From the Ruins Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  ©Copyright All Rights Reserved

  Dear Reader,

  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

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  About the Author

  Other Books by Janine Infante Bosco

  Dedication

  For Mia,

  May you always ride as fast as your angels can fly.

  ©Copyright All Rights Reserved

  From the Ruins

  (A Satan’s Knights Novel)

  By

  Janine Infante Bosco

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Published by Janine Infante Bosco

  ISBN-13: 978-1976552281

  ISBN-10: 1976552281

  Edited/formatted by: Jennifer Bosco

  Cover Design by: JB’s Book Cover Obsession Design

  Cover Model: Michael Joseph

  Photographer: R plus M Photography

  Dear Reader,

  Here we are again, off the heels of one epic ride and ready to embark on the next one.

  Pipe’s story first came to me as I was writing Eternal Temptations and it’s taken some time to figure out who the woman that heals him should be. As it turns out, I didn’t have to look very far. All I had to do was look in the mirror.

  Seems easy enough but when you’re telling a story that focuses on your own truth, you need to dig deep and find the courage to say what you’ve kept under wraps.

  This story isn’t just about Pipe.

  It’s about me.

  It’s about Janine Infante Bosco telling you her truth.

  It’s about finding a way to tell my story and move on when I’m still not certain I’m ready to.

  Truth, I have been separated from my husband for two years.

  Truth, divorce or in my case, separation---is ugly.

  Truth, the children hurt just as much as the parents if not more.

  Truth, it changes the way you interpret love.

  Truth, it changes you.

  It brings you down but you rise up and become better than you were before.

  Stronger than you thought possible.

  You learn to appreciate the little things and accept change.

  My story isn’t over because one chapter has ended and you’ll find neither is Layla’s.

  As always, I promise to give you a beautiful love story full of healing and unexpected surprises.

  I will restore your faith in brotherhood and teach you family isn’t always about blood.

  We’ll all be Property of Parrish in the end but first I’m going to torture you all a little.

  Saddle up, the boys in leather are back!

  The motherfucks will fly, people will die, you will cry and curse the day you ever heard of me.

  The men are crass. They’re vulgar and they’re not scholars.

  The Satan’s Knights are street guys who use slang and the grammar won’t be on point.

  Some of your old favorites are back but if you’ve never read any of my books you will totally be fine. However, if you the word fuck offends you—well, then this book isn’t for you.

  If you’re cool with it then, let’s fucking do this!

  Become part of this unconventional family.

  Be

  Property

  Of

  Parrish.

  See you on the other side,

  Janine

  Prologue

  Lee Jameson

  Age: Sixteen

  Place: Tryon School for Boys Detention Center, Fulton County, New York.

  Hundreds of miles away from home, I wake up on a tiny cot, smaller than the twin bed I used to bitch about. Outside, ten inches of snow hides everything except the sixteen-foot barbed wire fence that surrounds the detention center. Though Tryon is located in New York, it’s much different from Queens; so much so I feel like I’m in outer space. The sun disappears by the afternoon and the snow never seems to stop. The days of playing box ball until the sun goes down is a distant memory and the gunfire I hear isn’t a result of a drive-by but instead a sound produced by deer hunters.

  Twenty or so rooms line the corridor, each contains a bed and a desk—both of which are bolted down. There are steel mesh covers over the windows and rules dictate everything from the number of books we’re allowed to keep to which drawer we keep our underwear in. Most of the kids are from the city and are serving time for misdemeanors or low-level felonies. They’ve committed property offenses, like robbery or petty larceny. Some are imprisoned for assault while others are here on a probation violation.

  Then there’s me. I was convicted on two felony charges last year. Apparently, possession of bomb-making materials is frowned upon when you’re a foster kid. I suppose it’s not acceptable for any fifteen-year-old kid to sell pipe bombs on the street, but when you’re floating through the system they’re more likely to label you a delinquent, lock you up and throw away the key.

  It’s been eighteen months since my world imploded and left me in ruins, and I’m not referring to the day they slapped cuffs on my wrists. If anything, getting arrested was a reprieve from the torment that plagued my days and nights. The silver bracelets that cut my wrists forced me to think about my future and not the single image that haunted my past.

  It started off as any other day. My mother woke me up for school just as she always did, and routinely I gave her a hard time. I wished for her to leave me alone, to stop nagging me and to just go away. After she called my name a third time, I reluctantly threw the covers off my body and rolled out of my twin bed. I barely fit on the mattress and often complained, but now I would give anything to lay my body on that little bed.

  We lived in a one bedroom apartment funded by the city. Some people called our building public housing while others called it the projects. Either way you sliced it, we lived in the slums and I vowed the minute I turned eighteen to get the fuck out of there.

  Ignoring my mother’s warning that we were late, I took my time getting dressed. I paired my hand-me-down clothes with my most prized possession, a New York Mets fitted baseball cap. It was a birthday gift from her, and though it wasn’t very expensiv
e, she busted her ass to buy it for me. Hiking my book bag over my shoulder, I exited my tiny bedroom and joined her at the front door.

  She smiled widely, just as she always did and we walked down the narrow hallway lined with the same hopeless people who sat there day after day strung out on poison. When I was little, she would wrap her arm around my shoulders and shield my eyes from the junkies. As I grew up and became taller than her, it became difficult for her to protect me from the grimy scenery that surrounded us.

  She barely flinched as she stepped over a used needle and part of me wondered how she kept that smile in place. The other part wished I could be more like her. She seemed so immune to the ugliness we lived. She didn’t flinch at the sound of gunfire or wake when the sirens blared on the street outside our window. She drew the curtains closed, turned the radio up and blocked out the sounds of death.

  Once we made it down the three flights of stairs, we crossed the street and waited for the bus. I hated that she still took the bus with me. No matter how many times I begged her to let me go on my own, she wouldn’t. Working two jobs, she was hardly home and those morning bus rides were the most time we spent together. She would sit beside me and ask me about school.

  My mother was an immigrant who came to America as a young teen, someone who spoke only Gaelic and was forced to teach herself the English language. Like most who aren’t born to this country, she and her family touched their feet to this soil and sought freedom, opportunity, and a chance at a better life. They hoped to find everything that red, white and blue stood for but the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and my poor, unsuspecting family left the hills of Ireland thinking America was this shiny land, a beacon of light.

  However, the dream died early for them when a fatal bus accident claimed the lives of my mother’s parents and her brother. She was fifteen years old and the only surviving member of her family. With no one left to care for her, she was tossed into an orphanage and raised by the city. By the time she was of legal age, she knew enough to make it on her own or at least that’s what she thought. It wasn’t until she hungrily walked the streets of New York, begging for work, that she learned they weren’t paved with gold. It wasn’t until she was sleeping on a park bench with nothing but the worn clothes on her back to keep her warm that she realized the world was a vile place no matter which continent you laid your head to rest.

  She later was raped on that same bench and nine months later I came into the world. She said I saved her; that having me was a dream her heart made from all those lonely nights she spent shivering in the cold, but I knew better. It was never her intention for me to find out the truth. One night I overheard her praying for the soul of the man who violated her. She could pray to her almighty king all she wanted. She could ask him to pardon the rat bastard who planted the seed of me inside her. She could even pray I didn’t follow in his footsteps, but I was born from hell and no matter how much she tried to ignore it, Satan’s blood filled my veins. In denial, never wanting me to succumb to the destiny of my DNA, she did everything in her power to make sure I stayed on the straight and narrow.

  Until she couldn’t.

  Until her own destiny interfered.

  Her questions continued, and I grunted through the answers until my stop. She kissed my cheek, and I quickly looked over my shoulder, making sure no one from school was watching. Then I slung my backpack over my shoulder and hurried away from her before she gave me another kiss or declared her love to a bus full of teenagers who would likely kick my ass.

  The bus peeled away from the curb as I headed to school and I knew without a doubt she was watching me from the window. She’d take the bus for another three stops until she finally exited a block away from the supermarket where she worked. She wouldn’t be home waiting for me after school but there would be a hot meal on top of the stove—a meal she would rush home to cook before she headed to her second job as a hostess in a bar. If she got a break, she would call to check up on me, but otherwise I wouldn’t see her again until she woke me the next morning.

  The next morning came but the wake-up call didn’t.

  Her thick accent didn’t filter through our apartment and when I dressed, dread churned in my gut. Having an overprotective mother was a hardship but having one that never came home was a nightmare. I knew without a doubt she never would voluntarily leave me alone and started to worry.

  My first thought was that history had repeated itself and I feared she was raped again. As I walked the hallway of junkies, I pictured her battered and bruised on a park bench and that was the first place I searched for her.

  The park was small and I combed the area quickly but came up empty. Her thick accent sang in my ears as my pulse raised and I tried to think of all the places she might be. My worn soles crossed the avenue and I made my way to the bar. Reaching for the handle on the old wooden door, I pulled but it was locked—of course it was. The sun was up and the bar closed at four in the morning. Glancing at my watch, I noted the clock had just struck eight. Even if she spent another hour cleaning up like she normally did, she should’ve been home hours ago.

  Frightened, not knowing which way to turn, I let the worn soles of my shoes guide me and turned the corner. I started down the back ally, calling out for her, praying by some miracle of God I’d find her tossing out the trash. Naively, I told myself she had just lost track of time.

  She didn’t.

  And there was no miracle to be had.

  For there was no God to grant one.

  There was only Satan, and he led me straight to hell, a place where my mother laid lifeless with her neck slit and her head barely attached to the rest of her body.

  “Jameson,” a voice calls, pulling me away from the vivid image of my mother that’s ingrained into my mind. Lifting my eyes from the calendar on my desk that has my next court date circled, I turn my attention to the guard waiting to take me to the school building. Beside him stands a group of other delinquents like myself, all dressed in the same uniform of khaki pants and red polo shirts that have Tryon stitched above their prison juvie number.

  With another glance at the circled date, I push back my chair and rise to my full height. Creeping over six feet tall, I’m the tallest of the teens waiting for me and make my way toward the back of the line.

  “Took you long enough,” the kid in front of me hisses. I roll my eyes and shove my hands into my pockets as I follow Alfonse Scotto. The asshole is chipper as fuck because his eighteenth birthday is in a week and the lucky bastard is breaking free from this shithole. Even with my court date approaching, I know it’s unlikely I’ll be released. I can plead my case and lie through my teeth that I’m a changed kid, but in the end I’m a paycheck to Tryon—a piece of the budget appointed to them. Like Alfonse, I’ll be here two more years until my eighteenth birthday.

  “I’m busting out of here,” he whispers over his shoulder. “Seven more days of this shit,” he adds. If he’s looking for me to congratulate him it’s not going to happen. I know he doesn’t mean to rub it in my face but it still stings. Since I arrived, he’s been the only one in my corner. The only one I can trust.

  “One of my buddies back in Brooklyn has been writing to me,” he says as we step into the blistering cold and cross the yard toward the school. “He’s a prospect in a motorcycle club,” he continues as I stare at the back of his head.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I question as my teeth chatter.

  “That’s where I’m headed,” he answers. “And when you get out of this place, I want you to find me. I’ve told Parrish all about you, about the pipe bombs and all.”

  “Jesus, why would you do that?”

  “You’re welcome was the response I was shooting for,” he retorts.

  “You expect me to thank you for spreading my business to your pen pal?”

  “Jack Parrish isn’t my pen pal, dickhead.”

  “Scotto! Jameson!” the guard shouts. “Got something you want to share with the
rest of us?”

  “How ʼbout you share that fancy coat of yours?” Alfonse fires back.

  “Seven days,” I remind him.

  He silently nods his head and we continue to push our legs through the snow. Neither of us speaks another word until we’re seated in the classroom. Then he leans over my desk and drops a folded sheet of paper on top of it. I don’t open it at first and keep my focus on the blackboard straight ahead. My mother’s face flashes before me and I subconsciously reach for the note.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Alfonse watch as I unfold the paper and glance at the scribbled words.

  Satan’s Knights MC, Brooklyn Charter.

  Ask for Wolf that’s my new road name.

  Lifting my eyes, I crumble the paper in my fist and turn to him. A smile spreads across his face as he points a finger toward me.

  “And your name will be Pipe.”

  The idea of kissing Lee Jameson goodbye is appealing and for a moment I wonder who Pipe might be—if his hell is any better than the one I’m living. Deciding it’s worth a shot, I pocket the crumbled piece of paper and count down the days until I become who I was destined to be.

  Satan’s coming just like I always knew he would.

  Chapter One

  Twenty-odd years ago, I found my religion. I didn’t find it in a church or at some temple. There was no holy figure praying for me, welcoming me into his kingdom as he submerged me in water.

  There was me.

  And there was Satan.

  Dressed in leather, I knelt before his altar and instead of chanting well-rehearsed prayers, I took an oath. Fearing nothing, I vowed to ride through the valley of the shadow of death with my brothers at my side. I swore to serve and protect. To uphold simple values like honor, integrity, trust and respect.

  Old school shit.

  The kind of shit the punk ass kids of today know nothing about.

  People think being a biker is all about riding. They think it’s an excuse to wear leather and fuck the law. They know what society tells them and that’s all they’ll ever know, because like any other lifestyle, if you don’t live it, you don’t know it.