Greatest MC Romance Box Set

by Blair Grey

  She’s really gone. I’ll never see her again.

  A lump formed in my throat and I had to pull over as tears blurred my vision. I hadn’t cried since I was a little kid. But a sob came out of me that shook my entire body.

  I will never see her again.

  I ruined that girl! It should’ve been me, not her!

  Wiping my eyes, I thought about the fact that Tequila knew who I was. She’d known all along. That was the only reason she told us the story about her sister. She wanted me to hear what I’d done to Crystal.

  But she didn’t want me to know about Tommy. She didn’t think I was worthy of the boy. And she was right to think that way.

  I couldn’t be mad that Crystal had never told me about him. She was a kid. Instead of walking across the street to tell my family what I’d done, the family moved away – in shame, no doubt.

  My mother is going to be so happy that she’s got a grandson.

  Dad would probably kick my ass before he proclaimed his happiness though. But at least Tommy would have more family to love him.

  I had so many people to tell. So many people to introduce him to.

  This is my son, Tommy.

  That would take some getting used to. And Tommy had lots to get used to as well. He would have a whole other family now.

  What if he thinks we’re all weird?

  What if he hates me? What is he hates me and my whole family?

  Already, being a parent was proving harder than anything I’d ever done in my life and I hadn’t done an ounce of parenting yet.

  This was not going to be easy at all. If they even let me be a father to him.

  I had zero rights to the kid. Tequila and her family had all the rights and I had none.

  Not that I deserved any, but I wanted the chance to be there for my son.

  My son.

  Will I ever get used to saying that? Will I ever get used to hearing that?

  Nothing could have prepared me for this day. No one could’ve told me that this would ever happen to me – or for me. And the one girl who’d given me this was no longer here.

  She’d died, a broken woman. I’d broken her so completely that she ended up using drugs to rid her mind of me and what I’d done to her. Crystal had taken her life because of me.

  Shaking uncontrollably, I felt like I might be having some sort of a seizure. Is this a nervous breakdown?

  My hands gripped the steering wheel as if trying to hold ono my sanity through the machine. I’m a bad person.

  I’d done lots of bad things in my life, but I’d never considered myself a bad person. But now I knew that I was bad. I’d done an innocent girl wrong. I’d left her to have my child all on her own, with only her family to help.

  She’d lost her teen years to motherhood while I did any and everything that I wanted to do, carefree – worry-free.

  Crystal hadn’t deserved the life I put her in. She didn’t deserve to die. But I did. I didn’t deserve to live. Not after what I’d done.

  Still, my body shook, still I held tight to the wheel. The gun in the holster at my back felt heavy.

  Garrett’s sister had used a gun to end her life. Messy.

  I could hear her voice in my head after all these years, ‘Don’t be afraid, Clyde.’

  “I’m sorry, Crystal. I am so damn sorry for what I did to you. I don’t know how I can ever fix this.” Like quicksand, I felt my will going further and further away.

  Her words came back into my brain, ‘Don’t be afraid, Clyde. You can do this.’

  “What can I do? I don’t understand.” I banged my head against the steering wheel until it hurt. I deserved the pain after causing her so damn much of it that she couldn’t take it anymore.

  I stopped crying as it became clear to me what I had to do. I’d made her take her own life.

  Her family had lost her. Our son had lost his mother.

  It was my fault that they’d lost her. There was no one else to blame.

  Even though I had no idea what kind of a mess I’d left behind, I’d been the one to leave it. It was obvious what I had to do to make things right.

  Crystal gave me a son. A son she never wanted me to know about. She knew that I didn’t deserve him.

  Tequila knew I had a son. She also never wanted me to know about him. She also knew that I didn’t deserve him.

  Taking the gun out of the holster, I placed it on the seat next to me. “Crystal, I don’t know what to do here. If I could go back in time, would I change a thing?”

  She’d been my first taste of real love. I hadn’t known her at all. But I knew that what she and I did wasn’t just sex. She and I had made love. It was a first for both of us. Our son came out of that. How could that have been wrong?

  But I’d walked away. I’d had to. My plans had been made long before that night with her.

  She stayed there. Later found out that she was carrying my baby. And she had him. She kept him.

  With all the choices she had, she had kept our baby.

  In the end, it took her life though. In the end, it was me who took her life.

  Gulping, I looked at the gun. My fingers curled around the handle.

  Messy.

  Crystal’s family lost a soul. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A soul for a soul.

  Sorry, isn’t enough. Sorry, won’t bring her back. Sorry, is all I can say. But I can show everyone how much she really meant to me. I can show everyone that she was my first taste of love. I owe them that. I owe her that.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Tequila

  “I have no idea what’s going on with my MC right now. I need to get you all to a safe place while I figure out what I need to do.” There were so many things to find out about who was still alive that had been in on killing me and my family?

  “Where are we going to go?” Edward asked as he began looking upset. “I don’t like new places, Tequila. You know that.”

  He’d gained some type of PTSD with our sister’s and his father’s deaths. It had all but disabled him in many ways. He didn’t like to leave the house much at all. It had made it so he couldn’t even get a job.

  No matter what my brother’s problems were, being killed was far worse than leaving home for a while. “You’re going to have to cope with the situation, Edward. I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is right now. My car’s in the parking garage. We’ll need to get back home to pack too.”

  “Tia, I’ve got school,” Tommy reminded me. “I know this might sound crazy, but do you think my father will be able to help us?”

  I truly had no idea about Clyde Thomas at this point. “I don’t like to count on the help of others, Tommy.” Grabbing up the things I had in the hotel room, I remembered my cell had been left on the bathroom vanity. “Edward, did you see my cell when you were in the bathroom?”

  “It’s on the counter in there.” He took a seat at the table, looking at his fingernails.

  “Get it for me, please.” We had to get the hell out of the room. “We have to get going. Those women who came for you at our home also know about this hotel room. And they might be able to get a key since this room is listed under our MC name and they’re a part of it.”

  Suddenly, Edward seemed in a hurry to help out. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? And why did Clyde bring us here anyway? Oh, hell! Can no one think properly?”

  “He didn’t have a lot of choices, Edward.” Huffing with exasperation, I picked up the phone in the room to call the valet service to bring my car around, so we didn’t have to traipse all the way out to the garage to get to my car. “Hello, this is Tequila Santos, in room six-fifty-eight. I left my valet key with you. Can you retrieve my Ford Expedition right away? We’re in a hurry.”

  “Will do,” the porter confirmed.

  “Okay, the car will be in the front shortly.” I saw a plastic laundry bag with something in it and guessed the maid had put the clothes that were strung all over the floor from the events of the
night before into it. Some of Clyde’s clothes were bound to be in there too, but I grabbed it up and stuffed it into my bag anyway. “I’m packed and ready to leave.”

  Tommy slung his backpack over his shoulder, but he wore a confused expression. “You stayed here last night, Tia?”

  “Yes.” I took my phone that was dead from Edward. “I’ll charge this in the car then I’ll call Clyde.”

  “Clyde stayed here last night too, Tia?” Tommy asked, still sounding confused.

  “Yes. This is the room our MC set him up in. The man who came with him is in the room across the hall.” It hit me like a brick that Garrett was right across the hall. And I could even call him from the phone in the room. “Ah!” I went to pick up the phone, putting in his room number. It rang and rang, but there was no answer. “Shit! He’s not answering. Edward, walk across the hallway and knock on that door.”

  “I’m not knocking on a stranger’s door, hermana,” he let me know as he put his hand on his hip.

  “You will do it, and you’ll do it right now!” I snapped with my best soldier voice. “Now, Edward!”

  With a skip in his step, he hurried to do as I’d told him too. “You didn’t say it was so important. Damn!”

  “So, Clyde and you stayed here – in this room – together, Tia?” Tommy asked as we began heading out of the room.

  “Yes, Tommy.” I held the door open. “Everyone out in front of me. I’ll walk behind you all.” I pulled my purse around so that I could reach right in and grab the pistol inside of it if I needed to. “I’ll cover you all in case someone is waiting for us.”

  Bang, bang, bang. “No one is answering, Tequila. He’s not there,” Edward said with a frown. “Should I stop knocking?”

  “Yes.” He had to have been called to come to Clyde’s aid. “You get in front of Mom. Take the lead. You, Mom, Tommy, then I’ll be back here, watching over you all.”

  Tommy looked back at me as we walked down the hallway. “So, what you’re telling me is that you and my father are a thing?”

  “Not the time, Tommy.” I rolled my eyes. After finding out that I’d withheld the fact that he had a son and that I was that son’s aunt, I doubted Clyde wanted anything to do with me.

  The plan was to make him fall for me, then dump him, leaving him wondering what the hell had happened. Much the same way he’d done to my baby sister. As far as that plan went, it had gotten all fucked up.

  Now I was looking at being on the shit end of the stick. He could be angry with me over what I’d done. I would have some explaining to do. And he might never want to see me, romantically ever again.

  We all might have to deal with the man if he decided to be a father to Tommy. Which he would have every right to do. If he got a DNA test and went to court, he could even take Tommy away from us.

  My heart felt as if it had cramped as I thought about him taking Tommy away. I can’t let him do that.

  Not only would that hurt me, my brother, and my mother probably most of all, but it would definitely hurt Tommy as well. We were all he’d ever known. He didn’t even know Clyde.

  No. Clyde’s not the type of man you’ve always thought he was. He’s a good man. Good men don’t uproot children from the family who has loved and cared for him their whole life.

  “When is the time Tia?” he whined. “Do you think we’ll ever see him again? How long has he been in town? How long have you known that he was my father? How long have you kept us apart?”

  “Tommy, please. We’re in a hurry here. I promise that I’ll explain things to you as soon as we’re out of danger. Right now, I need to focus.” The elevator doors opened, and two men were inside of it. I wrapped my hand around the gun in my purse, unsure if they were with Jake’s group or not. My mind was shot. I wasn’t sure which end was up at this point.

  When they stepped off the elevator, we got on. I didn’t take a breath until the doors closed. I had to get my head straight before we walked out into that lobby. I had to put the dilemma with Clyde and Tommy away for now. What mattered most was keeping my family safe.

  “I think that I want to be able to see my father now that I know him,” Tommy said quietly.

  I looked at my mother for help. She patted him on the back. “Mijo, you just be patient for a little while. I’m sure your father wants to see you too. Things will calm down and we will work things out. You’ll see.” She looked at me with glistening eyes. “You and I will have to talk later too, mija. You shouldn’t have taken things into your own hands where that man is concerned. I don’t know what you’ve been up to but it’s stopping right now. You understand me, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I understand.” Now I could see that my mother and my nephew were angry with me too. Only my brother seemed to have no problem with what I had done as he was the only one not wearing a frown.

  When the elevator dinged to let us know we’d arrived on the ground floor and the doors were about to open, I once again clutched the gun inside my purse, ready to draw it and fire if I had to.

  It seemed like slow motion as the door opened. “Wait.” I scanned the lobby and saw no one looking suspicious. “Go.”

  Moving fast, Edward led us out. His head moved from one side to the other, scoping out everyone. I was proud of him for putting his fears to the side to take care of his family. “We’re clear, Tequila. I can see the car waiting just outside the doors.”

  “Good.” Moving at a normal pace, we all went out of the doors and got into the car. Only once we were inside of it did I take my hand off the gun. “Seatbelts. Let’s get home and pack as fast as we can. Only take the essentials.” I put the car in drive then took off.

  “Where are we going to go?” my mother asked as she stroked Tommy’s dark hair. “And for how long? Should I try to contact one of his teachers to let them know he’ll be out for a while?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I hadn’t worked out all the kinks. Not knowing a damn thing except that Jake was dead and that someone had shot him and possibly others who were holding me, left me unsure of what to do.

  “Hey, that’s Clyde’s truck!” Tommy shouted as he pointed ahead of us.

  Pulled to the side of the street, Clyde’s truck had the emergency lights flashing. “I’m going to stop to make sure he’s okay.” I pulled up behind him, jumping out then ran to the driver’s side of his truck.

  His head was on the steering wheel. His hands gripped it so tightly that his knuckles were white. Gently tapping on the glass, I didn’t want to surprise him. “Clyde, honey, are you okay?”

  “Tequila?” Pulling his head up, he looked at me with bloodshot eyes. Tears ran in rivers down his cheeks.

  Opening the door, I could tell that he was deeply upset. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. I am.” He turned and grabbed me, hugging me tightly.

  And that’s when I saw the gun on the seat beside him. “You’re not okay, are you?”

  “Not even a little. I’m a bad person. I’m the reason she’s dead. I’m to blame for everything bad in your life. Your family should hate me. No wonder they treated me that way. I’m as close to evil as it gets.” He tried to take a breath, but it sounded as if he was chocking on glass. “I don’t deserve to live. I know that now. You were right to draw me in and make me fall in love with you only so you could hurt me.”

  How’d he know I was going to do that?

  “Perceptive of you.” I kissed his tear-soaked cheek. “And I’ve fallen in love with you too, mi amor. You do deserve to live.”

  “I heard her voice, Tequila.” He let me go and looked at me with such a hurt expression that I couldn’t even recognize the man he’d been. “Crystal told me not to be afraid. She told me that I could do this. I know she was talking about pulling the trigger on my gun to end my life the way she did. And I tried. I really did. But I couldn’t do it. Not that I’m afraid of death.” He sobbed. “I don’t want to leave him behind, Tequila. I don’t want to leave our son behind the way I did before and the way she did.
I wouldn’t have walked away from them if I had known. I swear that to you. I would’ve done what’s right.”

  Wrapping my arms around him, I had to help him understand things. “I don’t think she ever meant for you to take your own life, Clyde. I think she meant that you could be a parent to your son. She needs you to do that for her and your son. Can’t you see that now? She needs you to step up now. Crystal never dealt with being a parent well at all. She put the baby off on our mother. You can’t blame her; she was only sixteen when she had him. A child having a child isn’t ever a good situation.”

  “I don’t deserve him,” he groaned. “Just like she was - he’s too good for me.”

  “Well, he is your son.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. I’d had nothing but fear that Clyde would take Tommy away from us and here I was saying things to make him want to be his father. “And he needs you. So, put this self-loathing aside. You made mistakes. Okay. We all have. I actually joined the Marines to learn how to fight hard and also to find you. My initial plan was to get strong enough to kick your ass.”

  “You’re kidding.” He pulled away from me and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands.

  “No, I’m not. I wish that I was, but nope. That is exactly why I joined the Corp.” I had to admit that I was an immature moron back then. “I was going to find you, kick your ass, then make you fix what you’d messed up – my sister. Then she overdosed and that mission became unnecessary. I let it all go and pretty much forgot about you.”

  “And then I showed up in your life, unexpectedly. So, you came up with a new mission,” he said as he nodded and wiped more tears out of his eyes. “Operation make Clyde fall hard, then kick him to the curb and watch him cry. Well, you’ve seen me cry. I haven’t cried like this – well, ever actually.” He smiled weakly. “Think you can love a man who cries?”

  “I think so. Especially when he’s crying over something I have. It’s not easy being a parent, I can tell you that. But that boy wants you in his life. He’s worried that you won’t want to be his father.” I knew it was asking a lot of him, but I had to do it. “So, it would make him feel a hell of a lot better if you could pull yourself together and let him know that you are going to be his father.” I decided to add one more thing. “And that you will never leave him – or us. I don’t want you to leave me either. I need you, Clyde Thomas. I’ve never needed anyone the way I need you.”