Shattered Skull (Sons of Sinister Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1 Everly Hart

  2 Everly

  3 Aiken Cross

  4 Everly

  5 Aiken

  6 Everly

  7 Aiken

  8 Everly

  9 Everly

  10 Aiken

  11 Everly

  12 Everly

  13 Aiken

  14 Everly

  15 Everly

  16 Aiken

  17 Everly

  18 Aiken

  19 Everly

  20 Aiken

  21 Everly

  22 Aiken

  23 Everly

  24 Aiken

  25 Everly

  26 Aiken

  27 Everly

  28 Aiken

  29 Everly

  30 Aiken

  31 Everly

  32 Everly

  33 Aiken

  34 Everly

  35 Everly

  36 Aiken

  37 Everly

  38 Everly

  39 Aiken

  40 Everly

  Epilogue

  DIRTY SAINT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Also from Tabatha Vargo!

  PLAYING PATIENCE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  SHATTERED SKULL

  Copyright © 2020 by Tabatha Vargo

  All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

  **EBOOK EDITION**

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events or real people are used by the author fictitiously. Other names, characters, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Shattered Skull/Tabatha Vargo

  Editing services provided by Indie Edits Inc.

  Cover Art by Graphics by Stacey

  Formatting by Tabatha Vargo

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9861173-8-1

  The first time I saw Aiken Cross, aka Skull, he was standing atop a speeding motorcycle.

  The second time, he was putting his fist through my brother’s face.

  Now he’s everywhere I look.

  He’s making my life hell with his vulgar remarks and seductive lure, but it’s not my fault my brother joined The Border Lords, his rival crew. I keep my nose out of their business and my head in the books. Yet he’s always there provoking me, dragging me into their conflict.

  Everyone in town knows you don’t mess with the Sons of Sinister, but no one ever told me what to do when a Son of Sinister messes with me.

  New York Times bestselling author Tabatha Vargo invites you to fall in love with the Sons of Sinister! A new adult spin on MC books with all the grunge, angst, and dirty, foul-mouthed biker boys who know how to handle curves.

  The Sons of Sinister consists of four standalone novels.

  Shattered Skull, Dirty Saint, Ruthless Crow, & Joker’s Wild

  This series is the Blow Hole Boys meets crotch rockets meets naughty, bully bastards who don’t give a fuck and the good girls who can’t help but fall for them! They run the streets, the money, and can outride any other crew.

  To the invisible,

  I see you.

  Also from Tabatha Vargo!

  The Chubby Girl Chronicles

  On the Plus Side

  Hot and Heavy

  Thick & Thin

  The Sons of Sinister Series

  Shattered Skull

  Dirty Saint

  Ruthless Crow

  Joker’s Wild

  The Blow Hole Boys

  The Blow Hole Rock Hard Box Set

  Playing Patience (Zeke)

  Perfecting Patience 1.5 (Zeke)

  Finding Faith (Finn)

  Convincing Constance (Tiny)

  Having Hope (Chet)

  The Black Trilogy

  Little Black Beginning

  Little Black Book

  Little Black Break

  Little Black Box Set

  Standalones

  Slammer

  Black Sheep

  Prologue

  WHEN YOU’RE INVISIBLE LIKE ME, people step right over you. They look through your soul, only seeing what’s on the other side of you. They don’t see your heart—your essence—your mind. They don’t care if you’re hurting or broken. They only see the wall behind you, dark and dripping with your shadow.

  Aiken Cross saw me when no one else did. His dark eyes found me in the deep end and plucked me from the thickness I was swimming in seconds before I could drown. He didn’t look through me. He looked at me. At my essence. At my mind. And once he found my soul and my heart, he touched it with his fingertips, and I disappeared.

  I am no longer invisible.

  Thanks to Aiken Cross, I no longer exist.

  1 Everly Hart

  BREATHE, EVERLY. DON’T PANIC.

  Find five things you can see.

  My eyes skimmed the hallway, landing on five different objects. The lockers lining the hall. Classroom doors with a variety of posters taped to them. A water fountain with students lined up to get a sip, and the exit sign above the door leading out to the breezeway. It blinked back at me like a warning.

  The hallway crowd grew, and I dropped my eyes to my feet, looking at the terrazzo flooring beneath my shoes, and its tiny dots. They began to move, and I had to look away.

  The panic attack was still coming.

  Find four things you can feel.

  My fingers skimmed the wall, my nails scraping along the cream-colored paint. When I reached a doorway and ran out of wall to touch, I grabbed the straps to my backpack and squeezed. Two: my bag. Technically, I was touching the floor, so that was three. And finally, I reached the door leading to the C hallway, and when I pressed my hands against the door to push it open, I reached number four.

  Breathing was getting more manageable, but I still wasn’t out of the woods.

  Three things you can hear.

  The noise was overwhelming. The slamming of locker doors. The chatter of people I didn’t know and their laughter—the bell ringing. The sounds were bearing down on me and sending my senses into overdrive, but I zoned in and focused, finding three.

  One: the sound of my backpack shifting against my back as I walked down the hall to my first class. Two: the sound of my thumbnail clicking against the nail of my ring finger. It was a nervous tick. Three: the sound of another door opening when I entered the hall where my class was.

  Better.

  The dizziness was starting to ebb, and my heart rate was returning to a reasonable speed.

  Two things you can smell.

  The girl walking beside me must have spritzed on an entire bottle of perfume that morning because it was all I could smell. It was fruity and overwhelming. I lifted my arm and pressed my wrist against my nose and breathed in the fresh scent of my favorite laundry detergent.

  I closed my eyes briefly and took a deep, fulfilling breath.

  One thing you can taste.

  Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed my gum and pulled out a stick. Popping it into my mouth, I tasted the minty flavor when it rolled over my tongue, and I sighed in relief as I stepped up to room two-hundred.

  I had made it.

  Instead of going inside, I stood there and waited, my eyes glued to the narrow rectangular window looking into the classroom. It was empty, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I hated walking into a room full of people. The way they stared at me. The attention would send me s
traight into an attack.

  The people walking by stared at me like I was nothing. I couldn’t see their eyes on me, but I could feel them penetrating my back. To them, I was no one—the new girl—the loser—the outsider. I hadn’t earned my spot in their school. Since it was my senior year of high school, I wouldn’t have the time to secure a place even if I wanted one.

  I didn’t.

  They had probably known each other for a long time, growing up together.

  Sleepovers.

  Parties.

  The whole shebang.

  Regular things normal teenagers did.

  I was an interloper trying to step into their already planned lives. A square peg in their round hole society. Someone who was stepping in at the last possible moment without a chance of becoming one of them. That was nothing new to me. I had never been part of any group.

  My anxiety rushed back in, scratching at the inside of my chest like a feral, black cat, filling my lungs with the dead weight of a panic attack.

  I reached up and started to twirl a piece of hair. It was my show. Every time I was close to having an attack, I twisted my hair. When I was younger, I had done it so much I had a bald spot just above my ear.

  Thanks to the new medications I had been on for the last two years, my attacks weren’t as bad as they used to be. They were kept at bay unless I was under a sizeable amount of stress. My entire life getting uprooted was the perfect reason to be stressed.

  Starting a new school was the pits. Moving from private school on the west coast to public school on the east coast was like stepping into another world. The smells were different. The trees were large and overbearing, pressing down on me and suffocating me with their foliage. And the sun, which I used to bath in, in Seattle, brought with it a wet heat that made everything on my body sticky.

  Humidity.

  It was the devil.

  Life wasn’t fair. I wanted to spend my last year of high school with the few people who knew my name. I had grown up with the same people, starting in elementary school, and sticking with them all the way to high school. Even though I wasn’t one of their crowd, I had still earned my place there.

  The smart girl.

  The guaranteed valedictorian.

  Erik’s little sister, even though I was two minutes older than him.

  But my mother insisted it was for a better life. That remained to be seen, although things weren’t looking too bright in that department.

  My life had been almost perfect, and within a year, everything changed. First, my mother decided she no longer wanted my father and would instead sample the young men of Seattle.

  That resulted in a bitter divorce that left me running to be with my father, and my brother, Erik, staying with Mom. He said it was to protect her, but we both knew it was because Mom let him do whatever he wanted.

  If my father was the wallet, then my mother was the fun; at least that was how Erik treated them.

  Me?

  I worshipped the ground my father walked on, and in return, he showered me with all the love and affection my mother refused me. It wasn’t about the money. I had never let him spend money on me the way Erik insisted he blow it on him.

  He enjoyed coming from a wealthy family, begging Dad to buy him a new car, wearing only the best clothes, and spending tons of money on things that, quite honestly, were stupid.

  I bought books and reading paraphernalia. I asked that instead of cars, any money Dad wanted to give me or spend on lavish things be spent on my education.

  College.

  Housing.

  Dad assured me the money was there, and I knew it was, but still, there wasn’t anything I wanted or needed, so I didn’t see the point in blowing money on pointless things. Erik and I might have had the same DNA, but we were total opposites.

  After the divorce, our lives were different, but after some time, I got adjusted to and even enjoyed living alone with my father. He understood my anxiety and believed it was real. He nurtured that broken part of me and gave me someone to lean on when I felt the panic scratching at my brain.

  He was my lifeline.

  We took trips to historical places, Erik turning up his nose in boredom and leaving Dad and me to enjoy the outdoors. We went fishing on a small rental boat, even though Dad owned a Yacht. We hiked, turning off our phones and breathing in the fresh air.

  We were similar that way.

  Simple.

  We were content without social media and the hustle and bustle of life.

  Things were near perfect.

  Then my world took another spin. My dad grew sick, his skin pale, and his muscles weak. He slowed down, and then he stopped. There were no more outings—no more laughter and exciting conversations. He ceased all things.

  We started going to doctors trying to figure out what was wrong, and within a few weeks, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and given six months to live.

  He made it for six weeks.

  I was crushed. My lifeline had disappeared, and I was left spinning into the unknown without anything to hold on to. My anxiety worsened, and the panic attacks came at all the wrong times. I couldn’t function or think. I only wanted my father back.

  He left everything to Erik and me, but we couldn’t touch it until our twenty-first birthday, which meant we went from living a comfortable lifestyle in Seattle, attending private schools and not wanting for anything, to moving to Georgia, living in an old house, and going to public school for the first time in our lives.

  Mom wanted a fresh start. At least that was what she told the rich ladies in her circle, but we knew it was because she had nothing left in Seattle.

  “If I had only stayed with him for a little while longer,” she had once said.

  I hated her for her words. She wasn’t upset that her ex-husband was gone. She was unhappy that he had died just after she divorced him, leaving her blocked from his will and left with no inheritance. It angered me since it was her indiscretions that ended their marriage in the first place.

  That was the beginning of the end for my mother and me, and I wasn’t sure we could ever get back the small amount of a relationship we had. Still, I had no one else but my mother and my brother, which meant where they went, I went.

  A fresh start for my mother meant leaving behind the lavish lifestyle she had been accustomed to, running home to a city she hadn’t stepped foot in since she was nineteen-years-old, and living in a house that had been boarded up since my grandparents passed away when I was ten. Seven long years had been hard on the house, and our first four days in Georgia, we spent our time cleaning and preparing the home.

  It seemed easier for a woman my mother’s age to start anew, but starting fresh for me was painful. Atlanta, Georgia, was not Seattle. The differences were glaring, and even though my mother swore I would adjust soon, it had been two weeks since we arrived, and I wasn’t getting any closer to enjoying the humidity, the heat, or the insects.

  My naturally curly hair was in a never-ending state of frizz, which said a lot considering I came from the rainiest state in the United States. Most days, it stayed in a bun to contain the mass of dark curls.

  While I wasn’t adjusting, my twin brother, Erik, seemed to flourish. Already, he was making new friends and getting invites to parties. Of course, that had more to do with my social anxiety and his lack of filter. He was loud, obnoxious, and never met a stranger. Erik had been the life of the party back home, and he had brought that party with him to Atlanta.

  The students at North Lakeside High welcomed him and befriended him immediately. Meanwhile, I had yet to speak to a single person at school. Sure, the teachers adored me and my GPA, but sometimes I longed for the ability to socialize without the immediate sense of impending doom that came along with chatting.

  The hallway was boisterous, with students gathering books for their next class. I gripped the straps to my bag, pulled open the door, and went into the classroom. The hallway sounds ceased as the door closed behind me,
and a rush of chills moved over my body. I welcomed the silence.

  Since I was only taking two classes, I didn’t bother with a locker, which meant I made it to the classroom before anyone else and had my pick of the seats. Taking the first seat in the last row, I set my bag at my side and tried to relax before the room filled with other students.

  Soon, a flow of colors entered the space. There were graphic tees and distressed jeans. Expensive name-brand shoes and short dresses. The colors were too bright, and the mixture of styles was a tad overwhelming for me.

  I had never gone to a school that didn’t require a uniform, but I found I liked the structure they brought with them. That morning it had taken me nearly ten minutes to figure out what to wear. People complained about uniforms, but honestly, it made things a lot easier and saved time. I settled on a pair of jeans and a cute top, but Erik had gone all out, blowing hundreds of dollars of money he still had from Dad on name-brand everything.

  He seemed to forget when he ran out of money this time; he was out until we turned twenty-one.

  Once the room was at capacity, Mr. Blankenship stepped into the classroom and closed the door. He had a reputation for never matching, and today was no exception. His green and gray tie clashed with his beige slacks, navy button-up, and black dress shoes.

  The girl beside me covered her mouth, holding back a snort of laughter.

  “Pull out a notebook and a pencil,” he said, getting straight to the point.

  He tossed his bag on the single desk at the front of the class and stood staring back at us, giving us time to do just that. I was already ready, a notebook on the top of my desk and a pencil in hand.