Get Tragic Read online

  Table of Contents

  Get Tragic

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale

  Blurb

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Get Tragic

  Text copyright © 2022 Lani Lynn Vale ™

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to headache medicine. I swear, I’ve taken Walmart brand Excedrin at least once a day since I started writing it. Dear Sweet Baby Jesus, I hate having a constant headache. I think it’s because I gave up carbs. Do you think it’s because I gave up carbs? I am pretty sure I’m having a cookie for dinner.

  Acknowledgments

  Golden Czermak - Photographer

  My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing- My editors

  Alyssa Garcia - Cover Artist & PA

  My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred and seventy-seven times.

  Kendra, Lisa, Laura, Penney, Brandi, Jen, Kathy, Mindy, Barbara & Amanda - I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks

  Bad Apple

  Dirty Mother

  Rusty Nail

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived

  Controlled Burn

  Put Out

  I Like Big Dragons Series

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

  Dragons Need Love, Too

  Oh, My Dragon

  The Dixie Warden Rejects

  Beard Mode

  Fear the Beard

  Son of a Beard

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  The Beard Made Me Do It

  Beard Up

  For the Love of Beard

  Law & Beard

  There’s No Crying in Baseball

  Pitch Please

  Quit Your Pitchin’

  Listen, Pitch

  The Hail Raisers

  Hail No

  Go to Hail

  Burn in Hail

  What the Hail

  The Hail You Say

  Hail Mary

  The Simple Man Series

  Kinda Don’t Care

  Maybe Don’t Wanna

  Get You Some

  Ain’t Doin’ It

  Too Bad So Sad

  Bear Bottom Guardians MC

  Mess Me Up

  Talkin’ Trash

  How About No

  My Bad

  One Chance, Fancy

  It Happens

  Keep It Classy

  Snitches Get Stitches

  F-Bomb

  The Southern Gentleman Series

  Hissy Fit

  Lord Have Mercy

  KPD Motorcycle Patrol

  Hide Your Crazy

  It Wasn’t Me

  I’d Rather Not

  Make Me

  Sinners are Winners

  If You Say So

  SWAT 2.0

  Just Kidding

  Fries Before Guys

  Maybe Swearing Will Help

  Ask Me If I Care

  May Contain Wine

  Joke’s on You

  Join the Club

  Any Day Now

  Say it Ain’t So

  Officially Over It

  Nobody Knows

  Depends Who’s Asking

  Valentine Boys

  Herd That

  Crazy Heifer

  Chute Yeah

  Get Bucked

  Souls Chapel Revenants

  Repeat Offender

  Conjugal Visits

  Jailbait

  Doin’ A Dime

  Kitty, Kitty

  Gen Pop

  Inmate of the Month

  Madd CrossFit Series

  No Rep

  Jerk It

  Chalk Dirty to Me

  Battle Crows MC

  Always Someone’s Monster

  Make Me Your Villain

  Rattle Some Cages

  Get Tragic

  Strange And unusual

  Never Trust the Living

  Blurb

  Usually when you find out you have a stalker, you don’t fall in love with him.

  But Banger Olivia Crest isn’t your normal, run of the mill, everyday girl. Banger is a truck driver who just so happens to know how to sling drinks in her spare time.

  She’s had a bad hand dealt to her time after time, and the last thing that she wants is to go all in. At least, that’s until she meets the geeky biker with his shy looks, and his surprisingly awesome fighting skills.

  Easton McKennick, ex-FBI agent and newest member of the Battle Crows MC, never really intended to actually reveal that he’d been stalking Banger since his early days in the FBI. In fact, he never intended to do anything at all when it came to the woman that held his heart.

  That was, until she offered to be his fake date to a police ball that just so happened to be where his own stalker would be. To sell it that he was happy and he’d moved on from his previous relationship, Banger and Easton pretend they’re a couple.

  All it takes is two hours for them both to realize that there’s not very much pretending going on.

  The only problem is, Easton’s stalker put a bull’s-eye on their backs, and they don’t know how to fix it.

  PROLOGUE

  Fuck you and your job and your sister and your dog.

  -Or however that song goes.

  EASTON

  When your brother sells you to get rid of you, you should know that you’re not a very likable person.

  At least, that was what he’d overheard the mothe
r say to her daughter a few moments after seeing her again after she’d had to rescue herself from a kidnapping.

  They—the police, not her mother—had been nice enough to pay for her flight to get her back to her dad’s house. Why her dad’s, and not her mom’s and stepdad’s house, where she’d lived the majority of her life?

  Because her mom and stepdad were on vacation in the Bahamas and had been there for going on a month now to celebrate ten years of marriage. They’d only flown home to make sure that whatever bullshit the press scrounged up made them look good. Once they knew they were in the clear, they’d flown back to their vacation, leaving their traumatized daughter behind.

  If I’d had my way, I wouldn’t have allowed her to leave my sight at all.

  But, sadly, I didn’t have my way.

  In fact, very rarely lately did I get the choice to do anything that I wanted to do.

  Like kill O’Ryan, the so-called ‘brother’ of Banger Crest.

  But after hearing from his superiors in a meeting with the top dogs of the FBI that not only would O’Ryan be going into protective custody because he’d copped a plea deal, but also because O’Ryan was connected AF? Well, let’s just say I’d no longer decided to be the better person.

  All my life, I’d been the one that’d taken the hits, but never served them back karma style in retaliation.

  But after seeing that look on Banger’s face, hearing her mother’s words, and realizing that the FBI wasn’t going to do a damn thing to help?

  My faith in the FBI was no longer where it should be.

  After Banger got home, and returned to normal life, I’d tried to let it ride.

  I’d tried to forget about her.

  I’d tried, and failed.

  I couldn’t let it ride.

  I wouldn’t.

  So I did what I had to do.

  Found who I had to find after he’d been entered into a witness protection program.

  And the moment he sang like a canary and thought he would be free, I made sure to let him know his assumptions were wrong.

  He wasn’t free.

  He wouldn’t ever be free again.

  And I took him to the one place that I knew they could make sure of it.

  The Battle Crows MC.

  Where I eventually became a fully patched member and joined the wrong side of the law.

  It felt fucking wonderful.

  CHAPTER 1

  Wit’s end.

  -street sign

  BANGER

  To Whom It May Concern:

  This is an anonymous letter sent to you by someone that felt that you needed to know what will be said in this letter. It was not sent in a malicious way, but in a way that clearly shows that anonymous wants to help. Not hurt.

  A long time ago, when they started coming to the gym, it was their happy place. Their one place that they could go to relax, unwind, and get a workout in. But it’d also turned into a family environment that they could stay at for hours if they wanted to.

  However, my client feels that the gym is no longer that for her.

  Lately, the coaching has been poor. The place has fallen into disrepair, and it has come to her attention that you have been very open and uncaring about how you can’t afford to ‘coddle’ the athletes.

  She feels like you have become a different person after your divorce, and that you no longer care about anyone or anything but the fact that your ex-wife has ‘ruined your business.’

  In the last two years, you’ve not once updated a single piece of equipment, and it’s become common knowledge that your gym is one of the ‘roughest’ in the city because of your lack of updates to the facility.

  There are a lot of members talking about leaving because of the lack of cleanliness, too.

  Please, do not take this anonymous letter in the wrong way. She’s coming from a place of love. And just wants her gym to go back to normal.

  Please consider hiring lawn services, cleaning crews, and putting a little money back into the gym so your clients won’t leave you.

  Sincerely,

  Anonymous, LLC

  I sent the letter through an editing program, read over it, rearranged and added where needed, then sent the letter through the editing software one more time before printing it out.

  From there, I folded it, stuffed it into an envelope, then placed it on the shiny bar next to the other stack of letters that were to be sent out once the mailman arrived.

  Then I sighed and looked at the spot in the bar top that I usually avoided looking at with all my strength.

  But it was futile. I looked at the place where my sister, Faye, had always sat and cheered me on. And felt my stomach clench.

  I wasn’t really sure how I’d gotten started writing anonymous letters. That was a lie. I knew exactly where it’d started. I just didn’t want to acknowledge the heartache that I knew would arise at the thought of the reason.

  Faye. My stepsister who’d passed away a little over a year ago. Faye, one of the only good things in my life besides my father after my own mother had exited my life. Faye, who’d been the method behind the madness.

  At one point, Faye hadn’t liked one of her doctors that she’d seen on the regular for cancer treatments. So, like the caring, loving, unable to show it in normal ways sibling that I was, I’d written an anonymous letter to the doctor’s office explaining all the things that made Faye uncomfortable.

  The very next day, there were a few staff missing that’d made it a hostile environment, and there were more comfortable chairs in the waiting room.

  And Faye had jokingly said that I should do what I’d done for her for everyone. And make a living out of it.

  So I had.

  Now, when I wasn’t working at the bar with my father, I was slammed with requests for anonymous letters to be sent all over the world. I even had a PO box where I sent the letters out of, using a dummy LLC name I’d made up, and was officially official in the eyes of the law to do it under.

  The bar door opened and closed, and I felt my attention switch from my sister’s usual seat to the bar top.

  “We’re closed,” I said.

  “I know.”

  I felt my head snapping up in response to that deep, delicious voice.

  Easton.

  My breathing hitched in my throat, and I felt my back straighten in response.

  “Ummm.” I hesitated. “Easton. What’s up?”

  Today, Easton was in work clothes.

  A fancy suit that fit him like a glove, one with pinstripes on it that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe combined.

  And goddamn, man, could Easton fill out that suit.

  His broad shoulders were straight, his chin lifted, and only the barest hint of stubble dotted his stellar jaw. And today, I could see the dimple in his left cheek as he flashed a warm smile my way.

  According to my sources—i.e., the drunk Battle Crows MC members that came into my bar on a regular basis—Easton worked at a tech company that worked with the military.

  The MC members were unsure whether Easton actually owned that place or not.

  But when I’d Googled Easton and this company, absolutely nothing came up. Not a name. Not a Google review. Not a single thing that would give me any indication about the man that looked at me like I was the bane of his existence.

  I didn’t know why he looked at me like that. Like I’d taken the last cookie off the baking sheet. But I didn’t like it.

  Which automatically made me more prickly than I was to begin with.

  “Easton.” I paused, wondering if he’d make me say more. He did. “What can I do for you today?”

  As in, why the fuck are you in my bar so early in the goddamn morning?

  It was only nine in the morning. Why was he here when the bar didn’t open for hours yet?

  “Banger.” He stopped. “I’m here because I got an interesting letter, and I wanted to know if you knew anything about it?”

  My lips twitched
hard.

  Last week, he’d pissed me off.

  He’d stiffed me my tip.

  Normally, that wouldn’t piss me off. Not really. I knew the deal.

  Some people tipped. Other people didn’t.

  But Easton consistently didn’t.

  And it annoyed the ever-loving shit out of me, so I sent him an anonymous letter.

  So sue me.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him.

  “And?” I asked.

  “And it’s come to my attention that this establishment works on tips, and I wasn’t aware.” He paused as he reached into his pocket and pulled out five hundred-dollar bills. My heart started to pound as he threw that money on the table in front of me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  I tilted my head. “You do realize, Easton, that every single restaurant and bar in the entire United States works on tips. Most servers get paid like two bucks an hour. How did you not know that you had to tip?”

  He hesitated, looking as if he was about to vomit. Then said, “I’ve never been in a bar before. Not without working or someone else paying. I just assumed you were paid a living wage.”

  I barely stopped the eye roll.

  “You’ve never been in a bar before?” I drawled, sounding just as incredulous as I felt.

  “Nope.” He crossed his arms defensively over his chest, making the understated muscles in his chest bulge out. “Like I said, before I joined the Battle Crows MC, I didn’t go to bars. A, I never had time. B, bars are useless. It’s cheaper to drink at home.”

  Then he winced, looking at me as if he wanted to take the words back.

  I waved away the worry. “Don’t worry about it. I tend to agree.”

  His brows rose.

  “You think that I want to work in a bar?” I asked.

  I didn’t work in a bar, to be honest. I worked as a truck driver. I worked in the bar on my off time. And when I had off time from my off time, I wrote anonymous letters. I was a jack of all trades.

  Sort of.

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t really know anything that you want, Banger,” he said.

  That’s when I realized that he was serious.

  I sighed. “It’s hard to open up to people, Easton.”

  He snorted. “There’s a difference between opening up and being a bitch to the world.”

  He had a point.

  But it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t like anyone.