WRAITH (Iron Kings MC, #1)
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Get the Latest
Blurb
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
Epilogue
Next Book in Series
Want More MC Romance?
Franca Storm Library
About the Author
IRON KINGS MC
BOOK 1
FRANCA STORM
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
WRAITH. Iron Kings MC. Book One
Copyright © Franca Storm (2020). All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.
Cover Design by Clarise Tan at CT Cover Creations
Cover images provided by:
©istockphoto.com Stock Photo 482003618
The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed”. Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book”.
Get the Latest Franca Storm Updates
Subscribe to Newsletter
Cold.
Dark.
Dangerous.
I’m a ghost, living off the grid, never getting involved.
Until the President of the Iron Kings MC comes calling.
My oldest friend. My brother-in-arms.
I’m pulled back in to protect his daughter.
But the mission quickly turns personal.
She tempts me, drawing me too close.
I need to stay away.
I’m a dangerous monster.
I’ll ruin her.
But I’m drawn further into the world of the Iron Kings MC.
The promise of brotherhood and a fresh start seems too good to pass up.
She can’t stay away and neither can I.
Her light cuts through my dark.
She’s everything I didn’t know I’d been looking for.
But can a damaged bastard like me really find peace?
1
~Wraith~
GODDAMN CIVILIANS.
Six months had passed since I’d retreated to this one-horse town.
Even after all that time, the locals still hadn’t gotten the message that I’d been communicating loud and clear.
I was an anti-social bastard.
I didn’t share details about my life, neither my present, nor my past exploits.
I didn’t want to strike up any friendships with any of them either.
Or, worse, any kind of romantic entanglement.
For some reason, despite my overt standoffishness, the people of Langton still tried. Especially, the women. The come-ons were beyond brazen. Some of them were actually downright cringeworthy. There was a certain partygoing group of them that just wouldn’t let up with their flirtations, their staged run-ins, in an attempt to get a piece of me. Some of them were even married.
It was exactly the kind of trouble that I needed to avoid.
I couldn’t draw attention to myself. The stakes were literally life and death.
Sure, at one point, that high-stakes existence had given me a fucking hard-on.
But that’d been before.
Before the betrayal that’d torn everything apart and turned my life upside down. Before I’d been forced to retreat.
Now I was trying to pass for what I hated. A clueless civilian.
I was living a low-key life. Nowadays, I taught self-defense at a gym I owned in town.
Being a ghost had its limitations.
At least now I’d found a way to have something that almost resembled a life. Even that hadn’t been possible before.
For a year and a half, before I’d relocated here, I’d been holed up in a safehouse.
I’d been on the verge of losing my mind from the inactivity. I’d been going stir-crazy.
I was a man who needed to keep busy. I couldn’t stand still. I had to keep moving.
I couldn’t block shit out otherwise. And then it hurt. It hurt too much.
What a fucking mess.
Sighing, I pushed through the creaky door into the local hole-in-the-wall, Langton Arms, making my way over to the bar.
I scanned my surroundings. I could never be too careful.
All clear. No threats.
On instinct, I kept my head low, most of my features hidden beneath my gray hoodie. I ignored the glances I could feel directed my way from the half a dozen regulars situated around the place. They didn’t like the mystery I posed. It unnerved them and confounded them all at once. I only spoke when I had to, not out of some sort of mind-numbing social expectation.
Besides, if they discovered who and what I truly was, it’d shatter their fragile little lives.
“Your usual? Bourbon?” the young bartender spoke, as I slid onto one of the rickety wooden stools that’d seen better days.
Just like everything else in the old pub. The owners claimed it was intended, rustic charm and all that. They needed to call a spade a damn spade. The place was falling apart. I cringed as the stool scraped along the hardwood floor, etching yet another dent into it.
“Yeah, kid,” I answered the twenty-something guy, inwardly rolling my eyes at his neon-green mohawk. Normally, I’d applaud someone openly bucking the expectations of the conventional, disturbingly traditional little town in a bid to carve out their own path. But it was too obvious that he was doing it more so to get a rise out of people, rather than for any meaningful reason. If you were going to be a rule-breaker and a badass, it had to be for the right reasons. You had to own it well. Otherwise, you were just a sad poser.
At least he was a good bartender and quick on his feet for that matter. In seconds, he was sliding my glass across the bar top.
I caught it in my right hand.
My fingers trembled violently as I endured the all-too-familiar battle of trying to bring it to my lips. I could’ve used my left, but I was right-handed and no matter how I’d tried, it was still instinctual to act with my right. The struggle only occurred once in a while. The problem was, I could never predict when the old injury would act up and momentarily incapacitate me. Even if it had been possible to shed my ghost status, the unpredictable nature of my right hand these days would’ve barred