Grimm Retribution (Book 1) The Grimm Dragons M.C. Series

Prologue-Beast

Hello, Lovelies, 

Thank you so much for reading Grimm Retribution.   I hope you enjoy this book.  It's been sitting on my computer for a while.  It really needs to see the light of day.  I'm actually really excited that it is.  Please let me know what you think.  

-XXXX Amanda

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I stood leaning my shoulder against the closed door of John's office in the back of our clubhouse, glancing around as if bored but I was anything but that. Instead, I was taking in the scene before me with my stomach churning. The room was large and square with a desk in the center. A computer sat on its scratched wooden surface. There was a single chair behind it and two positioned in front of it. Only one chair was occupied though there were four people within the room. The walls were covered with pictures of our fallen members. In the center was our patch which depicted a dragon's head with glowing red eyes and blowing fire but my gaze moved away from it scanning the pictures first landing on the images of Rumble Patrick who had been killed by his wife, Elizabeth and Clutch McRyan, who had died on his motorcycle under suspicious circumstances before it landed on the one that meant the most to me...My father, Nathan Lore, the original president of The Grimm Dragons before his murder during my teens. To anyone who studied the photos, they would be able to see that he was my father. We shared the same bodybuilder frame with long dark hair and deeply tanned skin. The only difference between us was his blue-green eyes which stared down at me pushing me to always do what was right for the club with a grim smile on his face that told me it wouldn't always be easy. Damn it! This wasn't easy.

I swallowed, straightening and rocking slightly on my booted feet. My godfather, Titan and my mother constantly reminded me that the club was my father's legacy and I had to live up to his standards. I winced before swiping a hand over my pale green eyes because he wouldn't like what was going on in the very office that had once been his.

I cursed to myself removing my hand from my eyes only to rub the back of my neck, hoping to relieve some of the tension before crossing my arms over my chest before anyone could notice the apprehension radiating off me. This was my safe place, damn it...Filled to the brim with my brothers...The only family I had left besides my mother who I saw once a year and yet, I was about to challenge one of their fucking instincts and worse than that, it was the instinct of a man I respected more than most.

I frowned before uncrossing my arms from over my chest and shoving a hand through my dark hair. My gut twisted as I gazed at the man John was berating, Jackson Borque who cringed in the chair. His hair the color of salt and pepper was stuck to his head by copious amounts of sweat. His lip trembled as perspiration marked his suit making half-circles under his neck and arms. John, our club president moved toward him with the grip of a gun visible above the waistband of his jeans. His face was hard and weathered from riding in the sun. His hair was black and cut short but the beard on his jaw was long and pointed. With his blue eyes he looked like the devil himself. The leather cut he wore depicted the same dragon's head on the back which hung on the wall behind him. The rocker above it stated that he was a member of The Grimm Dragons M.C. The one below it spelt out the name Ozland, Texas...Our town...Our territory. The patches on the front told anyone who cared to read them that he was our president along with his name. Our one percent patch was near the front bottom hem.

I raised my eyes to his face. John Dorsett was a man to be feared in appearance alone. His temper was even more of a reason to be frightened. Since my father's death, it had only gotten worse. My father had been his best friend and as close to a blood brother as he had ever had. Not even the death of the man who killed him, Ben Corwin, the president of The Feral Wolves, calmed his rage. To be fair, it did little to cool my own even though I was the one who had pulled the trigger that ended the man's life a year before.

I blinked away the memory as the man in the chair shivered and that sense that something wasn't right slid through me again as John leaned down and spoke, "Five hundred thousand dollars, Jackson," he gritted out, narrowing his eyes, "It didn't just disappear."

The man shook his head, "Please," he said begging as his eyes widened, "I-I didn't take it. I came to tell you. I wouldn't have done that if I took it."

"Then where is it?" John hissed through his teeth, his gaze boring into the man in front of him causing him to shiver even more.

A frown crossed Jackson's brow and I tilted my head. I recognized the emotion that flitted across his face...Confusion. John noticed, and he hesitated. If he was doubting the man's involvement, then, I couldn't hold back my own doubts.

"John," I whispered but John shook his head and continued to stare down the man with those wicked-looking eyes of his.

"You are our accountant," he growled, curling his upper lip, "How do you not know?"

The man shook as John gripped his gun causing my own heart to leap, "John!" I called out and this time John paused and stared at me. A frown marred his brow as he studied my face. I had never stopped him during one of these sessions. He realized that, but John had never decided on a man's death without a vote. He usually knew better because acting without the club's vote was dangerous for us all. His damn temper was getting in the way.

"What, Beast?" He asked, his voice gruff, grinding out of his throat and slamming into my chest like a physical blow.

"I need to speak to you," I gritted out, trying to keep from wincing at the anger flashing from John's eyes, "Now."

"Watch him," John barked to the only other man in the room...My best friend in the whole world, Alpha.

Though Alpha was six inches shorter than me at five-eleven, he straightened to his full height. His blue eyes moved to the man cringing in the chair before nodding but his expression was grim as we moved outside. If I were anyone else I may have been afraid that John was about to remove my balls, but I wasn't, and he knew I wouldn't have stopped him from killing the man even without a vote unless something was wrong because as his enforcer, I was loyal to him.

"What is it?" John asked, studying me his face still red in anger.

"He didn't do it," I never beat around the bush and John blinked taking a deep breath.

He glanced at the door and then, turned back to me, "I have my own doubts but who else could it have been?"

"I don't know," I said as my chest burned so much I had to resist the urge to rub it, "Someone did it. Someone who had access. Maybe someone connected to Jonathon Nichols or the wolves," I shrugged. John hissed as I spoke the name of the crooked senator who constantly caused problems for us, "We need to know and he's the way to find out. Until we figure it out he should stay with us, but I don't think he's earned his death over this. I think he was just trying to do the right thing. If he's innocent, we don't need his blood on our hands."

John ran his tongue over his teeth, considering it, "Fine," he said and then, grinned as he patted my shoulder, "Until we know what happened, you get to be babysitter."

"Fuck," I said under my breath, but I nodded as the door opened. Jackson Borque was terrified, but I sighed in relief with the end result of my conversation with John because at least I had convinced him that Jackson Borque should live.