Boots Read online

  Jessie Cooke

  Redline Publishing

  About this Book

  Edition #1: December 2019

  The Skulls Books are about the Skulls clubs, its members, and non-members who influence Skulls life.

  Sometimes a story will be about a specific member of the club and other times about a person who is not a patched member, but is connected in some way to the Skulls club life, and who may or may not become patched in a later story.

  It’s all about giving you the Stories of the Skulls which is much more than just its patched members.

  This gives me a lot more scope to write the stories that I want to share with you.

  Ensuring you have the Latest Edition.

  At the top of this page is the edition number for this book. You can check on my website www.jessiecooke.com to see whether you have the latest edition, and if you have an earlier edition of any book or collection, you can contact Amazon support and ask them to send you the latest version.

  Why do I do this?

  So you always have the opportunity to have the best version of any story, whether it has been updated for some late editing changes, or because the story details have changed slightly to clarify content that might be confusing readers.

  I’m always trying to present the best reading experience and if that means updating a book, that’s what I will do.

  I hope you enjoy this book,

  Jessie.

  Contents

  Don’t Miss Out

  Description

  Prologue

  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

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  Description

  Neglected at home, bullied in school, Matteo “Boots” Romano had to learn too young how to take care of himself.

  Raised in a 1% MC by a father who thought of her as little more than a commodity, Celeste Hall spent her young life plotting her escape.

  Whether it was fate that brought them together that night, or Matteo’s resolve to see the mysterious, beautiful Celeste one more time before he left New York, neither of them might ever know. But when the two teenagers literally collide in the night, they set in motion a series of events that will take them across the United States and even into Mexico as Celeste runs from her past, her present, and an uncertain future…and Boots searches for a place where he might finally feel like he truly belongs.

  Just as Boots starts to fall in love with the feisty young woman with eyes the color of the sea, he is forced to learn a hard truth, that loyalty might just be no more than a word in the dictionary.

  Celeste will spend the better part of the next decade on the run, moving from one dangerous situation to the next, while Boots forges a path toward success. When he ultimately takes a fork in the road that leads him to the Westside Skulls clubhouse, he’ll finally discover the place he’s been searching for, the place where he belongs. From Westside in Fresno to the newest chapter of the Skulls in Phoenix, Boots will once again begin to carve out his own future…one that will suddenly be threatened by a web of lies, a brutal murder and the kidnapping of a young boy.

  When it looks like Boots might have committed these heinous acts, will the Skulls turn their backs on one of their own? Or will they pull together and prove to Boots and the rest of the world that the U.S. Marine’s aren’t the only brotherhood who refuse to leave a man behind?

  Prologue

  Present Day.

  Boots signed for his belongings and walked out of the jail, squinting at the hot Phoenix sun as soon as he stepped outside. Once his eyes adjusted, he saw his long-haired, tattooed friend, Finn McGregor, leaning into his Harley and watching him. Finn was called “Snake” by most of the guys, and he also went by VP since he had been patched over as vice president of the Phoenix Skulls. But to Boots, at least one to one, he was just his crazy, Irish friend. They’d been through a lot together in the short year they’d known each other, and Finn’s green eyes were some of the most expressive ones that Boots had ever seen. But for the first time since he met the young, friendly Irishman, he was afraid to look into them. It had been one hell of a few weeks…the worst in Boots’ life, and that was saying a lot.

  He finally stepped down toward the parking lot, reaching Snake in a few steps. Snake put his hand out and the two men clasped fists and brought it in for a quick hug. When Boots pulled back Snake said, “How bad was it?”

  Boots didn’t want to talk about it, and the bruises on his face and knuckles should tell his friend all he really needed to know. If he wanted more of the story, he’d have to see the binder holding Boots’ ribs together and the spaces way in the back where there used to be teeth, before the side of his face made contact with a massive fist. None of that was the worst part, though. The worst scars Boots would carry inside of him, the way he had with everything else his entire life. “Not too,” he said. “But if anyone knows what it’s like in there, it’s you.”

  Snake grinned. “Hey, I haven’t been locked up in over a year.”

  Boots smiled. “Some kind of record, huh?” Boots had a rough life, but as an adult he’d avoided jail, until now. “Where’s my bike?”

  “Prince is on his way to pick you up in the van. I just didn’t want to leave you waiting out here by yourself.” That made sense considering that he was the pariah of the community these days; even in the parking lot of the busiest jail in Maricopa County it surprised Boots that some of the “community” weren’t waiting for him with pitchforks and torches. What interested him the most about Snake’s “answer” to his question was that the Irishman avoided telling him where his bike had ended up.

  “Okay, thanks. But where’s my bike?”

  Snake grimaced and said, “What’s left of it is at the shop.”

  “Fuck.” The sound of the Phoenix Skulls van pulling into the lot sent a jolt of relief through Boots’ body. He was never one to back down from a fight, but as of late he’d had more than his fair share. Just then all he wanted was to be in his own trailer, in his own shower and his own clothes and his own bed. Three weeks in county jail had been a special kind of hell…

  “Dax Marshall’s old lady is here.”

  Boots took his eyes off the van as Prince parked it alongside them, and looked back at Snake. “Jace asked her to come?”

  Snake nodded. “He said he didn’t trust anyone else to defend you.”

  Boots sighed. “You think that means he believes me?”

  Snake, always the peacemaker, nodded enthusiastically. “Of course he believes you. Brother, we all know you and we know there’s no fucking way you’d ever…you know, do that.”

  Snake couldn’t even bring himself to say it…what Boots was being charged with. Boots didn’t blame him; the words were ugly, the accusation even uglier. “He
y, man, we better get a move on,” Prince said. “There’s a group of about a dozen people out front with signs and bullhorns and shit. I’d lie down in back if I were you as we go by.”

  Fuck. Boots wished he would wake up from this nightmare and find out that it was all just that…a horrible dream. He wished so many things, the least of which was that he’d never laid eyes on Celeste Hall…or Sadie Gray…whatever the fuck she was calling herself these days. Maybe then, he wouldn’t be a walking target, persona non grata in the first place in his life that had ever really felt like home.

  “There he is!” Before Boots could even react to the loud voices, Snake and Prince had their hands on him, pushing him into the van. His first impulse was to stand his ground, and fight, no matter how tired or outnumbered he was. But there was still a part of his brain working rationally, and he knew they were right and he had to get the fuck out of there before things exploded and he ended up right back inside the cement building that loomed behind him.

  He was practically shoved into the van by his brothers, and the door was slammed shut, but not before he heard the ugly accusations being hurled in his direction. He’d heard it all before he was locked up, and again while he was inside for three weeks, awaiting his bail hearing…but it never got easier. Hearing it still made him sick to his stomach and although he knew it wasn’t true, it still made him loathe himself.

  Prince jumped into the driver’s seat and Boots sat on the floor of the van with his back up against the side. He covered his ears with his hands and they were a mile away in sixty seconds, but Boots didn’t uncover his ears. Even over the noise of the van’s V-8 engine and the stereo that Prince had cranked out, he could hear it…the ugly, hateful word they’d labeled him with…the word that had not only taken up residence in his head but seeped into his soul. For a few seconds he believed that he just couldn’t take it any longer. He had to make it stop. He pulled his head forward, and then slammed it back into the side of the van, and it worked for one blessed second. But then they started again…slowly, and in a whisper. Before long the single voice turned into a collection of voices, voices he recognized. They were the voices of his community, the voices of his brothers and sisters in the club, his new family. They were the voices of the very people who taught him the true meaning of love and respect and family. They were the ones that spoke up for him when he was first accused, the ones who professed to always have his back. But Boots had seen the change in them all…he’d watched as the doubt had seeped into their eyes. And now their voices were in his head, and collectively they were whispering one horrific word. In the past three weeks he’d even considered taking his own life, before someone else did. The only thing stopping him was his fear that when he was dead and gone, that one word would define him forever…maybe it would even be etched into his gravestone. One word, one lie he feared everyone else believed…

  “Pedophile.”

  1

  About Twenty-Five Years Earlier

  Fear, it’s the one thing we all have in common. Matteo didn’t know that, of course, when he was just a kid and always running scared. All he knew then was that he was alone in his torment. His mother had enough problems dealing with her philandering, gambling, alcoholic husband. That man was also Matteo’s father, but even by the tender age of six years old, Matteo knew that was in name alone. The old man was much too busy spending the money Matteo’s mother earned, cleaning other people’s houses, to notice the boy who lived in his own house. Most of the time that was okay with Matteo. If the old man didn’t notice him, he didn’t have to bear the look of disgust and disappointment that appeared there in his eyes. Matteo was never sure what he did to earn that look; he just assumed it was something he did before he was old enough to remember. Surely people didn’t just hate you for no reason.

  But home wasn’t what Matteo lived in fear of. It wasn’t a happy place, but it wasn’t a dangerous one either. The people who could hurt him there were too wrapped up in their own lives. What scared Matteo even more than the torment his classmates doled out on the playground, in the form of things that left bumps and bruises, were his shoes. Maybe someday, later in life, the boy would discover things much more frightening, but since the day he started kindergarten, he’d lived in abject terror of the material that covered his feet. Matteo recalled that first day, the one he’d been so excited about. His mother had taken him to the local thrift store and she’d bought him a new shirt with a collar, a pair of blue denim jeans that looked hardly worn, and a pair of tennis shoes. Matteo loved the shoes. They were white and they had a big black swoosh on the side. Most of all, the soles weren’t so worn that his feet would be stabbed by every rock he walked over and his toes didn’t look like they’d been trying to desperately dig a tunnel to escape. He’d been so proud of those shoes that the night before school started, he’d even worn them to bed.

  That morning his mother had walked him to school, and after meeting his teacher and showing him to the desk that made him feel like the big boy he so badly wanted to be, she left him alone to fend for himself. Matteo wasn’t scared. He’d already spent a lot of time alone. Between work, looking for the old man in the local casino, or the dive bars with the poker machines on the counter, bailing him out of jail, or picking him up from the hospital after a night of enduring one of the beatings that came from not paying your debts…with his mother out doing all that, Matteo had fended for himself a lot. He was ready to show the world what a big boy he was.

  He took his seat at the desk and made one grave mistake that would follow him throughout his childhood…and if he was honest later in life, likely to his grave. He put his feet up on the metal bars that attached the desk to his seat just as Samuel Kent walked by. The freckled-faced little boy stopped in his tracks and Matteo thought it was curious how the boy was staring at the bottom of his shoes. The boy’s big, dark eyes finally moved to Matteo’s curious face and his thin lips drew up into a smirk. “You’re wearing my shoes!” That simple statement caused a silence to fall across the room the likes of which Matteo had only heard in church during his short life, and then only on the occasion that Mrs. Tucci, the old lady upstairs that supposedly “watched” him during the day, was awake enough on a Sunday morning to take him.

  With a nervous stutter, Matteo said, “No. These are my shoes.”

  Samuel Kent looked toward the door where their new, sunny, smiley, kindergarten teacher was in deep conversation with one of the parents. Once he made sure she wasn’t listening, Samuel Kent discovered his audience, and his place in the food chain. Sadly, so did Matteo. Looking toward the other children in the room, obviously anticipating their reactions more than he was his victim’s, he said, “For fifty cents maybe at the Goodwill. My mom gave them to charity. Are you a charity case?”

  Matteo wasn’t even sure what “charity” meant, but the other children laughed so he knew it wasn’t a good thing. Again, this time concentrating on not letting them hear the anxiety in his voice he said, “They’re not yours.”

  That was when Samuel caused the first violent reaction of Matteo’s life. He reached down and picked up the boy’s foot. Holding it tightly in both hands he smugly said, “Then why is my name on the bottom?”

  A few of the kids tried to run up and take a look as Matteo struggled to get his foot free. He’d seen the writing on the bottom of the shoe, but the only thing he knew how to spell or read at that point was his own first name. He’d just assumed the writing was part of the shoe. As he twisted and tried to pull his foot out of Samuel’s grip, the teacher finally took notice. Unfortunately what she saw as she came closer was Matteo’s left foot, the free one, shoot out from under the desk and connect with Samuel Kent’s thigh. Samuel howled in pain, possibly with more dramatics than were necessary thanks to their new adult audience. And the teacher, sunny Mrs. Ray, embraced the bully before turning her stern glare on Matteo and cementing his place at PS 101 in the history books forevermore, as one of the “troubled ones.”

  Mat
teo never wore those shoes again, but no matter how much he begged, his mother refused to buy him a new pair. Maybe if he’d told her why he couldn’t wear the black and white ones, she would have, maybe not. But he didn’t tell her, and his only other option had been a pair of Keds with a hole in the toe. He’d covered the frayed slit with black electrical tape that he thought matched the color of the shoes perfectly, but the other kids still noticed. Samuel Kent noticed every single time, as he followed him through kindergarten and first grade, and on to the second grade. No matter how many pairs of shoes his mother bought him from the Goodwill store, Samuel found something about them to make fun of, and he passed whatever it was onto the others, who took up the sword any time their hateful leader dropped it.

  Matteo was eight the day he sat and thought about his lot in life, in the tiny little office of the Loss Prevention Officer in the neighborhood Walmart. It was that day that he realized most of the trouble in his life had been related to the shoes on his feet, and that of all the things for a boy of that age to fear…all he really feared were the damned shoes on his feet. Of course, what he thought might be the solution to his problems had turned out to be an even bigger disaster, and that was what he was thinking about when his mother walked in. She looked at him with almost the same disgusted look the old man gave him when they deigned to make eye contact. For her that was new. Usually, she just looked through him. Then, with a look of embarrassment, she looked toward the big, bald man in the bright yellow shirt and light blue vest and said: