One Eye (RUTHLESS KINGS MC™ ATLANTIC CITY (A RUTHLESS UNDERWORLD NOVEL) Book 3) Read online

  COPYRIGHT © 2021 ONE EYE BY KL SAVAGE

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted by U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, or organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. ONE EYE is intended for 18+ older, and for mature audiences only.

  PHOTOGRAPHY BY WANDER AGUIAR PHOTOGRAPY

  COVER MODEL: HALLE

  COVER DESIGN: LORI JACKSON DESIGNS

  EDITING: RUTHLESS ROMANCE EDITING

  FORMATTING: CHAMPAGNE BOOK DESIGN

  FIRST EDITION PRINT 2021

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Reading Order—Ruthless World by K.L. Savage

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter Twenty−One

  Chapter Twenty−Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  One-Eye Playlist

  Acknowledgements

  Also by K.L. Savage

  READING ORDER—RUTHLESS WORLD BY K.L. SAVAGE

  Reaper’s Rise (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #0.5)

  Reaper (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #1)

  Boomer (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #2)

  Tool (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #3)

  Poodle (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #4)

  Skirt (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #5)

  Pirate (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #6)

  A Ruthless Halloween (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #6.5)

  Doc (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #7)

  Tongue (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #8)

  A Ruthless Christmas (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #9)

  Knives (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #10)

  Lunatic (Ruthless Kings: Asylum Series, Bk #1)

  Boomer’s Rise (Ruthless Kings: Atlantic City Series, Bk #1)

  Tongue’s Target (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #11)

  Thrasher (Royal Bastards Series, Bk #1)

  Mateo (Moretti Syndicate Series, Bk #1)

  Kansas (Ruthless Kings: Atlantic City Series, Bk #2)

  Chaotic (Ruthless Kings: Asylum Series, Bk #2)

  Mercy (Ruthless Hellhounds Series, Bk #1)

  Bullseye (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #12)

  Orbiting Mars (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #13)

  Slingshot (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #14)

  Rainbow (Ruthless Kings: Baton Rouge Series, Bk #1)

  Whistler (Ruthless Hellhounds Series, Bk #2)

  Tongue’s Taste (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #15)

  Badge (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #16)

  Whistler (Ruthless Kings: Atlantic City Series, Bk #3)

  Triplets Rise (Ruthless Kings: La Grange Texas, Bk #1)

  Savage (Ruthless Kings: La Grange Texas, Bk #2)

  Country (Ruthless Kings: La Grange Texas, Bk #3)

  Raven (Royal Bastards Series, Bk #2)

  Tank (Ruthless Kings: Las Vegas Series, Bk #17)

  In memory of Carolyn Rumsey.

  Thank you for your endless support and love for the Kings.

  This one is for you.

  My emotions are roiling. My heart and my mind are at war, and all the rest of my emotions torment me, attacking both sides. The guilt, the regret, the confusion, the lies, the secrets, and the fear. All of it is building up into a tsunami ready to drown me. I’m standing in front of the catastrophic wave with no place to run or hide, just waiting for it to crash down. I don’t know how to sift through everything before I can save myself.

  I don’t know how to make sense of the fact that One-Eye and his biker friends killed my abusive ex.

  He rushed out into a terrifying storm to save my daughter from him. And then they took him to their… “playroom”. He may have stayed with me the day he died but he knew exactly what they were doing.

  I knew what I was getting into when I got involved with him. These are ruthless men. This is what they do. I asked him not to be in the room when they did it, but I’m not stupid. I know men like One-Eye want revenge.

  Even that thought sends a thousand more emotions through me. It’s the fear and guilt sticking the most right now. I’m not invincible. I’m a human being with thoughts and feelings and they are all over the place right now. I don’t know how to decipher everything with One-Eye. It’s confusing. I’m grateful, yet I’m afraid.

  I’m afraid of him right now.

  Do I want to be?

  No. Absolutely not.

  I love him. I’m in love with him. He’s amazing and he is a protector, but knowing what he can do, what he has done, I need time to think about it. I need time to process and to heal and to understand him. Maybe I’m a cold-hearted bitch, but I don’t see it that way.

  I have lived in fear for so long. My ex abused me mentally, physically, and emotionally. I’m exhausted from him. I hurt from him. All of my issues stem from him and what he has broken inside of me. My soul is crumbled, barely a shadow of what it once was.

  The thought of being with a man capable of doing unspeakable things scares me.

  Because I’ve had unspeakable things done to me.

  It’s so hard to trust heart over mind. I don’t know how to know which one I need to follow and listen to. The lines are blurred. Sometimes they cross and I can’t tell where one line ends and the other begins.

  One-Eye hasn’t come out said and that they killed my ex. He actually hasn’t said much of anything about himself. I don’t know much about him besides the fact that he treats me and Kimmy amazingly. Down in my heart I know that should be enough, but it isn’t.

  There is this wall surrounding him, a wall he won’t let me climb to get to know him. I can’t afford to be close to him, not while he stays a step back emotionally. It isn’t fair to me or Kimmy. I’ve been in the position where a man refused to give me all his love, yet demanded all of mine. It nearly killed me and my daughter.

  I don’t deserve less than honesty and trust and neither does Kimmy. We deserve someone that will let us in and not leave us wondering and guessing.

  Who is One-Eye? What happened to him in the past? Does he have a family? What secrets does he keep? Why can’t he trust me with them?

  It’s tearing me
apart on the inside. Not just the fear, the guilt.

  The guilt of him having to kill a man for me. Even if he wasn’t directly involved when it happened.

  What kind of woman am I? Someone took a life for me and that’s a burden I don’t know how to carry.

  Kimmy is eating her pancakes as if there isn’t a problem in the world and I’m sitting across from One-Eye, a tear running down my cheek. I wipe it away before anyone in the diner can see. One-Eye swallows and he reaches a hand out to me, gripping mine tightly.

  And every time I feel his touch, that guilt creeps in because I see those large, calloused hands over mine and those damn palms have killed a man.

  A man I don’t even miss, but regardless, a life was taken.

  And One-Eye didn’t do a thing to stop it from happening.

  “I know,” he says simply without me speaking a word. “I don’t want you to feel sad or guilty or feel like this is your fault. There is no weight on your shoulders, Mama.”

  Mama.

  I love it when he calls me that. His voice always softens and deepens at the same time. I always get shivers.

  “But I want us… I want us to be together, One-Eye. Maybe… maybe we can conquer this. What’s your story? Why was it so easy for you to… you know,” I gulp, censoring myself so Kimmy doesn’t hear. “What’s your name? Your real name? Where did you come from? Who are you? Let me in. Let me see you.”

  “You have. And what you saw, you aren’t ready to handle.”

  My lips tighten into a hard line. “You know that isn’t all there is to it.”

  “I know.” He slightly tilts his head to the left and the wrinkles around his eye soften. “I know my life isn’t easy, and I know the knowledge of what I’ve done isn’t easy to carry because of previous… life events.” He chooses his words carefully too as his eyes fall to Kimmy munching on her pancakes while she watches a show on her tablet. “And I know I’m not an easy man to get to know, and I can’t promise I know how to fix that.”

  “I think both of us need to heal before being together,” I whisper. “Or I’m afraid someone will get hurt.”

  “I’d never hurt you,” he admits softly.

  “Not physical pain, One-Eye.” I meet his gaze and his good eye steals another piece of me, because while One-Eye doesn’t tell me anything, his eye tells me one thing. There’s pain lingering in his soul. I want to reach in and take it away, but he won’t let me close enough.

  “Then I guess trying not to hurt one another is too late because this fuc-freaking hurts,” he corrects himself. “This hurts way more than I ever thought it would.” His brows furrow in the middle. “I’ve never felt like this for anyone else.”

  “Me either.”

  “But it isn’t enough.”

  “It isn’t enough, and you know that,” I state. “I feel like the closer I try to get, the further you move away and the bigger you build your walls. And I am struggling with what you did because you did it for me, to protect me and keep me safe. I know that here.” I tap my chest. “But my mind is overthinking.”

  “What are the chances of us getting past this, though? What if we do heal and we get ‘fixed?’ I know in my experience, people never come back together. When they say ‘I need to focus on me’ what that really means is they just don’t want to be together and want to see other people.”

  “I don’t want to see other people, One-Eye. There is no one else.”

  “There isn’t anyone for me either. I think I loved you from the first time I laid eyes on you.” His thumb brushes over the top of my hand and another tear drops down my cheek.

  I think I love him too. It was instant when I saw him, and Kimmy loved him too. I’ll never forget when he tried to learn how to skate. It was slow, steady, and hilarious. He fell so many times, but he always got back up. It’s a memory I’ll keep with me forever.

  “Do you believe there is a future for us?” he asks. His one golden-brown eye with long curly lashes stares at me with fear and hope. Longing, yet doubt.

  “I want there to be, One-Eye. I really do.”

  “I do too, Mama. I do too, so much. I love you both.” Emotion clogs his throat, and he lifts a hand to cover his mouth to cough. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, please feel comfortable enough to call me. I’ll be there, Mama. I’ll always be there.”

  “I don’t want this!” I finally sob and yank my hand away, burying my face in my palms as I cry. My heart is being ripped from my chest. Why is love so damn hard?

  “I don’t either, but you know what? I don’t think we know how to grow together right now. All I can think of is, I know you’re meant to be mine, so I have to be patient. And in that time, I have to better myself. I have to learn to let you in. I can’t do that right now. I can’t give you what you want.”

  “And I can’t give you what you want.” I can’t tell him that I know one hundred percent he’d never hurt me or Kimmy. It’s irrational, but it is a fear I need to conquer in order to be submerged in his life and the biker world.

  My issues are mine to overcome if I want to trust him.

  “What if this is it? What if we will never see each other again?” The words are caught on a hiccup. God, the thought of not seeing him again fills my veins with poison. The kind that takes its time, slowly sapping away my strength, stopping me from moving and breathing until I’m only a shell of myself until I finally die.

  It would be torture.

  He shakes his head and his cheeks redden. Emotion overcomes his voice. “I can’t think like that. I can’t believe that, or I don’t think I’ll know how to make it another day.”

  “Me either.”

  One-Eye’s phone rings, breaking the sad, depressing moment. “I’m sorry. I have to take this. It’s Prez.”

  Boomer.

  That’s another thing. The club is always first and I respect that, but I have a child to think of and she is first. Nothing and no one will change that. The club would never be first in my eyes, and I think that’s another disconnect between us.

  One-Eye slumps in the red booth and nods. “I understand, Prez. Yeah, I’ll be there.” He ends the call and tucks his phone in his cut. “I have to get to the Clubhouse. Club business,” he gives me the vaguest answer he can.

  It isn’t the only thing he is vague about. He’s vague about himself too.

  “As always,” I say bitterly. I don’t mean for it to slip, but it comes out. I shouldn’t have said that. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” He stands and Kimmy notices, ripping her eyes off the movie playing on the tablet.

  She yanks out her headphones and gives One-Eye a big, toothless smile. “Are we done?”

  “I have to go. Boomer called and you know I always have to go when he says,” One-Eye explains gently, then falls to his knee to get on Kimmy’s level.

  “Are we going to see you tonight?” she asks as she scoots out of the booth and I follow her as well, preparing to say goodbye.

  “I don’t think so. It actually might be a while, but don’t worry, you’ll always be on my mind, okay?”

  “Why is your eye watering, One-Eye?”

  “I’m just sad I won’t see and your mom for a while. I’ll miss you both,” he explains.

  I turn my head away and wipe my cheek again, hating myself more as the seconds pass.

  “We will miss you too, but we will see you soon, right?”

  “Right,” One-Eye gives her a tight smile. “I love you, Kiddo.”

  “I love you too.” Kimmy wraps her arms around his neck and gives him a big hug. His arms make her look so small as he holds her.

  I love those arms. So big and strong. Dangerous, yet delicate.

  Kimmy lets go and One-Eye stands. His hand cups my cheek and he presses his forehead against mine, then kisses me.

  A goodbye kiss.

  His lips are soft, and our mouths move together as if they are made for the other.

  I bet they are.

  “I h
ad to kiss you one more time,” he mumbles against my lip, then his thumb is there, stroking against my bottom lip. Then he brings his mouth to my ear and whispers, “If I knew it would have been the last time I laughed with you, held you, and kissed you, I would have made love to you better, harder, longer. I should have treated every moment, every time I was inside you, like it was the last moment. And maybe then I wouldn’t miss you so goddamn much already.” His hand drops from my face, leaving my cheek open to the cold air. I miss his warmth already.

  I miss him.

  “I’ll be looking forward to the day you’re mine again,” he says, pressing a kiss against the side of my mouth before stepping away. He gives me a longing look, then ruffles Kimmy’s hair and walks across the black and white checkered floor, vanishing out the door.

  I just hope he hasn’t disappeared from our lives forever.

  I just hope the future holds more than pain and disappointment.

  I’ve lost track of how many months it’s been since Alicia and I broke up. I’ve been putting on a brave face, but it’s all just a farce. I miss my sexy little Mama so fucking much, it’s hard to find the motivation to get up in the mornings.

  We haven’t spoken a word and I knew we wouldn’t. When people decide to take a break, it’s usually for good. We can take the time to find ourselves or whatever, but at the end of the day, the chances of us coming together again are slim.

  “One-Eye? Are you listening?” Boomer splays his palms across the table as he stands in front while he goes over a few things for Church.

  “Dude.” Arrow nudges with me his elbow, and I snap out of my thoughts when my arm slips off the table.

  “Hmm? What? Yeah, Prez. I got it.” Honestly, I don’t even know what’s been said in the last thirty minutes and I’ve been like this for a while now.

  His jaw flexes in annoyance and he narrows his eyes at me, clearly unhappy. “Church is over.” He straightens and places his hands on his hips. All the members get up and the chairs scratch along the floor. I go to stand but he shakes his head at me. “Stay,” he orders, eyeing me with impatience.

  I give him an understanding nod and sit back down. Arrow gives me a pitying look before heading out the door. Nail gives my shoulder a quick squeeze without saying anything. I have to make a mental note to say goodbye to him, Void, Teeth, and Decay. They are going on a trip overseas for club business and no one has any idea how long they will be gone for.