Radge, p.1
Radge, page 1
“RADGE”
By Esther E. Schmidt
Copyright © 2021 by Esther E. Schmidt All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Incidents, names, places, characters and other stuff mentioned in this book is the results of the author’s imagination. Radge is a work of fiction. If there is any resemblance, it is entirely coincidental.
This content is for mature audiences only. Please do not read if sexual situations, violence and explicit language offends you.
Cover design by:
Ben Ellis - Tall Story
Editor #1:
Christi Durbin
Editor #2:
Virginia Tesi Carey
Cover model:
Cole
Photographer:
Wander Aguiar Photography
RADGE
Meribeth - Chaos erupts, causing my parents to force me into an arranged marriage. When I try to coerce circumstances to take a turn, that’s when true mayhem strikes.
Ramsey - She’s wild, crazy, and a streak of violence runs through her veins. But the headstrong, gorgeous redhead landing right in my lap is the key to executing a plot for vengeance.
Radge is a standalone, biker/mafia romance with a happily-ever-after.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
Six years ago
– MERIBETH –
“Dammit,” my father grunts and drags his gaze away from the road in front of him for a breath or two to glance at me through the rearview mirror. “Remember rule number one along with the rest I taught you.”
I give him a tight nod. No words are needed as his voice slices through my head, reciting rule number one; be brave, Meribeth. It’s the sentence he always starts our weapon and training sessions with to make sure I stay calm in any situation.
Panic causes your brain to short-circuit. You need to move past the panic to be able to focus on what’s important. In this world we live in, being brave can be the difference between life or death, for yourself or those around you.
I whip my head around and watch in horror as a car comes up from behind us. He’s driving at full speed as he passes our SUV and slams into us from the left. My father curses and tries to keep the car on the road but everything is going too fast and yet I feel as if we’re moving in slow motion.
“Dadddd!” I shriek.
Yes, I can shriek and still be freaking brave because ice fills my veins when our SUV starts to spin. The seatbelt holds me back when the sound of crunching metal fills the air. Pain explodes in my head and shoulder as the car comes to an abrupt stop. My ears are ringing and I’m completely out of focus.
Groaning, I call out for my father but he doesn’t respond. I unbuckle and reach out to him. His head is slumped over the steering wheel. When I crawl over the midsection and onto the front seat, I realize the front of the SUV is wrapped around a tree. Movement catches my eye and I see the car who pushed us off the road has stopped behind us. Two men are getting out.
“Dad,” I whisper shout and shake his shoulder. “Dad, please, they’re coming,” I urge.
He’s still unconscious and not responding to anything. I don’t have time to check if he’s still breathing because the two men are closing in. Everything my father has taught me kicks in and my “fight-or-flight” instinct drives me to grab the gun my father keeps close to his chest.
The weight of it in my hand is familiar. The pain in my shoulder is a dull throbbing when I flip the safety off. My mother might have raised me as the girl who needlepoints, plays the violin, rides horses, and wears fancy dresses, but my father added the dirt bike racing, along with fight and weapon training. And he added more training sessions after I was kidnapped at the age of nine.
Being a mafia princess comes at a price, one that’s tangled with blood and never-ending destruction to protect the empire that’s built through our family’s legacy. A legacy I can never escape from since I was born into it. This is the reason why my father made sure I could thrive in it, even at an early age.
I take all the strength he gave me over those years and brace myself for what’s to come. A man’s hand enters through the shattered window and I notice the ink on his forearm right before I look him in the eye and pull the trigger. The bullet enters the man’s brain and he falls back.
I whip my head around–ignoring the pain shooting through my neck–to see where the other man went. Movement through the back window lets me know he’s running toward his car. My father taught me not to waste ammo but my aim is flawless.
It’s for this reason I line up and take a deep breath, letting it flow as I pull the trigger. The man doesn’t get a chance to get into his car but crashes into the dirt. With both men dead I focus back on my father and gently guide his body backward instead of having him hang over the steering wheel.
His eyes are closed and he’s still unconscious. Glancing down, I feel bile rise in my throat at the mangled sight of his left leg. Normally, when one of our people are injured, we have our own doctor to come to the house. But I can tell my father is too injured for a normal doctor; he needs surgeons and to be inside a real hospital.
My father might not have explained everything in great detail to me but, I know a lot and am anything but a naïve teenager. I know enough to be aware of what’s going on and how to act when shit hits the fan. Like now.
I take my phone and look up my uncle’s number, he’s my father’s underboss. It rings a few times before it goes to voicemail. That’s weird; he always picks up. I try again but it goes straight to voicemail this time.
Thinking fast, I search for another number. This is one I’ve never used but my father made me put it in my phone in case of emergencies. It’s his consigliere, Aaron. He picks up after the first ring and when I quickly rattled off what happened he tells me to stay calm and that he’ll handle everything.
I stay on the line and hear him bark out orders to others. When he’s back he tells me help is on the way and an ambulance is coming. I know what this means. My father has massive influence and we have several cops and people higher up on our payroll. Minutes tick away and I place my phone on speaker when my father starts to groan in pain.
“Dad,” I croak.
His eyes fly open and he surges forward, his seatbelt stopping him abruptly as he grunts in pain, “My leg.”
“Help is coming. I called Aaron. Everything is going to be okay.” I hope my voice is stronger than I feel.
My father is the strongest man I know. All my life I’ve looked up to him, ran into his strong arms to hide in his embrace as a kid whenever I got hurt. I remember very vividly how I felt when he held me after I was kidnapped at the age of nine and managed to escape by climbing the furniture and going out the window.
Escaping wasn’t as easy as I made it sound. I was injured when I climbed over a spiked fence, earning myself two jagged scars on the inside of my thigh. But when I returned and my father held me while the doctor stitched those long gashes? I’ve never felt safer. I might have been brought up in a world of havoc, but it’s my fucking world of havoc.
In this moment, I’m the one who is there for my father–the way he has always been there for me–and I will pull him through this. And just like the kidnappers who took me all those years ago?
The ones responsible for this will be killed as well because the two I took out to save us only received the order for this assassination. Though it’s not something I have to focus on; my main priority is to be there for my father.
I take his hand in mine and give a firm squeeze. “We will find out who did this, Daddy.”
My father groans and his head falls to the left but it instantly turns back to me. “The car that hit us. The dead man next to me. What…how?”
“I took care of it, just like you taught me. I have no clue who they are. He had a tattoo on his forearm. A bear with a crown, I saw it clearly before I killed him.”
My father’s eyes widen and he growls low in his throat, “Logan Bane. He did this, those men work for him. The tattoo you’re describing is an initiation tattoo.”
I have no clue who Logan Bane is. My father might have explained some details of our world but it’s not like I’m his consigliere. He closes his eyes and I can tell he’s in pain.
“Who is Logan Bane? Tell me,” I ask, in the hopes it will help distract him from the pain.
He starts to explain and it actually helps pass the time and soon enough EMTs are at the scene and my father is rushed to the hospital. Hours of surgery are needed and the surgeons do everything possible but they are unable to save part of his left leg.
It will be a long road filled with rehabilitation to get used to the prosthetic leg due to his below the knee amputation. But like I said, I’m going to be strong and be there for him because I don’t want to be afraid of a next time where they might be successful. Rule number one; be brave. Brave enough to face everything this twisted world throws at our feet.
CHAPTER ONE
Present day
– MARIBETH –
The door of the g arage slides open and instead of slowing down, I increase my speed. Hitting the rear brake pedal, I send the bike into a tailspin to take the turnaround–a familiar action I’ve perfected over the years–and come to a complete stop once I’m in my parking spot.
Screw parking the normal way; I’ve never been a person who follows standards. My father gave me a motorcycle for my sixteenth birthday. I was riding mini bikes when I was six, followed by dirt bikes; you can say my father raised me as his son while my mother raised me like the lady I need to be in this mafia world where my father–and his before him–built his empire.
For instance, my mother would rather have me riding a horse instead of this iron one my father bought me, but I guess she indulges my reckless side as long as I follow her advice and lessons on how to act as a lady. Not just a lady, but one who is a mafia princess and who needs to live up to the expectations that comes with it.
Boring, annoying, and most of all not part of my ambitions. I would rather listen to my father’s talks about business and see what choices he makes and how it pays off in the long run. My father not only thrives in the mafia world, he’s standing at the top of it; the mafia boss himself.
I might be his daughter, but like I mentioned, he raised me as his son. Even if I have three younger brothers at the age of twelve, eleven, and nine years-old. He’s not only taught me how to fight, torture, and kill, he’s kept me in the loop about everything businesswise as well.
You might say he’s created a function for me that sits between the consigliere and the underboss. As a woman we both know I can’t become the underboss or follow in his footsteps, but it didn’t stop him from raising me as his trusted soundboard.
The reason he opened up and trusted me with this load of delicate information was because he was badly injured when I was a teenager. I was with him inside the SUV when an attempt to assassinate him failed.
They strategically attacked not only my father, but my uncle, the underboss as well. My uncle was assassinated while my father only lost part of his leg because I saved the both of us by killing the two who came after us.
During my father’s rehabilitation we talked a lot and grew closer than we already were. He knew I could take all the gruesome stories; the hard reality of the mafia world and how monsters exist in every shape or size.
Because I’ve seen and endured monsters; it’s all part of being raised in a mafia family. I was nine years old when I was kidnapped and discovered this world isn’t all sunshine and roses. It’s about blood. Either through a family connection, making that of an enemy flow onto the streets, or coating your hands with the crimson of revenge.
The only reason I escaped my kidnappers was due to my tomboy skills that allowed me to climb a steep wall, open a window, and crawl through it. During my escape I was injured on a fence, but I did manage to run and find help. It’s the reason why my father never stopped seeing me as the strong daughter he raised.
We have a unique bond, and although I spend equally as much time with my mother, it’s different. It’s as if she’s always pushing me to become someone I’m not where my father leaves me be while praising my input when we work together.
Maybe it’s me. I always did like getting dirty and rough way more than applying makeup, wearing heels, and spending money on clothes and hours of shopping. And I’m not even talking about social gatherings where I’m expected to look, and act the high-class woman status part.
Hitting the kickstand, I kill my Harley Sportster 1200 and throw my leg over to dismount. I should have taken the long way home to let my thoughts cool down after meeting my friend, Dara. Damn, what a mess. My heart breaks for her but also for the domino effect that happened after the horrific event she endured.
She was raped two nights ago. Her honor has been tainted and in this mafia world it holds an even bigger meaning. The impact of this fact was like throwing a bomb. Not to mention, it caused a war between us and the motorcycle club who transports our weapons.
Dara has been my friend growing up. She’s the daughter of one of my father’s capos. Her father contacted mine about what had happened to her, and I wanted to see her right away but she told everyone she wanted to be left alone.
My father ordered me to stay away from her–to honor her request–but I couldn’t. Even if she specifically told my father she didn’t want to see me. I still needed her to know she wasn’t alone; I was there for her whatever she needed.
Hell, the magnitude of my anger was so massive, I wanted to go and kill the person who did it with my own bare hands. Until my father gave me all the information he had a few hours ago and explained how retaliation already took place. A snowball effect that caused a war between the MC and the mafia.
Yet now? Now I know retaliation was the wrong choice, because my unannounced visit with Dara gave me information we should have had right after she was raped. She shouldn’t have lied, even if she was scared and the horrible things she had to endure.
This because my father unknowingly started a war that should never have erupted in the first place. The one who raped Dara forced her to lie. And by doing this she accused an innocent man who paid with his life for something he didn’t do.
I’m furious she spread lies and with it caused a war with not only a very dangerous motorcycle club, but innocent lives were lost all while the real scumbag is walking around with a smile on his fucking face because he got what he wanted.
And what he wanted was cooperation between two mafia families. Specifically, the weapon transport the MC was doing for us. All of it was a well-planned setup. No wonder Dara wanted me to stay away from her since she could never keep a secret from me; I can poke right through a lie when I’m facing a person.
One of the many reasons why my father likes to keep me in the loop with everything business wise and thank fuck he did because I know everything inside and out and right now I’m the only one who knows exactly what happened with Dara and why.
She was used like a pawn in a plan that Bane has been trying to pull off for years. Dara was caught into their web a few weeks ago. She shared with me how a man in his forties was giving her attention and secretly gave her gifts. She was swept off her feet, and while we are brought up by different standards, she was affected by the secret male attention she received.
When I reminded her how her father was already looking for a suitable husband, she vowed to withstand his advances. Women in the mafia world don’t have the luxury of following their hearts; it’s all about forging alliances. She did mention he was a capo but she also told me she would tell him to stop the next time she’d meet him.
Yes, the dude even got her to sneak out of the freaking house. And did I mention the whole over forty part while she’s almost three years younger than I am? She’s barely sixteen for Christ’s sake.
A few days ago, Dara explained to me how stopping to see him didn’t work because he went to her father to demand they were to be married. She showed me a picture of the guy she secretly took with her phone and I instantly recognized him as Rory Mickle, a capo from Bane, another mafia family. I knew right then and there it screamed disaster and I mentioned it to my father so he could put a stop to it.
Talking about disasters, I hope to hell my father is able to salvage a bond with the MC that he shattered beyond repair when he killed the president last night during a standard transport meeting. He shouldn’t have retaliated this quickly, and he wouldn’t have, but that scumbag responsible for everything made a few of his men join my father for the meeting.
And seriously? Knowing all the details now? This betrayal was brilliantly planned and put into action. Almost fucking flawless. And they would have gotten away with it if Dara didn’t have one weakness; her friendship with me.
I unfasten my helmet and the sound of my mother’s voice immediately assaults my senses. “One of these days, Meribeth.”
A soft murmur and one glance in her direction lets me know she’s swallowing a few curse words right after my full name until she adds on a steady breath, “Your father has been asking where you are. He has something to tell you.”
