Wings In Captivity (Eagle Riders MC) Read online

  Wings In Captivity

  C.Soto

  Independently Published

  Copyright © 06-2022 C.Soto

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: Romance Cover Novels

  Printed in the United States of America

  About the book

  WARNING: This is a Dark Romance, captive story. Trigger warnings include but are not limited to: dubious consent, strong language, violence. Intended audience 18+ only.

  Grimm is an assassin, a ghost in the night, coming to gift souls for the Reaper!

  Once he sets his eyes on Tara, his spirited butterfly, he knows he must capture her and put her in his own cage.

  While Tara is on the run from one monster, she catches the eye of another.

  With the games they play, in the end, who will have captured who?

  About the Author

  C.Soto is a single mom of a teenager and a beautiful Pit-bull, Roxi, who believes she is a lapdog!

  She works full-time and tries to keep up with her daughter's sporting events. She began in 2021 on this crazy journey of Independent Publishing. She hopes you enjoy the stories as much as she had fun writing them.

  C.Soto lives in the Midwest. Not as fond of it in the winter months...brrrr.... She’s been an avid reader her whole life and loves diving into a book and losing herself in a great story.

  You can find C.Soto on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads. She would love to hear from you!

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you first to my daughter, who always checks, “Mom are you working on your book stuff? Keep going.”

  I would like to thank my family and friends who have supported my writing.

  Thank you Romance Covers Now for the beautiful cover.

  Thank you to my ARC readers. I appreciate you signing up and taking time to read my story and sharing it across social media. I am so thankful for your support!

  I hope you enjoy the story! Reach out anytime, as I would love to hear from you!

  If you enjoyed the story, I hope you would consider leaving a review on Amazon.

  Chapter 1

  Grimm

  I walk out of the alley, holding my burner phone to my ear waiting on my sleazy client to answer. Listening to the rings echo back at me, one ring after the other. I was growing impatient by the third ring. Finally, on the fourth ring, the client answered, sounding out of breath. I’m glad he finally answered, otherwise I would’ve jumped to conclusions. Knowing the client is supposed to answer at once when the phone I gave him rings.

  “Is the order complete?” The client puffs out his rehearsed line, still out breath.

  “The item’s been shipped, your invoice is in the mail.” I respond with my irritation clear.

  My signature reply, no details in the call, in case the client has their lives being watched. I would never rely on them being upstanding citizens. Shit, I didn’t even consider them worthy. If you couldn’t look a person in the eye while you killed them, then you were a coward and a pussy. Those were the men that had to hire others to take care of their problems, because they weren’t man enough to handle their own shit. I couldn’t complain too much, since those type of men kept me in business. However, I wouldn’t trust them with anything. They only know I’m a Ghost, a whisper in the wind. I have a few names. Only a rare few even know my real name. Ghost is the hired killer, Grimm is my call name from my service days, and I have a regular name that a town uses, Jared. None of those are my real name. It depends how you know me, to know what to call me.

  I hang up after one sentence, not allowing the client an opportunity to say one more thing. There’s nothing more I need to hear from them. I only need to give them confirmation that the job is done. The client knows he’ll need to immediately send the final payment by the time I get back to my hide-out. If the funds aren’t in my account, there will be consequences for late payment.

  My reputation precedes itself, so I haven’t had anyone brave enough in a while to try it. My current clients seem to value their life. Since I take lives for their grudge, they should know I’d take theirs just as easily for my own.

  It’s not a secret what the consequences are for a late payment in our world. There have been a few over the years who thought I wouldn’t be able to find out who they were, and they could get away with only paying 50%.

  I imagine they were new to the underground world, but they learned a lesson that cost them their life. The Ghost traveled in the night to rip their souls from their body and sent them straight to hell.

  I continue walking, appearing as if I didn’t send the Grim Reaper another present. As I go down a couple more blocks, I see my loaner car sitting ahead. I take off my disposable gloves before touching the handle. Not wanting any gunshot residue to be transferred to the car.

  I reach over and open the glove department and grab all the items I need. First, I pull on another pair of fresh gloves. Then I get a disinfectant wipe and rub down the inside of the gloves I just took off, ensuring my fingerprints were not imprinted or any skin cells transferred from wearing them. Then I turn them inside out and wipe it down for any residual residue left on them for when they are discarded. I’ll admit, I’m probably going overboard since I’ll cut the gloves into pieces, but I'd rather be safe then leave any trace evidence.

  I take the sim card out of the burner phone. I have no further need for it. I break it into three pieces and toss each piece into a separate plastic baggie. Then I step back out of the car and smash the phone beneath my boot. Once I’m content with the damage I’ve caused, I pick up the pieces and place them into baggies, separating the pieces amongst them.

  Now that I’m comfortable that all evidence has been wiped clean, cut up, and smashed, I get in the car and drive forward into the darkness where secrets are never told.

  As I pass restaurants, I stop at one to discard a piece of the night’s evidence. Each plastic baggy will have its own container that the evidence is dumped in. At the first dumpster, I turn the baggie upside down and watch as the pieces fall in different random spots, as gravity does its job. I bunch the now empty baggie up and shove it in my pocket. I’ll keep driving and will find a few more restaurants, making sure each dumpster is nowhere near the other. I don’t allow myself to be careless. I handle each step of a mission with precise care down to the last detail. No evidence will ever be linked back to me. The puzzle of my destruction will remain scattered in a thousand pieces.

  Burner phones come with serial numbers that could be traced back to a store, which could have a camera capturing my purchase. The angle of it might have recorded me going to the counter making my purchase.

  Not that it would show an image of what I really look like, but I don’t even want my fake persona to be looked at too closely. There’s a reason one of my identities is known as a Ghost.

  There isn’t a living soul that truly knows what the Ghost looks like. All they know is the reputation I’ve built and how to contact me if they want my services.

  I don’t do meet and greets, going around shaking people’s hands. My contact with clients is held in a cyber world of encryption where their order is placed. A life for money. If they have to meet me face to face, the outcome does not favor for them, and they aren’t around to tell the tale.

  From m
y orders, I get a name, a picture to accompany it, and details with locations on finding my mark. I also require a 50% down payment. I don’t need to know the wrong the person has committed. I’m the perfect person for the career I’ve chosen. My soul is consumed in darkness. I don’t care why one chose for the other to die. I only care about their payment and the thrill of the hunt. It’s a business. If someone ends up on my list, it isn’t my concern to learn why. I am not there for judgement day, I’m only there for the execution.

  When I receive an order from a new client, I check out every aspect of their life before I ever respond back to their inquiry. I find out who they are, their family, their associates, every spec of detail about their lives. I don’t know if the people who place the orders know I can trace it back to them or if they even care. As long as they have the intention of paying in full for services rendered, rather than trying to screw me over, then they’ll never hear from me again, unless they are a repeat customer. I have quite a few happy repeat customers. I figure they're taking out the competition.

  With the jobs being initiated on the dark web and no meetings, I’m sure there are some that are stupid enough to think that everything is anonymous, since only a few verbal interactions are had via a burner phone.

  I know who every single client is from every job that was placed. If they were ever to try and screw me over, then I will show up to their doorstep and walk away as a Ghost without a trail to be left.

  Each mark that comes through in an order, I study and learn their every movement, until I can recite their daily schedule from memory. I take my time in finding that perfect moment of death for them. The anticipation of what day and time that will be. I decide when it’s time to take their last breath. I always stay after the attack. I like to watch their souls leave their bodies. The high I get from knowing I’m the one to extinguish it.

  I keep a tally of all the presents I’ve sent the Grim Reaper. I figure at this point, he should owe me a few lives back. I should be granted more than a cat with nine lives for all my presents.

  Chapter 2

  Jessie Aka Tara

  I’m hiding out in this small town, hidden by the mountains. I’m trying to run from my past, hoping it doesn’t catch me. I’ve done the easy part and changed my name. My new name is now Tara. I'm praying for a better future being Tara.

  I’m trying hard to be this new person. Trying to leave the old me, Jessie, in the dust, since she hasn't proven to be worthy. My past self was a disappointment to her friends and family. Tara, my future self, won't get involved with bad people and screw them over. I don't want to always be running to stay alive.

  For now, I’m in a holding pattern. I move every few months, never wanting to become too comfortable in the space I live in. I’m always looking over my shoulder, anticipating if the day has arrived that they’ve found me.

  I’ve been in this new town for three months. I was lucky and was able to find a job in a diner where they didn’t ask any questions. If I’m good at my job and don’t get complaints from the customers, then the owners won’t have cause to fire me.

  I don’t bother trying to find an apartment. I'm holed up in the one hotel the small town has. I don't want to deal with deposits, leases, and credit checks.

  My new ID is good enough, but I didn’t have enough time or extra money to try and get everything for a new identity. I had to go with what I had, which was only affording the ID. I don’t have a new social security number or birth certificate to go with my new name.

  Maybe one day, if I finally feel safe enough to settle in one place. However, today is not that day. I always tell myself, it will come. I will get my life together, one day. I just need a little more time and distance. Then I’ll be set. The bad men I screwed over will eventually forget, right?

  Now I have to determine how much time, how many miles, or what destination will make that equation come true. That they’ll give up looking. I am still trying to figure it out.

  There’s always a pressing panic that sits in my chest that tells me that they're right around the corner, ready to grab me. It’s always present as a constant reminder of the mess I’ve made. I figure when that feeling goes away, then I’ll know the time has arrived that I can settle down.

  I’ve come to enjoy my current town. People keep to their own business. No one is overly friendly, trying to know too much about you. It reminds me of a town that is full of secrets. They don’t ask mine because they don’t want me to ask about theirs. This is a perfect town for me. I don’t have to worry about coming up with new lies.

  My days usually consist of getting up and going to work the breakfast shift. Going to the store, or at times walking around the sleepy little town, trying to find that peace to settle my soul.

  I’ve taken many walks in the quietness of the night, using the stars to guide me, but I have yet to find the peace I’m searching for. I keep going though, thinking maybe it'll be there on the next block. It never appears.

  I do like the fact there aren't many strangers that pass through. There’s nothing much in the town for a traveler to want to stop. Someone would have to have a specific reason to want to be here. It isn’t located in a convenient place off the highway, where there’s always traffic. I had to get on a road and follow the mountain down to get to this town. It was a perfect place for me to hide. A town of less than a thousand people where it barely registers on a map. That is why I chose it.

  At first, I tried going to bigger cities, hiding in plain sight. I was always so scared though, moving weeks after I arrived. Eventually, I started going to the smaller towns that I thought to be safer.

  So far, I’ve been here the longest. I haven’t felt the itch yet, that tells me it’s time to go, that troubles in my shadows. I generally have a sixth sense that guides me to safety in the Knick of time.

  There’s been a couple close calls while being on the run. That sixth sense feeling would come and in minutes I would have my one bag and leave. I never unpack the bag. Only grabbing what I need then putting everything back in it. If I need to make a mad dash, I can't lose time with packing.

  The first time I got the feeling, I stood in the shadows for a few seconds, taking a last look at my temporary home. I saw a man pull up and kick the door in. How they found me, I don’t know. I was careful, leaving every traceable thing behind. Ever since then, I've trusted my gut and rely on that sixth sense feeling. It hasn’t steered me wrong, yet.

  Chapter 3

  Grimm

  I was away from home for a few months this time. It took a while, since I had back-to-back jobs, and I had to find the right moment to take out my marks. I like to wait for the perfect moment if the job doesn’t have to be rushed. If it doesn't, then I complete the job on my own timeline. It's more exciting that way. To delay the gratification of a kill. It's a high for me. To be the one with their finger on the trigger. I know one day it will be me that visits the Grim Reaper, but I'm not scared of him, me and death, we’re already great friends.

  Home is a little town where I keep to myself. I moved here almost ten years ago. I have a lot of property up in the mountains, surrounded by nothing but wilderness. No neighbors, no friends, or family that visits. No one in my business. It is me and nature.

  The town still thinks I’m in the military. I never gave them an update when I left the service, not really their business. The lie is close enough that it resembles a truth it once was, once upon a time. That was my story and life years ago. That is where I trained and became the killer I am now. I loved the thrill, and eventually knew what my new career path would be. I just didn’t think I needed to send a memo to the town when I got out and started working for myself.

  It's a great cover for when I leave for periods of time. Their assumption that I am still active. I don’t talk about my personal life with anyone. I give a few grunts and chin lifts, which is mostly my communication style with people. They are used to it from me.

  I let them think whatever they want, l
ess questions. That way when I’m gone weeks or months at a time, if they try to ask, I answer them honestly and say it’s top secret, classified information. Not that when I’m home, I’m seen daily. Every week or every other, I'll stop by the grocery store or the diner for a meal when I don’t feel like cooking. So, they notice when I am gone for longer stints at a time. They all give friendly greetings when I return.

  I’m not all that social of a person, and since I live off the grid away from socialization, the town's people keep their questions and greetings limited. They know I'm not gonna spill my secrets, so it’s been bearable to live here. There are worse places to live. I know, I’ve been to them and seen the devil a time or two.

  In the morning light, I know I have to go into town if I want to eat. I have nothing in the fridge as I throw out any perishable items before leaving, since I never know how much time I’ll be gone. I don’t want to come back to rotting food that smells horrible.

  As I get ready to leave, I open the windows and air out the place. The few months of everything being closed, feels stuffy, with not getting any fresh air.

  I get in my truck and take the twenty-minute drive into town. I rather stay home and enjoy the peace and be engulfed by nature. I need it after coming back from living the city life the last few months, always surrounded by noise nonstop. Staying in seedy hotel rooms where no one ever sleeps. I’d been looking forward to being back home. I just remind myself, it will be an hour, two tops, and you’ll be back relaxing in the silence.

  Being home is where I spend my time recharging from all the noise that I was surrounded in. That is one thing I hate about the job, the noise and the constant movement of people, always having somewhere to go. It seems no one can take a minute to sit still. I’m a sniper, so I have patience and can sit in one position for hours with my finger on the trigger, just waiting for that perfect shot. To me there is no thing as a missed opportunity. I’ve not missed a mark yet.