(Kiss of Death MC)
Motorcycle Club Romance, Suspense, Age Gap
Date Published: June 20, 2025
Violet -- In my world, girls aren’t deemed useful for much other than to be married off, creating a tie to a rival family. I did my job. I married the man my family chose, and I got pregnant right away. Now my life is a nightmare, wondering if this is the day someone will kill me, or worse, take my son. When Caleb witnesses the abuse I live with, he gives me an ultimatum. Leave his father, or Caleb will kill the man himself. That’s when my lawyer introduces me to Quinn Devereaux, the man known as Riot. He asks me a question I’ve never heard before. What do you need, Violet?
Riot -- I was gone the first moment I laid eyes on the tiny woman with the suspicious twelve-year-old guarding her like a pit bull. She’s my service requirement assignment -- to protect her and her kid from her husband and father. Domestic abuse is never pretty, but her story hits way too close to home. I’ll watch over them, and in the end, I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent history from repeating itself. Even if it means I risk going back to prison.
Warning: Riot (Kiss of Death MC 4) deals with issues of domestic abuse that may be triggers for some readers.
EXCERPT
Riot
Community service. What a fucking joke. I appreciated the fact I needed to pay my debt to society. I did bad shit and deserved everything the judge gave me and then some. Knuckles pulled some strings and got me out on parole three years earlier than expected, and it had come with mandatory community service. My lawyer told me Knuckles had friends in high places and not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I understood. I also knew how to keep my mouth shut so I had no intention of finding out anything more.
I’d only been out of prison three days. Now they expected me to go back to the courthouse. Voluntarily. I didn’t know why, only that it had to do with the aforementioned community service.
It was three o’clock on Friday afternoon. My instructions were to wait outside in a specific area. Which wasn’t suspicious at all. I parked my bike under a tree at the back of the building and waited. As a condition of my parole, I had to carry a cell phone on me at all times. I had no trouble a phone on me. The last thing I wanted was to go back to jail, so if being tied to the fucking phone meant the powers that be could track my every move, so fucking be it.
I had to chuckle. I wanted to stay out of prison, yet I was all in with Knuckles and Kiss of Death MC. An outlaw club by their own admission. Yeah, I was new and didn’t know all the guys yet, but there were two things we all had in common. First, we’d all spent time in Terre Haute. Some more than others. And second, we all knew and trusted Knuckles with our lives. Knuckles had the keys to the yard in Terre Haute. He’d been the shot caller on the inside. I thought he probably had more power in prison than most people did on the outside. If he said he could keep me safe from the probation officers with an ax to grind, I’d do what he said, when he said do it, and count my blessings.
The point being, Knuckles was the one who set me up with this particular lawyer. She’d represented me at my parole hearing and she was the one who demanded my presence at the courthouse today. Knuckles said do what she said to the best of my ability and without objection. The details were supposed to be given to me when we met up. Apparently, this was a rush job or something. Knuckles said she’d made a point for me to wear my colors and ride my bike. Jeans, black T-shirt, motorcycle boots, and my cut proudly proclaiming I’m a member of Kiss of Death MC and that we were a one percent club. I personally didn’t like this idea, but Knuckles told me not to worry. He’d kept my ass alive in prison. Just like he had most of the other guys. No way would he toss me to the wolves now.
I glanced at my watch. Five after three. She’d told me three o’clock sharp, but I’m just the ex-con biker. What did I know about being on time?
At ten after, a little white Ford Fiesta pulled up next to me. I was leaning against the seat of my parked bike, my legs crossed at the ankles and my arms crossed over my chest. Classic badass biker intimidation pose. The windows were tinted on all sides except the front. I couldn’t see the passengers but I recognized the woman who got out of the driver’s side.
“Ms. Thompson. Wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.” I wasn’t lying. Knuckles had explained everything to me on the way to Nashville from Terre Haute, but I thought I’d have a little time to process life on the outside before I got shoved back into the legal system.
“Nothing’s free in this world, Riot. You know that.” Lana Thompson was an in-your-face powerhouse. She wasn’t the sneak attack you didn’t see coming. She was the mortar fire you heard half a mile away and hurried to get the fuck out of the blast zone.
“And it shouldn’t be. I ain’t complainin’. I just wasn’t expecting my point of contact to be you.”
She gave me a superior smirk. “Oh, you and I will see a lot more of each other, I assure you. I’m the reason you’re out, you know. Well…” She shrugged. “Me and my other employer. He pays me. Knuckles gets his people.”
“Impressive. Do I want to know who your other employer is?”
“Probably not. In any case, I wouldn’t tell you. You want to know shit like that, talk to Knuckles.”
“Yeah. I’m good.” I rolled my eyes and sighed. “When I asked my parole officer about my community service, he said someone would contact me. No one has. You sure this is countin’ toward my community service?”
“Who told you to meet me here?”
“Knuckles.”
She grinned. “Looks like you have your answer.”
“I’m not sure Knuckles counts?”
“You said your parole officer told you someone would contact me. He say who?” I could tell by the look on her face she knew the answer to this question but I was committed now.
“He said to do whatever the fuck Knuckles told me to.”
“Uh huh.”
“You know, people would like you better if you weren’t so smug.” I wanted to be irritated at the woman, but really, her making fun of me was my own fault. The joke practically wrote itself. I raised my hands defensively. “Knuckles told me to be here and I’m here. I was told three o’clock sharp.” I gave her a pointed glance, then down at my watch.
“Yeah,” she breathed with a sigh. “Sorry about that. Poor thing’s balking hard.” She nodded to the vehicle and her passengers. “Her son and I had to coax her into letting him do this and we still had to practically drag her into the car.”
That got my attention. “What’s going on? What is it I need to do?” Something inside me coiled tight. I knew without a doubt something was about to happen that would change my life. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to pay attention because I was about to get knocked on my ass.
“My client is about to testify that his father beat his mother. Kid knows his mom is the underdog in this fight. His father’s a big shot with a whole team of lawyers and she’s got me.” She grinned, but that feeling in the pit of my stomach was getting stronger by the second. “Caleb is a good kid. He’s so protective of his mother it almost hurts. If his father gets Caleb alone, Caleb will do his level best to kill the guy.”
I gave her a hard look for long moments, replaying her words to make sure I’d heard her correctly. The weight of everything she was saying was hitting me like a wrecking ball to the fucking head. This woman had chosen me for more than one reason. “You fuckin’ bitch,” I bit out. “Only reason I don’t kill you right here is because it’s not worth goin’ back to prison.”
“Good!” Bitch Thompson, as I would now refer to her, said with wide-eyed enthusiasm. “You don’t want to go back to prison. That’s great! But the only way you stay out of prison is by doing your community service, big guy, and this is it.”
“Why? Why me? There’s got to be hundreds of other people you could use for this.”
“You don’t even know what I want you to do yet.”
“Got a pretty fuckin’ good idea. Is this supposed to make me feel better about what happened and about what I did?”
Instantly, Lana Thompson was in my face. This was the side of her everyone in the courtroom feared seeing. She’d used the same expression and tone of voice at my parole hearing as she was using now. Only this time, she grabbed a hold of my ear and yanked, twisting my earlobe painfully. Sure, I could have made her stop. I could have seriously hurt her. But I didn’t hit women. Not for any reason.
“No. It’s not supposed to make you feel better. It’s supposed to keep that young man out of fucking prison. Now. What are you going to do about this situation, hmm?” Lana’s voice was silky smooth as she purred in a supremely satisfied voice.
“The fuck kind of question is that? Have you lost your fuckin’ mind?”
“Can’t you get out of a simple ear hold from a woman half your size?”
“Lana, what the fuck’s your problem? I could fuckin’ break you in half and you fuckin’ know it!” I felt like I was the butt of some joke I didn’t get.
“Exactly!” I thought she might let me go, but she didn’t. Instead, she twisted harder and I had to lean down to keep her from taking my fucking ear off. “You’ll stand there and let me hurt you rather than take a chance on hurting me.” Yep. Definitely the butt of the joke.
“What the fuck do you want me to do?” I snarled my question at her. “I ain’t gonna hit you. I don’t hit women. Or kids. Now, let go of my fuckin’ ear!”
To my surprise, she let me go and stepped back, grinning from ear to ear. “Which was my whole point.” She called out to whoever was in the car. “You see? Come on out.”
I rubbed my ear, trying to get blood moving again as well as ease the ache. As I was working up to a scathing remark to Lana, the doors to the car opened and a boy of about eleven or twelve got out of the back while a short, slender woman emerged from the front. She wasn’t much taller than the boy and it was a tossup as to who weighed more.
My heart thumped painfully in my chest and I froze. She had short, shaggy curls in a riot of orange around her head and skin as creamy as milk. Her eyes were the palest blue I’d ever seen and almost too big for her face. But what had me wanting to howl in rage, what had me ready to murder some motherfucking son of a bitch, was the bruise across her cheek, the finger-mark bruises on her bare arms, and the cut on her lower lip that stood out like an accusation.
I swallowed as I stood to my full height, still rubbing my ear absently. The kid moved in front of his mother but stood his ground.
“See, Violet? This isn’t a man who’s going to hurt you.”
“What do you need?” My gaze bore straight into Violet’s, trying to pull the information I wanted out of her head so I could go kill someone. Déjà vu but I didn’t care. I’d charge hell with a water pistol and damned the consequences if this woman said to.
“I-I just w-wanted someone strong to be here to support my s-son.” Her voice was melodious and soft. Like an angel whispering. She was obviously nervous, that didn’t make her any less beautiful or courageous. “M-my husband can be…” she trailed off.
“Where do you need me, Ms. Violet?” Because, parole or not, there was no way I was leaving this woman to deal with some asshole on her own.
About the Author
Marteeka Karland is an international bestselling author who leads a double life as an erotic romance author by evening and a semi-domesticated housewife by day. Known for her down and dirty MC romances, Marteeka takes pleasure in spinning tales of tenacious, protective heroes and spirited, vulnerable heroines. She staunchly advocates that every character deserves a blissful ending, even, sometimes, the villains in her narratives. Her writings are speckled with intense, raw elements resulting in page-turning delight entwined with seductive escapades leading up to gratifying conclusions that elicit a sigh from her readers.
Away from the pen, Marteeka finds joy in baking and supporting her husband with their gardening activities. The late summer season is set aside for preserving the delightful harvest that springs from their combined efforts (which is mostly his efforts, but you can count it). To stay updated with Marteeka's latest adventures and forthcoming books, make sure to visit her website. Don't forget to register for her newsletter which will pepper you with a potpourri of Teeka's beloved recipes, book suggestions, autograph events, and a plethora of interesting tidbits.
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