Bronze (Blackwings MC - Devil Springs Book 5)

by Teagan Brooks

  “Got it.”

  After giving it some thought, I realized that I didn’t need to do anything to get Sloane to come to me. Her tenacity and curiosity would bring her back without me having to lift a finger.

  I smiled as I made my way to my designated locker room, wondering if she would come willingly or if she would be dragged in kicking and screaming. I snorted to myself and wondered if I should’ve slipped the guy some more cash.

  When I reached the small locker room designated as mine for the foreseeable future, I put my earbuds in and started my prefight routine. Not that I needed to. According to Luca, this fight was going to be another knockout in less than a minute. But, I never wanted to be caught off guard .

  Halfway through my routine, the locker room door flew open, and one of the bouncers shoved a pissed off Sloane inside.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

  “Aw, baby, don’t be like that,” I said, knowing it would piss her off even more.

  “Oh, baby’s gonna be like that,” she snapped.

  “Damn, you’re hot when you’re pissy.”

  She huffed. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “We’ve got some shit to talk about,” I said, and then the coordinator knocked on the door. “Fuck,” I cursed. “Gotta go. Stay put,” I demanded and locked the door on my way out. “Ignore her if she starts screaming,” I called out over my shoulder as I headed to the ring. With any luck, I wouldn’t be gone long.

  Grant and Drew were waiting for me in my corner. I preferred to warm up for a match alone, which worked out well since I didn’t want them to know I sort of kidnapped Lorcan O’Shea’s daughter and was holding her against her will in my locker room.

  Just like the last fight, my opponent was laid out in less than a minute, and it was starting to make me feel like the playground bully. I wasn’t there for easy wins or to manipulate my statistics. I wanted a good fight as much as I needed it. However, Luca assured me that everyone started out at the bottom of the roster and worked their way up. In other words, I had to earn my spot and fight to keep it. Even if I lost, I could still fight every other weekend, but I wouldn’t advance or make any money if I was bested.

  After the ref raised my hand in the air and declared me the winner, I left as soon as I received the okay from the coordinator.

  “You two can go ahead without me. I’ve got something to take care of,” I told Grant and Drew. I never hung around after a fight, but I needed to get back to Sloane as soon as possible.

  When I returned to the locker room, Sloane was nowhere in sight. I knew she couldn’t have escaped, which meant she was hiding. After changing, I began to look for her. She was a feisty little thing, and I was enjoying every second of it.

  “Sloane. Oh, Sweet Sloane,” I called. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  The locker room itself was relatively small, so there were only a handful of places she could be. After several minutes of searching, I found her tucked into one of the tall lockers with her head bent at an awkward angle.

  “That was fun,” I said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in my voice. “What in the hell did you think hiding was going to accomplish?”

  “I was hoping you’d think I’d gotten out and wouldn’t look for me. That way, I could leave without having to see, hear, or speak to you.”

  “I wasn’t expecting such hostility from you. I think I’m hurt,” I said flatly. “My turn. Let’s go,” I said and reached for her arm.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  I smirked. “Yes, you are, darlin’. It’s just a matter of if you’re walking or if I’m carrying you.”

  She dropped her chin to her chest and admitted, “I’m stuck.”

  “You’re what?” I chuckled.

  She huffed. “I’m stuck. Part of my dress is caught on one of the hooks or something.”

  “Well, I’m waiting,” I taunted.

  “Waiting for what?”

  “For you to ask for my help.”

  She scoffed and rolled her eyes before she relented. “Will you help me get unstuck?”

  “Say please.”

  “Fuck right off. Please,” she snarked.

  “You want help or not?”

  She huffed and rolled her eyes to the sky. I could tell it was the absolute last thing she wanted to do and didn’t bother to hide how much I was enjoying her predicament. “Can you help me get unstuck?”

  “I can, but will I?”

  She sucked in a sharp breath at the indignance. Or so I thought until she opened her mouth and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Declan! Help me!”

  I slapped my hand over her mouth. “For fuck’s sake. I’ll get you out if you don’t scream again. Luca’s likely to come down here and kill us both,” I said seriously. Luca was cool with me and the MC, but I knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t tolerate personal bullshit in his club. And I also knew he was quick to pull the trigger because I’d seen him end a life without even looking in the poor fuck’s direction. “I’m serious as shit, Sloane. You gonna be quiet?”

  With comically wide eyes, she quickly nodded her head. I cautiously removed my hand and took a step back to take a better look at her situation. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I don’t know. Try reaching around and see if you can find where it’s stuck,” she suggested.

  I slid my hand along her tight waist and around her back, just above her hips. I wanted to feel my hands sliding over her bare skin again, remembering how it felt as silky as the material she was wearing.

  My hand came to a stop when my fingers found the problem. At this point, my face was next to hers, our mouths mere centimeters apart. “Pretty sure the only way you’re getting out of that locker is by unzipping your dress.” She opened her mouth to argue, but I placed one finger over her lips and continued. “I think the fabric is caught on one of the screws holding the row of lockers to the wall. You can either unzip it to loosen the material or rip it. Your choice.”

  “So help me, if you’re fucking with me,” she growled.

  I stepped back and met her eyes. “I’m not. What’s it going to be?”

  She inhaled deeply and dropped her head. “Go ahead. Unzip it.”

  My hand left her hip and smoothed its way up to the zipper. I knew what was going to happen, and so did she. Her dress was strapless. The moment I started to unzip it, her generous tits were going to spill right out, and there wasn’t much she could do about it with how her arms were positioned. But, being the fucking gentleman that my mother raised me to be, I held the dress against her chest while I slid the zipper down until the slack in the material allowed me to slip it over the screw. “You’re free. Step out, and I’ll zip you up.”

  When she was back to rights, she looked up at me with a mix of confusion and anger in her eyes. “Thank you. Now, what in the hell do you want?”

  I laughed. “You don’t miss a beat, do you? I already told you. We need to talk.”

  “We have nothing to talk about,” she snapped.

  That was bullshit, and we both knew it. Cutting right to the chase, I crossed my arms over my chest and asked, “Then why’d you come back?”

  “To watch my brother fight.”

  “What time’s his fight?” I asked.

  She opened her mouth and closed it several times before she settled on, “He told me to be here by ten o’clock and meet him in his locker room.”

  I snorted. “Your brother’s fight was over an hour ago. Care to try again?”

  “It doesn’t matter why—”

  Her words were interrupted by someone knocking on the door. “Black, you still in there?”

  I met Sloane’s eyes and held my finger over my lips. “Yeah, man, I’m about to head out.”

  “You good?”

  “Yeah, just finishing up a phone call. I’m heading out now,” I told him.

  “All right. See you in a few weeks,” he replied and rapped his k
nuckles on the door twice before his footsteps could be heard echoing down the hallway.

  Turning back to Sloane, I didn’t pull any punches. “You’re going to keep that mouth shut and walk out of here,” I said quietly and held up my hand to stop the protest I saw coming. "I don’t care what you do when we get outside, but you’re getting the fuck out of this club right now.”

  “Fine,” she huffed and held her hand up with her thumb holding her ring finger down while extending the others. “Scout’s Honor.”

  I damn near choked as I doubled over laughing. “That’s The Shocker, not the Scout’s Honor sign!”

  “Oh, my bad. But this is the ballbuster, right?” she asked and threw a punch aimed right at my junk.

  I caught her closed fist before she made contact and smirked in her face as I leaned down and hoisted her over my shoulder. Then, I slapped my palm over her ass cheek, because I wanted to and because she fucking deserved it. I should’ve known her lack of outrage was a red flag, but I didn’t. So, she caught me completely off guard when she shoved her hands down the back of my jeans and dug her fingernails into my bare ass cheeks while I was carrying her up the stairs.

  “Don’t start something you can’t finish,” I warned.

  She scoffed. “Then let me go, you big boxing biker brute!”

  Originally, I planned to place her on her feet the moment we were outside of the club, but her hands down my pants had me carrying her down the alley to the parking garage. I spotted the same car she’d driven to the club two weeks ago and stomped toward it.

  Unceremoniously dropping her onto the hood, she landed with a plop. Her nails dragged across my skin as her hands were pulled from my pants. Grabbing her wrists when they crested my shoulders, I followed her down and pinned her to the hood. “You’re pissing me off and making my dick hard.”

  “I only like ragey muscles in the bedroom.”

  “Never have and never will put my hands on a woman in anger,” I told her honestly.

  “Says the man holding me down,” she retorted and tried to move her arms and twist her body to get out of my grip. All she succeeded in doing was flipping herself onto her stomach.

  Giving her some of my weight, I wanted to groan when my dick pressed against her firm ass, but she was pissing me off. “Enough!” I roared and released her. “What the fuck is your problem?”

  She was on her feet in a flash, and she was livid. “You! You’re my problem! You fucked me, made me think you were going to help me, and then you sent your brother to scare me off!” she yelled and inhaled deeply as if preparing to go again.

  “The fuck are you talking about?” I shouted back. “I sent my brother to the hotel, and he said you were gone.”

  She scoffed. “He threatened me! Of course, I left.”

  “Bullshit!” I started but immediately changed course. “No, you know what? Fuck this shit. I’m out.” I didn’t have the interest or energy to argue with a woman who was clearly batshit crazy.

  “You can’t leave!”

  “Yeah, I can, and I am,” I said and turned to leave. The Sloane I met months ago and tried to find was not the Sloane standing in front of me. A year ago, I might have played her game a little longer, might have even tried to end the night buried between her legs, but everything changed after Blue was born. Since then, everything I did was for her. And having a screaming match with Lorcan O’Shea’s daughter in a public parking garage—after I’d been warned not to do so again—was not in my daughter’s best interest.

  I whirled around when something hit me right smack in the middle of my back. Sloane was standing there barefoot—one shoe in her hand and the other on the ground near me. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you lie to me? You stole the only chance I had of meeting my sister!” With tears steadily streaming down her face, she dropped the other shoe and walked back to her car with her head down, and her shoulders slumped in defeat.

  I wasn’t like most men when it came to a crying woman. Nine out of ten times, the first sign of a tear pissed me off. Because based on my experiences, most women used tears as a means of manipulation. But hers were real. No one could fake the defeat and despair emanating from her. And I was a sucker for real tears.

  Then, her words finally penetrated, and I was moving toward her before I could think better of it. “Sloane, wait. What’re you talking about?”

  “I lied to you!” she cried. “I wasn’t there for an interview. I was looking for the sister I didn’t know I had. And now she’s gone!”

  The sound of someone approaching reminded me of where we were. I wasn’t afraid of Luca by any means, but I had a healthy respect for the man he was and saw no reason to piss him off unnecessarily. “This is the last time I’m saying this. You and I need to talk. Nothing you’ve said tonight makes any sense to me. If you wanna go somewhere public and have a conversation, I’ll meet you there. If not, I’m walking away,” I told her and held my hands up in surrender.

  She wordlessly turned around and walked to the passenger side of her car. “Fine, we can talk. But you’ll have to drive because I’m exhausted, and I’ve been drinking.”

  “Where to?” I asked and slipped behind the wheel of her car.

  She answered by holding up her phone and snapping a picture. “I’m sending your name and picture to my best friend so she can pass it along to my father if anything happens to me.”

  I reached into my wallet, pulled out my driver’s license, and tossed it onto her lap. “Make it easier and send a picture of that.”

  “It’s probably fake,” she muttered as she snapped the picture.

  “It’s not, but it wouldn’t matter if it was. Luca knows where to find me. Hell, everyone knows where to find me. I’m the Vice President of the Blackwings MC. That’s not a hidden fact, sugar. Now, where are we going?”

  After giving me directions to a twenty-four-hour waffle and pancake diner, we rode the rest of the way in silence. I thought she was taking time to compose herself, but she continued giving me the silent treatment while we took our seats and placed our order. We almost went on to eat our food in silence, but she had to ask me for something.

  “Will you please pass the ketchup?”

  “Maybe. Are you going to put it on your eggs?”

  Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Eww, that’s gross.”

  “It is,” I agreed and handed her the bottle. Then, I watched as the little she-devil squirted ketchup all over her scrambled eggs and took a huge bite. I wanted to vomit. Instead, I focused on my food and tried to ignore her.

  “I thought you wanted to talk,” she said.

  “I do, but not until you’re finished with your bloody eggs.”

  “Mmm,” she moaned obnoxiously and started making smacking noises with her mouth. “So good.”

  I reminded myself I’d been covered in piss, barium shit, and formula vomit many times over the past few months; I could handle the grossest combination in the history of food for a few minutes.

  I looked up to see Sloane scraping the eggs off of her plate and into a napkin with a look of utter disgust on her face. “Okay, fine. You’re right. That’s gross. Moving on.”

  I shook my head. She was something else. And I needed her to start talking because I honestly didn’t know what to make of her at that point.

  She must have felt me studying her while she picked at her food because she looked up suddenly and locked eyes with me. “What?”

  I sat back and gave it to her straight. “Two things you said stood out to me, and I was trying to decide which one I wanted to ask about first.”

  She was good. She kept her face a mask of steel, but I could see the hurt in her eyes when she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me they were dead?”

  “Why did you disappear when you found out they were?” I countered.

  “Because your brother told me to!” she said loudly and then lowered her voice. “He came to the hotel the day after you ghosted me and told me in no uncertain terms to leave.”

&
nbsp; “Who was it?”

  “He said he was your brother.”

  “It couldn’t have been Copper, so who the hell was it?”

  “I don’t know! He didn’t tell me his name when he told me he would make sure I left Devil Springs that day if I didn’t go willingly.”

  If she was lying to me, she deserved an award for her performance. I found a picture of Copper on my phone and held it up to show her. “This him?”

  Her eyes narrowed when she looked at the screen. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “That’s Copper,” I said and looked at the picture on my phone. “What exactly did he say to you?”

  She held up one finger and reached for her own phone. “It’s hard to hear, so put the speaker next to your ear and listen.”

  I did as she said and listened to the encounter between Sloane and my asshole brother. I replayed it two more times before I passed her phone back to her. “That motherfucker,” I grumbled. He’d never meddled in my business before, and I was going to make damn sure he never did again.

  I took a moment to rein in my anger, but I was still irate when I spoke. “I did not ask him to do that. And I’m going to kick his ass when I get back home.”

  “Glad we got that settled,” she said dryly.

  “We haven’t gotten shit settled,” I countered.

  “Please, continue telling me how your brother took things into his own hands without your consent. I can’t wait to hear the bullshit you’ve come up with to fill—”

  “Sloane,” I interrupted.

  “You had my fucking phone number!” she yelled.

  “I had a fucking baby!” I yelled back.

  Her mouth dropped open in shock. Seconds later, her shock morphed into an anger so sharp it bordered on rage. “You motherfucker! You cheated on someone with me!”

  A different waitress candidly interrupted our beautiful moment. “Pay up, and leave now or I’m calling the cops.” Then she narrowed her eyes at Sloane. “O’Sheas aren’t welcome here.”