WAYLON: Angel and the Ruthless Reaper (Ruthless MC Book 1)
WAYLON: ANGEL AND THE RUTHLESS REAPER
50 LOVING STATES, IOWA
THEODORA TAYLOR
CONTENTS
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
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
HIS FOR KEEPS Excerpt
Becoming Theodora Taylor
Huge Super Duper Thanks to My Patreons
Also by Theodora Taylor
About the Author
WAYLON: Angel and the Ruthless Reaper
by Theodora Taylor
Copyright © 2021 by Theodora Taylor
First E-book Publication: June 2021
Cover Design: Qambar Design & Media
Cover Photo: Wander Aguilar
Editing: Authors Designs
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CHAPTER 1
Payback ain’t a bitch. It’s a bastard. And that bastard’s me. People don’t get away with crossing me. Ever.
Waylon said that to me once, his eyes glittering like blue diamonds inside his stone-cold face. And I believed him. Both then and now, as I ask for a room on the first floor at the nameless cash-only motel, I found within walking distance of the bus station.
The guy behind the bulletproof glass answers, “Fifty bucks.” He’s got sallow skin and bloodshot eyes with huge puffs underneath. My nurse instinct immediately diagnoses him as a functioning alcoholic.
I push two twenties and a ten under the barrier, and he slides me a single key with the number two taped over the top. No questions asked. No ID requested. No cheery “enjoy your stay!” as I walk to meet Stephanie outside.
I’m glad I told her to wait there, hidden in the shadows at the bottom of the steps leading to the motel entrance’s swinging glass door. She’s already upset enough that we narrowly missed the bus to Vegas and won’t be able to catch the next one until four in the morning. I doubt the guy behind the desk would make her feel any better about stopping after being on the run for so many hours.
I look for the door marked with a painted two as we make our way down the motel’s outer corridor. But Stephanie scans the darkness between us and the bus station like she’s afraid something will jump out of it and drag her back to hell. Or someone.
That’s not an invalid fear.
And the room’s even worse than the service at the front desk.
We’ve gotten even less than what I paid for. Cobwebs in all the corners, grime on each wall, stains on every surface that I can’t begin—or want to guess about. A thick layer of dust coats the 80s era AC unit—which turns out not to even work when Stephanie risks a sneeze attack to switch it on.
Maid service hasn’t been a thing here in quite a while. Maybe not ever. But at least the bathroom’s got a reachable window that slides up and can be wriggled out of in a worst-case scenario.
“If they find us, we can escape out the bathroom window,” I tell Stephanie, trying to distract the both of us from the disgusting state of our temporary sanctuary.
“Yeah, if the Reapers show up at the front door, we can run out the back. Like in the movies,” Stephanie agrees. “And hey—looks like they’ve got HBO.”
She manages to make her southern-tinged voice as light as mine. But her attempt at a smile comes off as a little sickly.
We spend the next few hours engaged in a silent agreement to pretend like we aren’t on the run from men who kill without blinking an eye. Bikers who know how to dispose of a body, so their victims don’t get found. Criminals who never get caught.
People don’t get away with crossing me. Ever.
The TV’s almost enough to drown out Waylon’s voice in my head. But I don’t feel comfortable enough to actually lay back and relax. Neither does Stephanie.
We sit perched on the edge of the room’s bed as we watch Real Time with Bill Maher and a random episode of some TV show about a rich business family with rich business problems. We even cheer when a screen card announces that Insecure is up next.
I’ve almost worked up the courage to use the “I don’t wanna know” stain-coated toilet when Stephanie issues a quiet, “Thank you.”
When I was a nurse at an official hospital, I almost always answered gratitude with a cheery, “No problem.”
Those two words would sound like a condescending lie in this situation, though. Stephanie and I both know how much I’ve risked to save her.
People don’t get away with crossing me. Ever.
I wrap an arm around her thin shoulders instead and answer, “Everything’s going to be alri—”
The thunder of approaching motorcycles cuts off my reassurance.
And my breath.
Suddenly, sneaking out the window is no longer just a movie-inspired hypothetical. We dash toward the bathroom like small animals who’ve just heard a tiger roar.
However, one peek out the filmy window let us know that half-plan had been foolish from the start. The three Reapers they collectively called Vengeance are now stationed on their motorcycles just a few meters away.
Their approach wasn’t nearly as noisy as the rest of the gang’s.
Scouts, I realize with a start. They were the ones sent out like ravens in leather jackets to hunt us down.
They must have arrived earlier—and given the mostly silent hotel manager enough money to answer all of their questions about the woman Waylon wanted found.
Ruthless Reapers in the front, and Ruthless Reapers in the back. We’re surrounded.
The only thing that keeps me from cursing—or crying—is the abject fear on Stephanie’s face.
“Closet,” I tell her, steering her to the room’s only hiding space.
But she plasters her hand against the closet door after I push her in and try to close it behind her. “What about you?”
I think she thought I’d join her inside—that we’d hide together from the incoming storm. But we have no one to turn to, and Steph only has me. A sacrifice has to be made for even the slimmest chance of saving her from the Reaper’s version of hell.
I shake my head. “I’ll face them alone. Tell him we already split ways and that you caught a bus to Milwaukee.”
Stephanie’s eyes flare at my last moment plan. “I can’t let you do that. Waylon is going to go crazy on you after what you did. He’ll—”
She’s sweet, but… “We don’t have time to argue about this. It’s the only way.”
I push at the door, and luckily
, she’s too weak and thin to keep me from closing her into the closet alone.
“Hide as far back in there as you can and be quiet. Don’t come out, no matter what you hear.”
“Okay,” she agrees, her voice small and shuddering with tears. But I see she gets the situation.
People don’t get away with crossing me. Ever.
Okay…okay….
I once again take a seat on the edge of the bed. On TV, Issa and Molly are laughing over something that just happened to them in their silly, sunshine-coated lives. It must be nice to live in L.A. without a motorcycle gang care in the world. I just wish—
The crash of wood hitting the wall interrupts my wish before I can finish making it.
I snap my eyes to the kicked-in door, and there stands Waylon.
I jump to my feet and reel back, shudders running along my spine as weakness claims my knees. I want to act calm—not give him the satisfaction of seeing how scared I am now that he’s caught up to me. But my heart screeches and derails like an out-of-control train at the sight of him standing in the doorway, his crystal-blue eyes blazing.
Viking. That’s what the other Reapers sometimes called him, even though Iowa is nowhere near the sea. I never asked him why. But I get it now without a word of explanation.
He takes another step forward to loom over me, his face as hard as stone.
Then he asks, “What did I tell you about crossing me?”
CHAPTER 2
A YEAR EARLIER
“I know it’s my birthday, but I’ve bought you a gift,” Jonathan says after we put in our dinner orders. “It’s something I want you to have. Something I’ve been thinking about giving you for a while now.”
Oh my God.
Jonathan told me to wear something nice tonight since we were going to The Spotless Dove, one of the most expensive restaurants in Philadelphia. I thought he’d chosen this place because Jonathan would settle for nothing but the best for his birthday. But I glance around the five-star restaurant with new eyes.
Is he about to propose? Am I, Amira Wylie, the foster kid who barely managed to graduate from high school and become a nurse, about to be asked for her hand in marriage tonight? By Dr. Jonathan Kershaw, the hotshot neurosurgeon resident, all the other nurses drool over and call Dr. America due to his chisel-jawed resemblance to a certain comic book hero?
We’ve only been dating for four months, and we haven’t had real sex yet. But maybe that’s what pleasant, normal men who’ve been raised in nice, normal ways do. Date a girl they like for a short amount of time, then take her to a nice restaurant and—
Jonathan sets a book down on the expanse of white linen between us. It has a waifish blonde with a huge toothy smile on the cover. She’s wearing a navy-blue power suit with her arms crossed underneath her breasts as if to say whatever life she’s living, it’s way better than the rest of ours. Above her image, the words YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL are written in giant block letters. And below that, Missy Anders is written in slightly smaller letters.
I crook my head to the side. “Um…what is this?”
A pleased/smug smile touches his mouth, and his hazel eyes brighten. “A book by one of my college friends. She has a similar story to yours—she was raised in a trailer park. Still, she managed to overcome her tragic background to get accepted into Princeton and become a highly sought-after executive life coach.”
I wasn’t raised in a trailer park. I enrolled in my nursing program directly after high school, not an elite Ivy. And though I’ve done everything from holding tweaked-out meth addicts down to telling teen moms to push in the ER, I wouldn’t exactly call myself a life coach. Not to mention the fact that she’s a lily-white-blonde in a power suit, and I’m a dark brown brunette who usually wears scrubs.
I have to ask, “What did I do to uh…deserve this gift?”
Jonathan leans forward in his seat. “My parents are coming to visit next week, and I’d like to introduce them to you. As my new girlfriend.”
“Seriously?” I sit up a little straighter, my chest fluttering with delight. Jonathan and I had the “let’s be exclusive talk” a few weeks ago. But introducing me to his parents—that’s a huge milestone.
“Yes, I’d love to meet your mom and dad!” I grin…but then realize I’m still confused. “What does meeting your parents have to do with this book, though?”
Jonathan winces, his handsome face creasing under his swept-back blond hairline. “Well, you see, they were a bit disappointed when Missy and I broke up shortly after college—my mother was convinced we’d make beautiful babies. But maybe if you read this book and incorporate some of her tips, they’ll see that you’re not so different from her.”
Hold up…what?
“Wait, you and the woman who wrote this book used to date?” I glance down at the book then back up at Jonathan. His mother was right. They’d make beautiful babies. Beautiful, blond, toothy babies. Both my alarm and my voice rise as I point out, “I’m not just different from her. We couldn’t be more opposite. The only thing we have in common is being poor when we were kids.”
“Now, I didn’t say she was poor.” Jonathan holds up a hand and chuffs like I’ve made a funny joke. “Her mother and father raised her in a trailer park commune to rebel against their own parents who were in oil and steel. Poor Missy’s maternal grandparents weren’t able to gain custody of her until she was in her teens.”
Jonathan places the hand he was holding up over his chest, his expression full of pity. “It’s a very harrowing story. You’ll see when you read—”
Anger volcanos inside of me before I can stop it. “I am not reading this book! What the hell, Jonathan?”
I don’t realize I’m shouting until several people in the previously peaceful restaurant turn to stare at me.
I breathe in and force myself to calm down. Little does Jonathan know, I’ve already read a lot of self-improvement books to get to where I am today—so many. I’m aware angry women don’t attract the kind of men who can give them good lives.
But honestly, I don’t know how a nice, normal, non-angry woman would take this. It feels like I’ve fallen into a Reddit “Am I the Asshole?” post.
Jonathan gives the people staring at us an apologetic wince before turning back to me. “This is why I thought the book might be of service to you. Missy included an inspiring section on how she managed to smooth out her rougher edges to emulate the kind of woman she wanted to present to the world. Before long, she truly became the person she was pretending to be.”
“So you’re saying you want me to pretend to be like your ex-girlfriend?” I'm half-outraged and half-wondering if I’ve just utterly failed at making myself over into someone deserving of a Dr. America boyfriend.
“No, of course not!” He leans forward to cup my hands across the table. “I want you to be yourself. Just maybe…not so loud. And if you could pick a dress with a nice muted tone for dinner with my parents.”
I look down at the yellow dress I bought especially for this occasion. Yellow is my favorite color. I wear it every chance I get outside the ER.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you also don’t like the way I dress.” I take back my hands.
“I adore the way you dress, Mimi,” Jonathan assures me, his face earnest. “I think you look gorgeous tonight. It’s just that my parents can be very judgmental, and they might consider yellow a bit garish for a nighttime function taking place after Labor Day.”
Before I can respond to that, he rushes on to explain, “I just want them to see in you what I see in you. The bright, beautiful woman you could be if you just put in a little more effort.”
Could be? A little more effort?
I picked out a new dress I could barely afford for this birthday dinner—all because Jonathan had noticed the last time I doubled up on a date night dress. I kept my 4C curls in a long straight weave because he’d told me how much he liked my hair when I’d mentioned wanting to get rid of it. Despite working back-to-back shifts y
esterday, I paid a visit to the European Wax Center. I was planning to try to give my doctor boyfriend birthday sex tonight, and I knew it wouldn’t do to have even a spot of hair below my waistline.
Despite my best efforts to remain calm and perfect, anger boils beneath my heavily curated surface as I tell Jonathan between clenched teeth, “I’m not sure I have any more effort left in me.”
“That’s a mindset thing.” Jonathan slides the hardback with his smiling ex-girlfriend on the cover closer to me. “There’s a section in the book about that too. Please, just read it. For me?”
He gives me a pleading look. “I really want my parents to like you.”
My boiling anger begins to dissipate.
I really want his parents to like me too. And I’m aware that’s not necessarily a given. Jonathan and I couldn’t be any more different on paper.
He grew up the only son of a stay-at-home mom and a doctor father, who was himself, the only son of a doctor. Jonathan comes from a distinguished line of Delaware doctors. A few older attendings jokingly referred to him as Dr. Jonathan Kershaw the fifth because even his great-great-grandfather was a doctor.
On the other hand, I was abandoned by a mother whose face I can no longer remember when I was six. Plus, I was a bit too old and too angry to be placed in a home with loving parents. So, I bounced around the Wilmington foster system until I aged out.