“Don’t you dare! You lied to me about everything. You’re in ‘security?’”
He turned his gaze to the floor and hunched in on himself. As massive as he was at 6’5 and as broad, it didn’t exactly do much to make him seem closer to her size, but maybe that wasn’t the point. “I’m The Enforcer for the Blacktop Sinners motorcycle club.”
“And what does an ‘enforcer’ do,” she demanded, tired of lies and evasions. For the first time in a long time, Tess was running from denial, sick of pretending everything would be okay when it wasn’t. Unbidden, she reached for the St. Christopher and felt nausea roil through her stomach when she realized it wasn’t there. “God, it’s gone.”
“I don’t understand. The switchblade has to still be in the hospital if they didn’t think it was on you.”
“No,” she said, getting to her hands and knees on the floor. The chain had to have snapped at some point when they were dragging her from the car to the house.
Had to have.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, concern coloring his words as he joined her on his hands and knees on the hardwood flooring. “I don’t understand.”
“My necklace, the St. Christopher. It’s not here.”
Frowning, he reached to her throat and, despite everything, her traitorous hormones flooded through her. Her stomach flared with warmth, and part of her, even now, wished he’d kiss her. She shoved that part away. Derek Allanson was nothing but a petty thug who’d ruined her life, stripped her of the last real thing she had to remind her of her brother, the last part of him that somehow felt alive in her hands.
Pissed beyond measure, she leaned over and shoved him, her palms leveled flat against his chest. She knew it was the angle and unexpected nature of her move that forced him over onto his ass. After all, she had as much chance of manhandling him as a Chihuahua did of winning a fight with a Great Dane. Still, it was gratifying to see the shock on his face when he tumbled over.
“Tess, wait, I can help. I can explain.”
She surged to her feet and pointed to her front door. It was still wide open from where he’d charged in. How convenient. “Get out.”
“I can’t.”
“No, I mean it. Get the fuck out of my home. You’re not welcome here anymore. I don’t need you, and I certainly don’t need your help,” she finished, gesturing to her naked throat. “I think you’ve helped more than enough already. They clearly only found me because they were watching your house, tailed you well enough to see you drop me off. If I didn’t know you, those barbarians wouldn’t have found me!”
He scrambled to her feet and tried to scoop her up in a hug. She side stepped him again and shook her head. “Tess, please, just listen.”
“Not anymore and not ever again,” she said, tapping her foot until he took the hint and rushed out the door. “Don’t come back, Derek. There’s nothing left for you here.”
After she heard his truck peel off, she shut the door and then dead bolted it in place. She was shaking so hard that she felt like her bones might rattle completely apart. Reaching into her pockets, she breathed a sigh of relief when she found her cell. Tess dialed her number one on speed dial.
“Lizzy? It’s Tess. Don’t ask questions and don’t wait. I need you to get the brown paper bag out of my locker and get it to my Mom’s house.” She hesitated as Lizzy started into a barrage of questions on the other end. “No, it’s okay. I just need you to get that bag to my house. I’ll cover for any hassle Dr. Malek gives you. I…well I’ll see you soon.”
She clicked off, confident her friend would deliver in the clutch. After all, Lizzy always had before.
Right now?
Right now, Tess needed a minute to get herself under control before she went home. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with that blade, but she needed time to think.
After she cried.
Because, sitting on the cold, unyielding floor of her apartment, Tess curled into a ball and cried, cried for her lost necklace and her dead brother, cried out of fear of her safety, but mostly she cried because she was still in love with Derek Allanson, and he wasn’t the man she thought he was.
Not by a long shot.
Chapter Fifteen
Tess cried for longer than she should have. Hell, it was the most she’d cried since Jason’s accident and death. She hated feeling weak like that; she was usually an expert in a crisis. It was a required skill as an E.R. nurse after all. The last few days—God, had it been that little time—had done a number on her. She’d fallen hard for the charming and incredibly hot Derek Allanson, who had initially claimed he was in “security.” She’d assumed maybe a campus guard for App State here in Boone, NC. That was far from the truth. It turned out the man who’d charmed her, made her actually feel for the first time since her brother’s death, was nothing more than a hitman for the biggest meth gang in the city, The Blacktop Sinners. He’d only been coming onto her so hard in order to get her to help him get his paws on evidence of his latest murder, a bloody knife.
She’d tested it herself when he’d left it at the hospital.
It was covered in human blood, and he had no way to deny that. The knife, paired with her friend, Lt. Ricardo Jimenez’s, talk of a deadly warehouse shootout, led her to assume that Derek was nothing more than a lousy criminal who was trying to hide the evidence of a gang meet-up gone horribly, horribly wrong.
But the worst part was that his own gang had hunted her down first, tired of games over the knife. She’d had a huge biker slap her across the face and had been terrified they’d do worse. Tess was lucky to be alive. Okay. Not luck. Derek had shown up like a knight in leather to save her. She’d thrown him out right after. She didn’t need him or his damn games. He’d gotten her into this underworld mess, and turning the switch blade over to Ricardo and letting the Boone P.D. deal with it might be the only thing that would get her back out of it.
Getting to her feet, Tess hurried to her bathroom and then recoiled at the sight. Her shirt was torn at the collar, her mascara was splotchy, and her left cheek was red and had a clear palm print beginning to well up. Splashing cold water on her face, Tess had to think of what to do and where to go from here. The blade was easy to get, and she was going to arrange a meet-up with her friend Lizzy, and Ricardo’s girlfriend, in order to figure out what else to do with it.
“Okay, you can do this, Tess. Just get the blade and get it to Mom and Dad’s; that’s all.”
She shivered a bit at the cold water on her cheeks and hurried to her room. Tess would change double time and high tail it to Asheville. If they asked her about her nascent bruise, she’d lie. It was, unfortunately, not too hard to do. Sometimes they had psychotics or people coming off of PCP and bath salts come in. There were definitely times when she’d tried to restrain someone only to be smacked for her efforts.
Sighing, she reached up to grab the simple silver chain of the St. Christopher medal. It had been her brother’s, and she’d worn it every day of the five years since he’d died. Tess wanted to scream when she remembered it was gone. The biker gang---those awful Blacktop Sinners---had manhandled her so badly that she’d lost it somewhere being dragged out of her car.
Just another loss that came to her because of Derek Allanson.
It felt almost like what was one more?
***
“Tess? What on Earth happened?” Her mom asked as she stepped into the front hall of her parents’ home a few towns over.
She smiled back as best she could at her mom. Ella Everhart had adopted Tess and her brother, Jason, out of the foster system when she’d only been eight. Her mom had never treated her like anything other than her daughter and never showed favoritism to her biological daughter, Tess’s older sister Sarah. There were fewer sights more comforting than her mom looking back at her with concern, the streaks of white in her strawberry blonde hair the only sign that time had passed so thoroughly since Tess was a kid. She wished terribly that this was a time when her mother could j
ust throw her arms around her, get her some tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, and rock her until all her problems went away.
That wasn’t possible. She was in far bigger trouble than that.
Still, there was no way she was going to tell her parents that she’d been inadvertently dragged into a crazy gang war. That was something that would scare her parents terribly and wasn’t fair to anyone. So, she was forcing that brave face forward, and smiling so hard that she felt like her cheeks would freeze like that.
“It’s nothing, Mom,” she said passing directly by her mom and heading to the kitchen. Like usual, her mom had some baked goods lying around. Tess grabbed some soft-baked chocolate chip cookies and tried to comfort herself with a sugar overload. Again, some things never changed even if she was in her twenties and not eight. “We had a psychotic come in, and he got a shot in before they could fully get the Haldol shot in him.”
“My God. I know you love your job, Tess, but if it’s that dangerous, can’t you switch to the maternity floor or pediatrics? Some place where you won’t get hit?”
Tess frowned a little even as she chewed her cookie. She’d always maintained with Lizzy that she was boring, always studying to get ahead in her classes for higher certification when not actually on the clock. God, after Jason had died in a horribly bloody motorcycle crash, she’d never done so much as jay walk. It really never occurred to her that the emergency department could be considered dangerous. It was just a day in the life for her, just the world she thrived in. Mostly, they had guards, and the patients were usually grateful and manageable. It wasn’t some war zone.
No, that was what her life had erupted into because she’d been foolish enough to trust one Derek Allanson, liar extraordinaire.
“Mom, it’s the first time this has happened.”
Actually, it had never happened to her. Once Lizzy had gotten a black eye from a tweaker, but Tess just needed better taste in dates actually.
“Still, after everything…” her mom trailed off and looked away.
She hadn’t heard her mom say Jason’s name out loud since the funeral. She’d given the eulogy, but after that, she would only say “your brother” at most or trail off like she had then. Tess figured they all dealt with grief in their own ways. She was one to talk; after all, it was impossible to even walk into her brother’s bedroom all the way. However, the reminder of everything they’d lost bit fresh into her heart.
Tess couldn’t wait for Lizzy to get here. The sooner they got the switchblade out of here, as if it were the world’s worst hot potato, the better.
“I know,” she said, taking pity on her mom and patting her hand. “I get it, but the job really is safe, and this isn’t going to happen again; I’ll see to it.”
“As long as you complain to Boone General and get the security and staff you need, dear.”
“I will, and I’m sorry to show up here for some rest looking like Rocky.”
“I was going to ask? Did they give you time off after the incident?”
“Uh, yeah,” she lied. “I had to get workman’s comp stuff started, and they said to take the next week off. I assume trying to sweeten the pot so I won’t sue.” To be honest, she had a ton of vacation time saved up that she never seemed to use. That was one advantage of being stalwart and boring. Until she had the Blacktop Sinners off her case, Tess figured now was the time to cash in those hours.
“That’s good, sweetie. You can stay in your old room, and I’ll make some roast chicken for dinner, just like you love.”
“Great,” she said, trying to play the dutiful daughter role as best as she could. “Alright, Lizzy is coming over soon too. Is that okay?”
“Of course, you know we love a full house. Your sister is visiting too, so it’s just everyone.”
Tess nodded and tried to stay smiling. Sarah and she rarely got along so she was far from looking forward to seeing her, still, she was the one dropping in last minute. “Perfect. I need to get a nap. I think all the adrenaline from earlier is leeching out of my system.”
“Understandable,” her mom said, her eyes twinkling as she grinned. “Please take care of yourself. This family… it’s been through too much already.”
“Trust me,” she replied. “I plan on it.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Holy shit, chica, you look like you got the shit kicked out of you,” Lizzy said as she made her way into Tess’s childhood bedroom. In spite of the dire situation, her rubenesque friend chuckled at the Backstreet Boys posters on her wall. “Really? You couldn’t be more middle America if you tried.”
Tess rolled her eyes and accepted the beyond valuable paper bag from her friend. She’d hidden the blade in her locker and had Lizzy get it from work to bring here. It was for the best as she was sure the Blacktop Sinners had been stalking her since she left Derek’s house after their first date. If she’d tried the same thing, she’d be splattered on a parking lot’s pavement by now.
“We can’t all have the street cred of sneaking into dive bars for indie bands in high school.”
“Sure, you say that, but then can you explain the obsession with pink? Looks like Pepto Bismal got loose all over here.”
“Mom thought it was girly, and Sarah always had a soccer theme, and never mind. My room is awesome; it all goes to making up me.”
“It’s cute you think that,” Lizzy chirped, sitting cross-legged on the bed in front of her. “Now spill. I had to lie my ass off and roll with whatever weird ass cover story you’ve been giving out that you had a ‘patient’ slap the crap out of you on the floor. That’s on top of you having me go all cloak and dagger to sneak a bag out of your damn locker, as if you couldn’t do it. So what the hell is going on?”
She sighed and opened the bag’s lip and then dumped it out in front of her friend. “It’s nothing I could explain just on a cell.”
Lizzy’s eyes got so wide that, for a moment, Tess was scared that they’d roll right out of her head. “What is that?”
She sighed and gestured to the blade. “It’s what you think it is---a switchblade with dried human blood on it. I did the test myself from a small flake sample to see what proteins it had. I didn’t trust the knife’s owner to tell me the truth. I was afraid of being fed some story filled with bull like that it was from hunting deer.”
“You don’t do that with this. That’s for Bowie knives, things made to skin,” Lizzy said and then threw her hands up when Tess gaped back at her. “What? Like only anglos hunt? My dad and brother do deer and rabbits both. This wouldn’t be a good animal knife at all, not really. So who the fuck gave you this?”
“Well, now that you mention it, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy did.”
“Wait? Allanson the hot biker who I called for you.”
Tess gritted her teeth and nodded. “Don’t remind me. Bastard told me he was in ‘security,’ but that’s code for he roughs people up and way, way worse for the Blacktop Sinners biker gang.”
“Shit, chica, they’re the worst of the worst. You know what Ricardo says about them!”
“I do, and I have no doubt this was a key piece of evidence from the warehouse stuff he was involved in, too. I think that the reason Derek wiped out at all was because he was fleeing and trying not to go to jail for murder. I mean, Jesus, how could I have been so stupid?”
Lizzy sighed and gave her a tight hug. Tess relaxed into the gesture; she needed all the comfort she could get currently. “I was bowled over too. He was so cute, and it had been so long since you’d smiled like that. I never should have pushed anything or made the stupid phone call. I guess there’s a reason the hospital has the policies it does. I didn’t think criminals would be part of that, but damn.”
Tess pulled back and swiped at her eyes. God, she’d blame allergies later if Lizzy called her out on it. “I was weak too. I should have stuck to my guns but, yeah, it was very dumb for you to do that.”
Lizzy’s eyes narrowed, and her tone changed to Arctic levels of chilly
. “Excuse me?”
“Well, I think that if you’d just let it lie, I never would have called him period. I’m not really blaming you though,” Tess added hastily.
“Sounds like it.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“No it is. I overstepped, I got that, but you never do anything. I watch you waste away a little more each year since your brother died. It’s like the funny, smart girl I knew in nursing school died on the same day. That’s not what Jason would have wanted for you at all.”
“You don’t know what he would have wanted, and it’s impossible to be happy.”
“You looked like it when we were getting you ready to see Derek. I hadn’t seen you laugh or get excited like that in half a damn decade.”
Corrupted: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Blacktop Sinners MC) Page 9