Prologue & Chapter One

PROLOGUE

THE DUCHESS

Friday nights are my favourite.

Unless we’re out on a job, we have a party at my bar, Valhalla.

We drink too much, smoke too much, fuck around, whatever it is that makes us happy.

This week was like any other in Redville Beach. It was scorching hot, so we’d broken one of the grills out and we’d have one of our chefs cooking up a fuck tonne of burgers and hot dogs all night.

All of the patched members of the Valkyrie would attend as long as they weren’t on a job, and they all brought partners, relatives, people they were fucking, whatever it might be.

Our parties were always popular, and more so when it was hot. As soon as the grill came out, half the town would turn up for a night of drink, drugs and sex. It was common knowledge what went down in my bar, but I had local law enforcement eating out of my hand, they wouldn’t touch us.

It helped, of course, that a good few of the local cops were very good customers of mine. Our weed was very popular, even with the law.

Life was good.

My name is Alexandra Madden.

I’m the Duchess.

I run this town.

Everyone would be wise to remember that.

CHAPTER ONE

THE DUCHESS

“Duchess!” a voice shouted across the car park to me, barely audible over the sound of my bike. 

“Hey there, Karma,” I replied once I shut the engine off. Erica ‘Karma’ Hart is my oldest friend, confidant and second in command. If there’s a problem, she’s my solution. If someone ends up on the wrong side of the Valkyrie, they’ll come face-to-face with Karma.

I pulled my helmet off, letting my black curly hair down my back. 

Karma skipped towards me, smiling like a schoolgirl, and flung her arms around my neck. Sometimes she really did come across like a child in a ruthless killer’s body… but she was my closest friend for a reason, and she was great at what she does.

“What have I missed, Karma?”

“You’ve only been out of town for two days, boss.”

“I know, but a lot can happen.”

She rolled her eyes at me as we walked into the bar. “Your updates are probably more interesting than ours, boss, trust me.”

I smirked, that was probably true.

I followed Karma towards the ‘function room’ at the back of the bar. To any normies that stop by for a beer, it’s a function room with an amusing themed name above the door. For us, it’s the centre of business.

“Ragnarök!” I shouted as I walked through the door, calling all patched members to meet.

Compared to most stereotypical MCs, we were small, with only six fully patched members (including me!). We had quite a lot of newbies, but they were a long way off from being patched.

But also compared to most stereotypical clubs, we had better profits, success rates, fewer calamities, and, a true bragging point, none of our members were behind bars.

Sometimes it helps being a little less obvious with what you do. Breaking the law is one thing, but that doesn’t mean you need to brag about it.

I sat at my end of the table; a small smile on my face as everyone else filed in. It had only been a couple days, but I missed these ladies. The Valkyrie are family.

Karma sat in her usual spot to my right, the rest of the team spreading out in front of us. 

If you ignored the guns, helmets and patched leather jackets, we’d look like any other group of 20-somethings. That worked to our benefit quite often. The MC world was still incredibly sexist and old fashioned, so no one expects to have their asses handed to them by a group of young ladies.

I did enjoy teaching those people a lesson.

As soon as everyone was seated, I called the meeting to order.

“Around the table with updates then, ladies. Tequila, you first?”

Tequila looked after cleaning dirty money. Considering some of the pies we had fingers in… we had a lot of dirty money to clean.

“All good on my end, boss. Everything’s running smooth as a whistle.”

“Thanks, Tequila. Hornet, you’re up.” Hornet looked after some of our more legitimate enterprises, but you could also say she was in client relations. If a client caused a problem or was going to shoot us in the back, she’d find out about it.

“Positive news too, boss. The tattoo shop is going really well, the manager wants to take another artist on.”

“Make it happen, Hornet. Shorty, your turn.”

Shorty was our youngest patched member. She thrived on intelligence, research, that kind of thing. If we got bored, she’d find a target for our sticky fingers so we didn’t get out of practice.

“Nothing to report, boss.”

“Fishnet?” Her name came from her past as a stripper. She was great at what she did right up until someone got too handsy and she strangled them… with her fishnet stockings. I took her in, looked after her, and gave her a job. Now, she was up to her eyeballs in illegal gun sales.

“Got a buyer lined up, boss. We’ll be running about two hundred miles north for this one.”

“How many?”

“Well… We’re gonna want a lorry.”

I couldn’t hold back the grin. There was a lot of money in guns, but there was also a lot of risk. Leaving stacks of illegal guns laying around for a long time is just asking for trouble. It was definitely best to shift the stuff as quickly as possible, especially when the Russians deliver as quickly as they do.

“And last but not least, Karma?”

“Two new contracts appeared on my desk, boss. Big budgets, both of them.”

“Make it happen.”

“And you, D? How was your trip?”

“Well, K, it was productive,” I smirked. I’d been playing house with the boss of the MC that runs the next city over, Ashworth, a man with the road name Blaze. Blaze is an absolute twat of a man, I wouldn’t have been there if I didn’t have to be. The truth of the matter is that we had reason to believe someone in my club was working with Blaze, and I needed to find out who and why they were willing to betray me.

Up until Blaze took over, the Valkyrie had a great working relationship with the Henchmen. We looked out for each other, helped each other shift certain stocks, sold each other’s products, that sort of thing.

After Blaze came in… well. It became pretty clear very quickly that there was a new boss in town, and that wasn’t a good thing.

He’s a sexist, misogynistic piece of shit who I really look forward to shooting once this is all done with. 

“Blaze is as much of a dick as he’s ever been,” I continued. “Still the same sexist son of a bitch. There’s definitely something going on somewhere, there’s definitely a leak... but I was there for two days, and nothing. We need to find out how he knows what he knows… but directly confronting him apparently isn't the answer.”

“I miss the old guy,” Karma laughed. “What was his name, Stuart?”

I snorted. It’s true, the old boss of the Henchmen’s road name was Stuart. It was Stuart I struck my deals with, he was a great guy. Shame he was shot last year… the same can’t be said for his brother. I'd love to be the one to shoot his brother.

We caught up on everything else that happened… before getting back to the principle issue at hand. It was Friday!