The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 274

<Chapter 136-7

did you get the road name ‘Locke’? Because I know you weren’t born with it. Is there some dark, mysterious story behind it, or did you just think it sounded cool?”

Clam

Locke chuckles, the deep sound vibrating against my ribs. “It wasn’t dark or mysterious at all, baby. It was actually Cobra testing me during my prospect period.”

“Dad tested you?”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Locke smiles, a glint of nostalgic humor in his eyes. “When I first came around the club three years ago, I was still pretty closed off. I kept my mouth shut, did my work, and didn’t talk much about my past. The guys knew I was legit because of Rook, but in an MC, trust isn’t just given because someone vouched for you. You have to earn it yourself.”

“So what happened?” I ask, thoroughly intrigued, leaning my elbows on his knee. “Spare no details, if you please, handsome.”

“Well,” Locke says. “About two months into my prospecting, Cobra gave me a physical black leather ledger. It contained every single sensitive financial detail of the club’s off-the-books operations, offshore accounts, and emergency funds. He handed it to me in front of the entire table and said, ‘Keep this safe. If anyone outside this room sees what’s in here, we’re all going to federal prison.”

I roll my eyes. “That sounds like Dad.”

“It sure does,” Locke says wryly. “And it was a trap… or a test, really. That night, he had Bishop try to sneak into my office at the clubhouse to get his hands on the ledger, and present it to Cobra to prove I wasn’t careful enough. He tried bribing me with drinks, tried distracting me, and eventually tried to literally pick the lock on my office door while I was inside.”

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Chapter 136

Chapter 136-2

I burst out laughing. Bishop tried to break into your office? What did you do?”

“I opened the door, grabbed him by his cut, dragged him down the hallway, and locked him in the bathroom. When Cobra walked into the clubhouse the next day asking where the hell his Road Captain was for a meeting, I handed him the brass key to the bathroom and the untouched ledger.”

“No way,” I say, grinning broadly. “You locked Biskop in the bathroom?”

CIANTY

“Yep. Cobra let out this massive belly laugh, and said, ‘Not only is this man a human vault with our books and secrets, but he literally keeps everything under lock and key – including my own officers’.”

I burst out laughing.

“Right then and there, at church that night, Cobra officially patched me in and christened me ‘Locke.’ That double meaning stuck, and that was the exact moment I knew I wasn’t just working for them. I was home. I belonged.”

“A human vault who keeps things under lock and key’,” I say softly. “It suits you. It really does.”

I lean back against his chest, a soft smile playing on my lips as my mind drifts over the rest of the club.

“It’s funny how road names work. Knox told me once how he got his name too, back when he was dating

me.”

Locke’s eyebrows shoot up with interest. “Oh?”

“It’s kind of funny, because it’s kind of for the same reason that you got your name,” I say. “When he was just stepping up to handle high-level security in the Howlers, the guys realized he never cracked under pressure. No matter how much chaos was going on, no matter how much heat was on them, he kept his mouth shut and kept everything locked down.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen that side of him for sure.”

“So they started calling him ‘Fort Knox’ because trying to break through his defenses or get information out of him was completely impossible. He kept the club’s secrets, no matter what, and the name eventually got shortened just to ‘Knox’.”

“Figures,” Locke chuckles softly, running a hand down my bare back beneath the blanket. “Knox is a fortress, and always has been. His own brothers recognized that early on. If you want something kept secret or guarded with a life, you give it to Knox… or to me.”

“It seems like a lot of the guys have names that make sense,” I say. “What about Mayhem? How did he manage to earn a name like that?”

“What? You don’t know?”

“Nope. Nobody will tell me, and I’ve been asking for about twelve years.” I turn pleading eyes to him. “Will y ou? I mean, if you know?”

“I do know. It’s a club favorite story to tell after a few shots, apparently. I think I’ve heard it four times now, and it gets more outrageous each time.”

1/2

Tell me? Please? [bat my eyelashes at him. “Pretty please?”

“Well your brother is a living, breathing storm of absolute absurdity. He earned that name fair and square during his prospect year when he was about nineteen, I guess.”

I sit forward, listening avidly

“Your Dad sent him on what should have been a brain-dead simple errand,” Locke says. “Just driving the club’s flatbed pickup to an old industrial yard to collect a crate of spare iron frames. Simple, right? Thirty minutes, tops?”

“Right,” I say, tilting my head, wondering how the hell Mayhem screwed that up. “You’d think so.”

“Well, Mayhem arrives, loads the crate, and on his way out, he accidentally clips the winch wire of a parked commercial crane. The winch snaps, swinging a four-hundred-pound wrecking ball straight into the side of a fiberglass parade float stored in the neighboring bay.”

“Oh, boy.”

“Turns out, the bay belonged to a local marching band, and the float was packed – literally packed – to the brim with hundreds of gallons of high-grade, neon-pink event confetti.”

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