Knight, p.1
Knight, page 1
KNIGHT
GRIM SINNERS REBELS
BOOK TWO
LEANN ASHERS
Copyright © 2022 by LeAnn Ashers
All rights reserved.
Knight is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.
Editors: Courtney Delollis & Virginia Carey
Cover Designer: Deranged Doctor Design
Photographer: Wander Aquiar
CHAPTER ONE
Daniella
I smile to myself, my eyes still closed. I can hear the little pitter patter of tiny feet, the sound of my daughter Annie walking to my bedroom like she does every morning to ask for breakfast.
I open my eyes just a sliver so I can see her sneaking into my room, the blanket covering my mouth, so she doesn’t see me smile.
She slowly eases her way over, her little bunny rabbit under her arm while wearing her little mermaid nightgown.
Her face is right in front of mine at this point. My eyes are closed and she can’t see that I am peeking.
“Mommy,” she whispers so cutely. I open my eyes, her little eyes are shining bright, and her little hair is mussed up from her sleeping.
God, I love her so much, I don’t even think I can take it sometimes. “Hi, baby girl.” I reach out and touch her hair trying not to laugh at how crazy it looks.
“I’m hungry,” she says.
“Alright, want me to fix you something or get McDonald’s on the way to River’s?” I ask her.
Her eyes light up. “McDonald’s!” she screams and claps her hands. “I’m going to get dressed.” She runs out of the room to her bedroom.
I smile, sliding to the edge of the bed trying not to think that at one time, I thought my sweet baby girl was gone. The aching pain hurts so much at times that I feel the need to place my hand over my heart to dull the ache.
The memories win and I close my eyes sinking into them. I was engaged at the age of thirteen, married at fourteen, and had my daughter at fifteen. I was raised in a cult and I didn’t know that life could be different. I would see people out in town and they were so different. God, I wanted that life, to be that carefree.
To live a life where I was free, a life where I didn’t have to worry about getting hurt because I didn’t do my wifely duties correctly.
I was never one to completely do as I was told, I was known to be a rebel. I was married into one of the main families in the cult and they tried to control me.
I was sick with pneumonia when I was fifteen, turning almost sixteen. I was so deathly ill, I didn’t think I was going to make it through.
My mother-in-law took her from me to care for her while I was sick, or so I thought that was what she was doing.
When I finally came to after a week of being so sick, they told me my baby girl had fallen ill with the same illness, but she had succumbed to it.
I just remember being so numb. I don’t think I left the bed for weeks and my husband had to force-feed me every meal.
I had nothing to live for.
They thought with her gone that they could control me better, but she was the only thing I cared about, cared enough to behave so I could protect her.
But no, she was it.
Anything they did to me, to make me bend was nothing compared to the death of my baby girl.
But she wasn’t dead, they lied to me. They did it to cause me pain. They thought that I was going to be a bad influence on my daughter and she wouldn’t have been raised right.
They gave her to my parents.
My sister Bell came years later and saved me, took me from the cult. I thought she was dead too. That’s what they told me, but everything was a lie.
My sister told me she had found my daughter, she had her and she was safe.
I couldn’t believe she wasn’t dead.
I left that place; I left the cabin where I was forced to spend the last three months as punishment.
I never looked back. I got my GED and got a job, but my ex-husband Arthur was spotted a few days ago. He was walking around showing my picture to people and going to schools in the area trying to find my daughter.
A member of the MC club that my brother-in-law is in rushed over to the house and told us.
God, the fear I felt was unreal. It wasn’t fear for me, but it was the fear of something happening to my daughter.
I went into hiding, but it hit me that I just needed to go somewhere else and start over where no one knows me, and he can’t find me.
That’s why I’m moving an hour away to a small town where my niece lives with her husband, who’s also the president of an MC there.
I stare at the wall, fear sending shivers down my spine. I want to forget that part of my life, but I need to protect her above all else.
I force myself to my feet, walk to my closet and put on a pair of leggings along with a sweatshirt since the air is chilly outside. My eyes wander to the suitcases on the floor, my heart aching because this has been my first home since I left that life.
But I will have my niece River, so I won’t be completely alone.
The girls are worth more than anything in cult life. I know the lengths they would go to just to keep them.
“Mommy, I’m ready!” Annie yells from her bedroom and I hurry to slip on my clothes that I had set out.
“I’m coming, baby.” I brush my teeth and pack my toothbrush, looking around the bathroom one last time to make sure that I haven’t forgotten anything.
I grab my last suitcase that isn’t already in my SUV. Annie is sitting in the hallway playing with her dolls. She looks up at me smiling, showing her missing front tooth.
My heart jumps at how beautiful she is. I made her and she’s the best thing I have ever done in my life. At night I find myself staring at her sleeping safely in her bed. It’s hard to believe that she is here.
The front door opens, and I peek over the stairs. My sister Bell and her husband Maverick walk inside the house.
Bell looks up at me and smiles, but I can see she is saddened by my leaving. I smile back at her. “Annie, Bell is here.” Her head snaps up looking over the railing. She screams and runs down the stairs like she hasn’t seen them in months, not just yesterday.
I laugh and follow her down the stairs, pulling my suitcase along with me. Maverick meets me halfway up the stairs taking it from me.
Bell hugs me. “Come visit me all the time?” I whisper to her, hugging her a little tighter.
She changed my life; she gave me a life and helped me through the darkest time of my life. Without her I am not sure where I would be.
She pulls back touching my cheeks. “You couldn’t keep me away.”
She may be my sister, but she has taken on the role of my mother, with her being so much older than me.
I laugh and turn to Maverick who is watching my sister. He’s so in love with her and it makes me so happy that she has him.
Annie walks up to Maverick and lifts her arms for him to pick her up. He laughs and hugs her tightly. “You better be good for your mom, okay?”
She giggles and tugs on the ends of his hair picking on him, and in turn he tickles her sides as she reels into laughter.
“Are you ready my girl?” I ask her. We have an hour drive there.
She hugs Maverick a little tighter before he leans her over so she can hug Bell. “We will be over to see you next week.” Annie nods and tucks her doll under her arm.
Maverick carries my bag out to the garage and I follow behind him with my purse on my shoulder, holding Annie’s hand.
I open the back door and help Annie into her seat, making sure that she’s buckled in correctly.
Maverick shuts the back, huffing. “I don’t like this shit, you could move back in with us,” he points out.
I laugh. “I know Maverick, but I want her to be normal as possible.”
He nods but he doesn’t look happy. Bell opens the door and I slide into my seat, starting the SUV.
They wave when I pull out of the garage. I feel like I am going off to college for the first time and my parents are watching me leave.
The gate opens and two prospects are waiting outside the gate to escort me to the Grim Sinners Rebels.
I press the button on my steering wheel so I can call River letting her know that I’m on my way.
I let out a deep breath trying to calm my nerves. Looking in the rearview mirror to check on Annie I ask her, “Ready to go, baby?”
She grins.
Yeah, everything is going to be okay.
2
KNIGHT
River is running around, freaking out because her aunt is moving into the house next to the clubhouse.
I try not to laugh when I see her trip over one of the guys’ boots, but I look down before she notices me trying not to laugh.
“Baby slow down, everything is going to be okay,” Gage tries to reassure her but it doesn’t faze her.
She finally sighs and settles down. I’m in my office filling out some of the charts my assistant decided she wanted to stop doing before I fired her. I’m the club doctor but I also work at the local hospital doing emergency surgeries whenever I have the time.
I don’t know anything about River’s aunt besides the fact that she is coming here to hide from an ex-husband that she was forced to marry in the cult.
It fucking blows my mind that stuff like that even happens. I have seen the effects of that life on the women, including River, and it’s terrible.
I sigh, sitting back into my chair, staring at the screen on the wall that shows the gates. River sticks her head into my office. “She’s here. Get your ass in here so you can meet her.”
I chuckle. She’s the President’s ol’ lady, and she was made for that shit with that attitude of hers. I have fucking witnessed the bad side of her and the ones who suffered because of it.
I look at the screen on the wall and see an SUV pulling up in front of the gate with two prospects behind it.
The SUV pulls to a stop in front of me when I walk out of the clubhouse. River is jumping up and down excitedly, opening the door and hugging a woman inside.
Terror walks out of the clubhouse next to me and the prospects take off the second the gates are closed with her safe inside.
“Do you need me to help with her bags?” I ask River when she steps back, letting her aunt out.
She walks from behind the door and I almost fucking die on the spot, the air leaving my lungs when her beautiful eyes turn to look at me.
I am fucking gone.
Daniella
I am wracked with nerves the whole way there. I constantly found myself searching for my ex-husband Arthur, to make sure that he hadn’t followed us. The face of everyone I passed on the road had me holding my breath.
My baby girl is in her own world in the backseat, chowing down on her McDonald’s and playing with the toy that came with it.
Before too long the gate of the clubhouse comes into view, the nerves hitting me full force as I’m going to be meeting a whole lot of strangers.
The house I’m staying at is close to River and behind the gate and fencing so it’s the safest place.
I eye my daughter in the backseat, her eyes are glued to the window staring at everything.
“We’re here,” I tell her and turn off the GPS waiting for the gate to open. The prospects behind me wait for me to pull inside before they take off back to their town.
Okay, here we go.
I see a few men walking out of the clubhouse and then my eyes hit River who is grinning from ear to ear.
My panic eases a little, but my hands are still shaking so I grip the steering wheel to stop them.
I have PTSD. I know that not everyone is like the men I grew up with and the one I married but that fear is rooted deep into my soul.
Old habits are hard to break out of sometimes.
I stop the car and River opens my door, pulling me into a tight hug. The fear slowly eases from me and I hug her back tightly. She pulls back staring at me happily. “I am so glad you’re here.”
I’m just a year older than her, me at twenty-two and her at twenty-one.
“Me too.” I slide out of the car stretching my legs. Gage opens the back door and lets Annie out. She squeezes his leg tightly; she loves him as much as Maverick.
I step out from behind the door smiling at them. I look at the clubhouse, it’s massive, and then to the men standing in front.
All my breath leaves my lungs at the sight of the man standing before me. He is gorgeous with the most intense eyes, eyes staring right back at me.
My face burns with the power of his eyes on me. I turn around and try not to show that his stare alone has affected me.
Annie runs from behind the car and to me. “Mommy, Gage is here,” she announces and points at him like I don’t see him. Trust me, no one is missing Gage with how massive he is.
Gage lifts his arm and waves people over. I peek over and see the guy who is way too good-looking for his own good, making his way over.
He stops directly in front of me; his dark hair, bright blue eyes, and the scruff on his face give him a rough and ragged look, complementing his skin that’s tanned from the sun.
I look at his chest, not able to meet his eyes anymore.
A few more guys walk out of the clubhouse. They are all handsome but no one compares to the one standing in front of me.
“Alright boys, this is Daniella. I mentioned her in the last meeting we had. She’s moving to the house next door,” Gage announces to everyone.
“I’m Terror,” he tells me and offers his hand for me to shake. He is smaller than the rest of the guys, but I see a fire in his eyes that lets me know exactly why he has gotten the name Terror.
The next one is almost as big as Gage. “Andrey.” He shakes my hand and settles back away from me, his eyes are intense, staring at everything around me.
Next is the beautiful man.
He smiles at me and then at Annie, who beams at being noticed. “I’m Knight, the club doctor.” He lifts his hand for me to shake and with shaky hands I place my hand in his.
His hand is warm, butterflies swarm my stomach. “Daniella.”
The smile reaches his eyes. I can feel River staring at me and it takes everything in me to turn away from him and look at her.
The smile on her face lets me know that I am as obvious as I thought I was. “I’m Annie,” my baby announces to everyone.
The guys chuckle and Knight bends down until he is at her level. “It’s very nice to meet you Annie, I’m Knight.”
Her eyes get big and I know exactly why, she is obsessed with princesses. “A real knight?”
He looks at me chuckling. “I am.”
Her mouth pops open. “Oh my gosh! Can I show you my princess dolls?” She jumps up and down looking back at the SUV where her toys are stored in the backseat next to her.
“Want me to get them for you?” he asks her and she runs to the backseat, opening and motioning to the container.
“Can I lead you to your house, Lady Annie?” he says in a formal tone and my heart feels like it’s going to burst.
River reaches out and takes a hold of my hand. “Girl, my ovaries could burst too,’” she whispers in my ear and follows next to me as we follow behind Knight and Annie, who are talking up a storm about princesses.
We turn the corner of the building and a cute yellow house comes into view. “It’s beautiful River, thank you for letting us stay here,” I tell her.
She squeezes my hand a little tighter. “I’m glad you’re here. I want my family close and nothing is closer than next door,” she jokes and I smile at her, thankful for her lightheartedness.
I look behind me and I see Gage is in the front seat of my SUV. “Well, I should have driven over.” I’m embarrassed that I parked so far away.
Knight pushes the door to the house open and sets the box inside. “I’m going to unload the rest of your things and we can play, how’s that?” he states to Annie and she looks at him like he is hanging the moon.
Knight looks at me, I look down at the ground and hurry to my SUV so I can help take out my bags.
Before I can open the back, Knight puts his hand on the door, stopping me. “I will get your things,” he offers and I don’t want him to feel obligated but the soft look on his face has me agreeing.
“Okay, thank you.”
Gage reaches in the backseat and takes out a few boxes. I feel weird not doing anything. “Can I make you dinner as thanks?” I ask them, rubbing the back of my neck.
Gage smiles at me. “Me and River have plans but thanks, Daniella.”
I look at Knight. “I’ll be here.”
I try not to pass out at hearing him agree to come to dinner. I let out a calming breath trying to pretend it’s not a big deal.
But have you seen how good-looking this man is? It’s a big deal.
River is on the front step sitting with Annie talking about coloring books. Annie has been dying to meet Penelope as River talks about her all the time. I’m glad that she will have a friend to play with. I need a job that I can do while she’s at school.
My scalp is hurting from wearing a high bun for so long, so I reach up and tear my hair out of the bun and run my fingers through the strands making my way to River and sit next to her, leaving enough room for the guys to slide past us while they take my things inside.
