let her grow so she can become stronger.

Who you were or the way you felt, my Grandmother loved without judgement.

When she looked at me, spoke to me I never doubted her love, it was always an invisible beam between us. When I was younger we used to lay on her bed and she used to read to me stories from the bible while I used her arm as a pillow. I remember when I got a bit older and she read to me then I asked her, “Gran why does a story always start with Once Upon A Time?” She said because now it is a fairytale but once upon a time it was true. It was then I imagined life, I convinced myself that aliens were real. That I could be anything I want.

There is never a moment that is perfect to let the one you love go and she was one of the very few who I have loved and still do. I took my books off the pre-order today and I am glad I did. Because I get to share her memory with you guys. And dedicate this book that she waited so long to read but barely started. On Tuesday, December 4th 2018, I read the first chapter to her.

I wish I knew that it was the last day, but we never really know when death comes naturally, do we.

Playlist

Luke Combs – She got the best of me

Jordan Davis – Take It from me
Brett Young – Here Tonight
Kane Brown – Lose It
Mitchell Tenpenny – Drunk Me
Luke Combs – Beautiful Crazy
Brett Young – Mercy
Lady Gaga – Shallow
Cam – Burning House
One Direction – They Don’t know about us
Brett Young - Catch

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The Explanation

There is no excuse or reasons why I have taken this book off and why there has been a delay. I feel to you as the reader, that it is only fair I explain my reasons why.

The thing is I don’t really have a reason but to say that life has thrown me curve balls. I have been trying so hard to learn the art of living that I started losing part of myself in the process. Writing has always been easy, but recently the stuff I write always turns dark. The endings all seem too bleak and the romance though it burns like the yearning in my heart the words just come out as that, just words.

I was born to write, to create stories and enter entire different worlds. But now I am realizing that I was born to also live. For, how do we tell stories if we have barely understood our reality.

Right now as sit at this desk and write down these words, I can honestly say that this, now, is the most truthful that I have been to you and myself.

Beggar

Present

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DEATH, THE ONLY PART of our life already predicted from the moment our fetus is formed. The how’s, when and where’s may vary, but we all eventually die.

Death is the finale of moments, only when that moment comes it’s a lasting moment. The one thing in our lives that is meant to last for eternity and even then, we aren't sure.

What comes after death? Now that is debatable and depending solely on the one who is doing the answering.

The believers might say heaven or hell. A few religions may have some varieties on the name but the places are the same. One meant for the good ones and the other meant for sinners. Some might be convinced in reincarnation of the soul or like the Atheist believe- the black space, nothing.

But who on this earth really knows anything but for the paths we take to get there?

Now, while those paths we take may seem similar to others and we have that moment where we delude ourselves into thinking that this person or people can relate to what we have been through, it is still our path. Our moments made up by our choices.

The circumstances leading to those choices might very well be due to other people, but they are null in the bigger picture, devoid of relevance in the final outcome, death.

This, here, now, in this open parking lot with a gun in my hand, I pull the trigger, shortening his story. A sudden death, more than he deserves.

I tell myself reasons be damned of why I shouldn't do it. In my case, the one with the gun in my hand, I can honestly say that my reasons are the only thing keeping me going.

My eyes don't leave his shocked gaze as his hand goes to his stomach, so I pull the trigger again. The impact causes my arm to jerk back as the second shot gets him in his chest.

He would never understand how my heart shrivelled when he killed my babies. The burning sensation that takes him before death does, is the closest feeling that mirrors my own torturous loss I have felt because of him.

Yet, even now, watching his fall, there is no victory felt, no relief of the sweet revenge promised by the minds game of vengeance after the knight has its revenge. For after that moment like all sweetened treats, there is a price that must be paid.

I look up into the bright Southern sky, waiting for something, a sign. But the sun doesn't call to the sounds of murder, it does not hide behind the clouds screaming that this death was different.

Truth is, it is not some precious moment, it is just a life altering one for me- the girl with the gun,

And him- the man who has now fallen to the parking lot floor, bleeding to death.

I should say I feel some remorse for what has happened, but I can't, it would be a lie.

I was once a girl, who never wanted much besides a safe place to rest my head at night. Thorn was one of the men that crossed my path and made that impossible.

He took from me twice, now I have finally returned the sentiment by taking his life.

“NOOOOOOOO.”

The scream coming from the being who just yesterday claimed to love me can be heard in the back of my head.

I told him I will destroy him, I did. I never lied. There are moments in my life I wish I could take back, but even watching Zero run toward his brother’s dying form, with his face in anguish- this is not one of those moments.

“What have you done, why, WHY?” He screams at me as he drops to the ground next to his blood brother and I don't need to say a thing. Really, what more can I say?

I just killed his brother.

I took the one thing from him that he loved more than anything in the world.

I ripped it out because I could.

I told Zero that we were doomed from that moment- When he grabbed that gun out of my hands.

The only chance we had was a moment.

That is what we are given in life, just moments before death.

“Get out of here, the cops are on their way.” Killer's voice has me swinging into action as I slip the gun back in my holster and rush from the scene but even, I can’t stop the scream of the man I love that haunts my ears.

Beggar

4 months earlier

“Are you going to just stand there, looking at me or give me a hug.” Lucca's eyes hide a secret spell as they entrance me with just that wide-eyed knowing stare.

“Well, I guess that is exactly what you are doing,” He chuckles and I stand in his foyer of his hotel room, and watch as he walks closer.

He engulfs me and a dark scented whiff of his cologne embraces me as I put my head against his chest, until all I can smell, see and feel is him.

“I have missed mi Amor.” His words now all I hear. The beat of his chest silent to his deep dark voice that covers me in a web of seduction.

“Amariya.” The devil calling my name penetrates through my fog mind that still insists on remembering the sweet bitter love I had for my husband, Lucca Sanati six and a half years ago.

“Yo, what's up?” I rub my eyes, inhale a deep sounding breath in an attempt to hide my forbidden thought before looking up to Killer who is standing in front of the hotel rooms armchair I am seated on.

His blue eyes and sharp chiselled face give no hint of emotion, or clue to the killer that lives within him. I don’t need it to know he knows the one who is on my mind.

“We're heading to Kylie today, get dressed.” The order is given and like Killer, he turns, making a swift exit to either get ready, train or eat.

I watch his retreating form, frowning at his sudden change of mind.

Yesterday he refused to take me to Kylie. Now we were going

The bathroom door of the en-suite opens and like always, I follow the direction of the sound with a tilt of my head.

Zero's big body walks out. Naked chest bared to my eyes.

His jeans undone, the black jocks he’s wearing underneath on full display. The hard-protruded lines on his body visible.

This man is built to be a soldier.

He'd just showered, his skin is still misted. A light sheen blankets his skin, making his arm muscles look more pronounced than they really are. His broad shoulders that have carried many men to safety flex and twitch.

I have never asked him why he has the slight tremors. The question seems silly and it is something to look forward to every morning at seven twenty when he opens that door.

I am never disappointed and he is never late.

All in all, it is hard to miss the powerful, half-naked Enforcer standing and looking at me with eyes I know intimately.

I gulp when he smiles in that sexy way, I have come to know is his.

HIS one eye smaller when he smiles. The scar under his left eye, the sexiest yet most frightening part of his face lifts an inch.

Once that scar was the scariest part of him, but now I have come to know this man, with a heart full of so much to give, once you crack around his hard façade.

A month together on the road has helped me with that.

The fault in this picture is Zero with all his appeal has not had sex with me this past month.

Since Killer, Zero and I left Kanla to hunt down my husband, Lucca after he ordered his men to attack the clubhouse, Zero and I have slept in the same bed. But he has not touched me further than his hand on my thighs when we ride, or my breast to his chest and a few short kisses.

At night he sleeps on his side and I, on mine.

My dreams have not shown itself, nor has anything triggered a reaction to my living nightmare. I know it is not me that is the reason, but something more.

What? I don’t know but I will find out.

Before I met The Satan Snipers, a dreamless night’s sleep behind a dumpster would have measured up to a good day for me. A small break from seeing Lucca’s lustful eyes as his hands choke me until my own gaze fades into only terror

Time has changed me. Now, when my nightmares do show itself, I know it isn't Lucca's violence on me that will cripple me, but the screams of another girl, my friend, Kylie Bray.

An innocent girl that was once just a billionaire. A girl I thought was weak.

I was once convinced that she will never survive my life for one day. She proved me wrong, she survived my hell for weeks and still stands.

On the streets we prove our strengths by our actions, our will to survive to fight and fend for another hour.

Kylie Bray has proven to be the strongest woman I know. She was raped by my husband’s men for three weeks, over and over again. Beaten within an inch of her life every day. Hours spent getting tortured by those sick fucks, while they recorded it. All that, because she chose to help me.

The day I was too weak to stand I landed on her doorstep.

When I rang her doorbell, I opened the floodgates that would become her hell.

I should say that I regret going to her house the night I escaped from the cruel capture of Lucca, but, then I would never have spent that time with her.

I would have never learned about the quirkiness of Kylie Bray.

The Southern belle that hates Champaign and prefers a pizza over a burger.

She would have never told me that I was worth more than all those zeros in her bank account when all I felt was nothing but filth toward myself.

And how would I have seen her lopsided smile when I shot an arrow in her window playing Archery, or her determination to teach me to dive.

I would have never felt the freedom of will when I rode with Killer and her up the mountains and we watched the blood moon disappear as the sun took its place.

Those memories would have never existed. So how can I regret the horror that came after, when those moments before were like a strange magic of could BE's I will never get back.

She still stands, but I have not seen her.

I have not looked in her eyes and told her I am sorry, because her brother, Killer did not let me.

Today will be different, today I will look at the woman whose life is changed because of me.

I will see the damage I have caused, knowing that there is nothing I could do to make it go away.

There is no remedy to the past. Once it is done, it is written and sealed in blood, memory and time.

My cousin, Marco said, that the past is that which has happened. No matter how we look back on it, those moments, memories will be an unaltered occurrence, so we best just learn, observe and move on.

I scan the room.

The thick rumpled grey and white duvet, a reminder of my late night.

Fluffy pillows discarded to the floor, in my haste to run to the bathroom.

Empty containers of pudding that filled my stomach just a few hours ago sit in a line on the black wooden bedside table.

All of this a daily occurrence since the three of us have left Kanla.

The man standing shirtless, imposing as the day I first snuck a glance at him from underneath my hood, watches me from across our bedroom we have shared like a couple should.

Every day I remind myself, this life is temporary.

This man who has not touched me as a lover should, yet still breathes life into me is part of that temporary.

I admit it gets harder.

Zero is my biggest challenge I have yet to overcome.

Nothing good has ever lasted long enough to consider it a routine before now, especially not a man.

In the end he will be no different.

There are nights my body sweats and my hands shake as shivers rake up my back at just the thought of going back on the streets. Those nights show me that I have become weak.

Those nights I get this urge to hold Zero, to wrap my arms around his muscular back and dig my fingers into his torso just to remind myself that this is real.

I really did wake up on a soft bed, ate a hot meal and drank a warm drink while the Enforcer of a motorcycle club sat next to me.

Even these clothes on my back are mine, not hand me downs or stuff that was stolen. But as much as I want to hold my man, I don't.

Life on the streets will always be there. My past always the darkened taint to my present, reminding me of who I am.

No matter how comfortable I feel in this moment I have now, there are some things that are set in stone.

Relying on a man to comfort me is one of those things.

Unfortunately, my husband, Lucca is a big part of the reason why a man’s arms is not something I will ever need to warm my chills. No matter how much I crave it

And as I sit here looking at the Enforcer of one of the deadliest Motorcycle Clubs in the U.S, I don't need to seek him out to know that something is up.

I can smell it every time he steps in a room.

This Zero is not the man I met almost year ago.

He is different since leaving Kanla. The man in front of me is not the Zero I know.

I get a weird feeling that his thoughts are playing a deadly game of Russian roulette on his mind.

On the streets I learned from a young age that there is never mistaking caution for paranoia.

Those two feelings can be the single thread that separates you from the living and the dead. As sad as it sounds, it wasn't until I met my father, and he held a gun to my head that I figured that out.

I was twelve, still learning the rules of survival, still hoping.

I snort at the thought of how stupid and naïve I was at one stage.

Killer enters the bedroom and I watch the devil as he grabs the charger next to the bed in silence, at ease, leaving Zero and I alone again.

Killer has noticed Zero’s behaviour too.

But we remain silent in verbalizing our worry, doesn't mean we are not watching Zero.

“Killer's takin’ me to see Kylie today, I wanna go alone.”

“I gathered as much, tell her I said hi.” He walks closer to me, opens his mouth to say something else but thinks better of it and closes it.

Seconds tick by as he just stares long and hard at me. His eyes are filled with questions. What? I am not sure.

He turns and walks to his side of the bed, grabs his three rings first, puts it on. His phone is next, sliding into his pocket and lastly his wallet, which is a silver thin case that slides easily in the front side of his left pocket.

I know this as my eyes watch his actions now, as it has done this past month.

His back muscles bunch as he straightens his position and his tattoo that takes up his entire back screams at me to run as it has done this past month too.

It tells me to leave him, because that biker insignia knows its owner.

When our tide gets high, I will meet the killer that lives inside of the Enforce of The Satan Snipers.

“When you get back, I'm taking you out,” He says with his back to me, and I don't hide my surprise.

“Aren't you taking me to Kylie?” I ask in my fucked-up voice.

It sounds scratchier now after I puked my guts out while he was in the shower. Another thing that has become a daily occurrence.

At least I feel better once I am done.

His shoulders bunch, then drop, it is odd for him and something else that doesn't go unnoticed, confirming my suspicions. Something is up

“Can't, got shit I need to do today. Killers takin’ you in a cage.” He finally turns to me and I watch as his face remains closed off.

It feels like he just hit me in the chest with a bat, which isn't something I know too well. I rub that spot frowning.

My multi-colored sock covered feet hit the soft cream carpet as I head straight to the bathroom.

“Beauty,” His voice is hard and stern, but the silent plea is heard- for what? I don't know.

I am not his equal. I am a beggar, a woman hardened by the trials of life. He should know better than to think he can make me pliant.

“I told you my name is Beggar,” I snap as I head into the bathroom and slam the door closed.

The lock on the door makes that distinctive sound, telling me that the door is locked. I strip off my jeans and t-shirt, opening the spray of water.

My scarred body steps into the grey tiled shower.

The heat and sting from the waters pressure welcomed as it brings me to reality, hitting my back, reminding me of a similar sensation when something else hit my back too.

The door handle rattles and I look at it in fear. My hands go to my neck.

The scarred tissue, something I expect to feel. But the strings of diamonds and gold links relax me, reminding me that it is covered and brings me to reality, warding off my minds need to remember.

I am here, safe and sound.

Kylie is at home and she is away from all those men. No one will harm her again.

Vincent might be a made-man but he has honor and I know he is making sure that all those men who touched Kylie die a gruesome death.

questo è personale non è business. This is not business, it is personal.

The door rattles a bit more before Zero gives up as he has done every day. He could break it down if he really wanted to, yet he doesn't.

I am not sure what makes me doubt his love for me. The fact that he refuses to fuck me or the reality of this thing between us just a ploy from him to keep me away from his brother.

The water sprays my skin. I grab the soap, rubbing the bar on my marked flesh that matches the deep scars of my heart.

I rub the sensitive area, where I got shot on my shoulder. Making my way down to the multiple risen scars marring my flesh. I block out the memories of how I’d gotten stabbed, beaten, hurt and burned.

But I can’t hide the evidence.

It is all on my skin, a reminder of who I am. What I have gone through. What I will go through even in the future to make sure my girl is avenged.

The day I set my future, that day I chose to walk this path, Marco told me that vengeance always comes at a high price.

He said, if you play your cards too soon the opposition will take you out, if you play them too late you will get sloppy. Timing is everything where pay back is concerned.

Finding the right mark and knowing how to place it is just a bonus.

I grab the hotel robe that is hanging on a towel hangar behind the white door and slip it on.

I open the door to see Zero sitting on the bed, slipping on his boots.

He looks at me, and the small visible part of the chain covering my skin. It covers my burn like the polar necks I used to wear.

Beautiful diamonds to cover up the ugliness that is my life, keeping me hidden. Unlike the polar neck material that once served the same purpose, these diamonds do not come off.

Only one person can remove it and he isn't going to. At first when Killer put this necklace on my neck, I was angry and self-conscious wearing so many diamonds. But now I see it for what it is- A permanent protection, a shield, a collar owned by the devil himself.

And looking at the hard glint on Zero's face, he knows it too.

Killer has claimed me and while I may not be the

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 14.05.2023
ISBN: 978-3-7554-4238-7

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