by Skyla Madi
I cut my eyes at him. “You’re awfully triggered by some blow for being a drug dealer yourself.”
“I don’t use it.” He tramps back into the room, slamming the bathroom door behind him, drowning us in darkness. “Any of it.”
I laugh once. “Bullshit.”
“Believe whatever the fuck you want.” Judge crosses the space, rips open the door, and storms out.
I lift my shoulders and brace against the loud slam that shakes every wall in the room. In the silence, the sound of metal locks clicking into place is all I hear. Then, the rapid pounding of my heart takes over, followed by a throbbing pain at the base of my neck. I sit up and shuffle back on the bed and rest against the pillows as thick, painful tendrils of dread burrow through my chest.
What the hell do I do now?
***
By the time Judge comes back, it’s lighter outside—not quite morning, but getting close. He doesn’t come alone, either. I lie on my side and stare at the wall as the sounds of kissing and sugary giggles grate on my nerves. A body hits the mattress and I bounce and grit my teeth. Then, I assume, Judge’s weight also compresses the right side of the bed. I pull a face. These people are disgusting. I shift closer to the edge, not wanting either of them to touch me, but it doesn’t matter. Judge grabs my thigh and pulls on it, forcing me onto my back.
“Don’t touch me,” I shout, swatting at his hand and kicking my leg.
Judge lifts himself from between the woman’s legs and rears back on his knees. I glance at the woman, who wears nothing but lacy black panties and a matching bra, then back to Judge, who shrugs out of his cut and drops it on the mattress. He cuts his eyes at me as he grabs his shirt by the hem and pulls it off over his head. I don’t look at his bare chest, or the ink that covers almost every inch.
“You make me sick,” I tell him, and in the dim light, he smirks at me.
He keeps his attention on me as he reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a small, black vial. I frown, confused, as he opens it up and leans over the woman. He taps the vial with his thick index finger and white powder falls onto her skin, like snow. My frown deepens. Happy with the thin, white line, Judge sits back and flicks his chin.
“Go on,” he demands, and I notice the swell in his lips from passionate kissing. “I poured you a line. Let’s have some fun.”
Fun? He doesn’t get it, does he? I don’t use cocaine for fun. Even if I did, I’m not here to have fun. I’m here to get my fucking son back. I clench my teeth so hard my jaw aches and the pain radiates into my ears.
“That’s what you’re here for, right? Drugs?” Judge narrows his dark, dark eyes. “Did your husband even kidnap your son, or was he taken from you because of your bad habits?”
I flinch and my eyes begin to burn. I blink slowly, careful not to let tears form. Inhaling through my nose, I steel my spine and sit up. Judge’s lips tug at the corner, the beginnings of a smug, disgusted smirk. I shift closer to the petite woman, who remains silent, and lower my face to her breasts, to the thin white line between them. I feel Judge’s stare burning holes in the side of my face and it makes me uncomfortable. I pucker my lips and blow the cocaine off the woman, sending powder everywhere, making her cough.
I sit back on my heels, square my shoulders, and pin Judge with a glare. “You have me all wrong.”
Something wicked flashes across his features. “Is that right?”
“That’s right.” My left nostril twitches as emotion builds in my chest, eating away my courage. “I don’t use it for fun,” I tell him, hating the way my throat trembles. “I use it to buy myself more time in a day. I can’t save him while I’m sleeping.”
Judge scans my face, looking for my lie. He doesn’t find it. His throat bobs with a hard swallow, but his tense expression doesn’t crack. “Can’t save him jacked on coke, either.”
I lift my shoulder with a half-hearted shrug. I suppose he’s right…but what am I to do? I turn away and lie back down on the bed. Silence fills the room and weighs down my eyelids. I don’t want to sleep. Sleep brings my son back to my arms and fills every crack in my aching soul. When I wake from my sweet sleep, I’m cracked in half all over again.
“Get out,” Judge demands, and I’m swinging my legs over the edge of the bed before the last syllable falls from his lips.
“Gladly.” I lift myself an inch off the bed when I’m grabbed by the bicep and tugged back on.
“Not you.”
I whip my head in his direction as the woman leaves the bed with a huff and exits the room, slamming the door behind her. Judge keeps his hold on my bicep and his stare on my face. I stare back, confused, hating the way warmth from his touch creeps through my veins and soothes my bones. He looks like he wants to say something, but he’s holding back. Inhaling through his nose, he gives his head a gentle shake, then expels the breath through his lips.
“You need a good night’s sleep,” he says, his voice gruff and tired.
“I can’t remember what a good night’s sleep feels like.”
He releases my bicep. “Get comfortable. I’ll be back.”
I shuffle up and rest my head on his fluffy pillows while Judge walks about his room, doing god knows what. He enters the bathroom, turns on the tap, then turns it off again. When he returns to the bed, he extends a pill and a glass of water to me. I eye it suspiciously.
“It’ll help you sleep.”
Unease pins my stomach, but I sit up and take the pill and water from him anyway. “What if I don’t want to sleep?”
“If you wanna stay up, I’ve got some ideas.”
I flick my stare over his naked torso. In this light, his tattoos look like oil poured over his muscular body. The bleeding heart in the middle of his chest catches my attention and holds it. I wonder what it’s about. His daughter, maybe. I open my mouth and place the tiny, tasteless pill on my tongue. Then I bring the cup to my lips and pour the cool water into my mouth. I swallow it all with a single gulp, then finish the rest. Judge holds out his hand and I place my empty cup in his palm.
“More water?” he asks, and I shake my head.
Judge sits the cup on the empty bedside table, and I settle further into the pillows, preparing for sleep. Soon after, the bed dips with his weight and he lies on his back. I stare at the side of his face, at the gentle slopes of his facial structure. In all seriousness, he could be a model.
“I’ll put you out with the dogs if you keep staring at me.”
“Where am I supposed to look?”
“At the back of your eyelids,” he grumbles. “Go to sleep.”
I close my eyes only to open them again a heartbeat later. “How long until the sleeping pill kicks in?”
He shrugs, then turns his back to me. I frown at it, at his muscular back, until I slip into a dreamless slumber. When I wake, the sun is higher in the sky, its bright rays lighting up the room through his skylight. I stare at the blue sky from where I lie on my back, blinking only when a murder of crows fly overhead. I think of my son and my lips twitch at the corner. Most people prefer to lie under the moon and watch the stars, but not my Nicolás. He likes doing it during the day. Planes, shapely clouds, and flying birds move him more than sparkly stars.
I roll onto my side and Judge still has his back to me. In the light, I try to make sense of his tattoos. There’s a forest, intricately inked into his skin, and at the center of it, the leaves of the trees give way to the shape of a tormented skull. At the base of the trees, the ground dissolves into what can only be described as Hell. Skulls and wilting flowers, a destroyed teddy bear, ripped flesh, and more screaming skulls. Across the center of Hell, written in small breathtaking cursive, what doesn’t kill you makes you wish you were dead. What doesn’t destroy you, leaves you broken instead. My heart stutters in its beat and my fingers twitch with the urge to reach out and touch the two musical notes that adorn each side of the lyric.
…what doesn’t kill you makes you wish you were dead. I press my t
ongue to the roof of my mouth. I can’t imagine living in a world without Nicolás. Guilt swallows me up inside. My son may be gone, but he’s not dead. Judge lost his daughter. The reports say she was pronounced dead at the scene and Judge, despite the paramedics’ protest, carried her lifeless body for miles to the hospital for further investigation. I shudder, recalling the man who committed manslaughter against Judge’s daughter went missing hours later. No one has seen him since and I don’t think he’s in the Bahamas living his best life.
“Judge?” I murmur, his name flying out my mouth before I can stop it.
“Mm.”
“Why put the lyrics on your back where you can’t see them?”
Silence. I rub my lips together, cringing. I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t—
“Don’t need to see it,” he says, interrupting my train of thought. “I feel it every day.”
I nod. I understand the feeling, in my own personal way.
“I’ve always wanted a tattoo,” I say.
“Of?”
I shrug and roll onto my back. Not knowing what I want is the reason I don’t have one.
“I want something meaningful. Maybe my son’s name, a lyric from a song, or a quote from a book. I want something that stirs my soul every time I look at it.”
He rolls onto his back and looks up at the ceiling. I flick my gaze over his torso and bicep tattoos. They’re a lot different than the ones on his back. They’re more…superficial. Naked women, thorny roses, and flaming skulls. Do they stir his soul, like the deeply personal tattoos on his back?
“Your son’s father,” Judge grumbles, taking me by surprise. “Who is he?”
I catch my lower lip between my teeth. It has to come out sooner or later, especially if Judge and his club are going to help me. “Elias Vergara.”
Judge lifts his eyebrows and turns his head, pinning me with a surprised look. “Spanish drug-lord Elias Vergara? What the fuck, Yasmine?”
“I know—”
“How the hell did you get tangled up with one of the world’s most wanted?”
My stomach churns. If I go into too much detail about how I ended up on Elias Vergara’s superyacht in the Bahamas all those years ago, I’m as good as dead. It’s not an easy story to tell and if I tell it, it won’t be the most honest story either. I’d have to lie to Judge and the rest of the MC. For my own sake, I need to limit the amount of lies and bended truths.
“It’s a long, awful story. I’d rather not relive it.” I scratch my cheek. “Now you know why I can’t get my son back on my own.”
“We can’t take on Elias Vergara,” he states and turns on his side.
I frown at his back as he sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the thick mattress.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s suicide.”
I sit up and cross my legs. I follow him with my eyes as he saunters about the room. His ropey bicep and forearm muscles tighten as he bends low and picks up his t-shirt from last night.
“You have the men. You have the weapons—”
“Do you have any idea how many men I could lose? Good men.” He pulls the shirt on over his head. “Men who don’t deserve to be caught up in the shitstorm you call your life.”
“Good men?” I scoff. “None of you are good. If anything, I’m giving you an opportunity to actually do some good for once in your miserable, corrupt lives.”
Judge cuts his eyes at me, pinning me with a glare so cold I feel it right down to the bone. The muscles in his jaw flex and relax over and over as he bends down and scoops up his cut. He takes his time brushing it off and pulling it on. When it’s on, he squares his shoulders and my steeled spine wavers at the sight of him towering over the bed.
“You fix the bikes, you leave,” he says, resolute. “Set foot on my property again and I’ll have Armi shoot you on sight, entendre?”
I scowl at him.
Culero.
FOUR
J U D G E
From the side porch of the clubhouse, I watched her work. I dragged my stare over the flat of her stomach that was exposed every time she leaned over to see what Wrench, our mechanic, was doing. I followed the bend of her back to the curve of her ass as she bent over and searched through the small, red toolbox. The soles of her feet were as black as night, her white shirt now a dusty gray. I didn’t want to admit it, but she looked sexy as hell with her wild hair haphazardly tied into a high ponytail and a swipe of dirt across her cheek. I liked a clean woman, a proper woman, like Blondie, but I coveted women who weren’t afraid to get dirty. Our clubwhores weren’t afraid to get dirty…but they weren’t afraid to do anything for a member. If it got them attention, drugs, and money, they didn’t bat an eyelid. I wasn’t interested in the kind of loyalty that could be bought. I was interested in unshakeable loyalty, like Blondie had for Creed, like my men had for me.
Yasmine grew more frustrated the longer she searched through the toolbox. Eventually, Wrench got up off the floor of the garage and sauntered toward her. He placed his dirty hand low on her back. I thinned my eyes, unfamiliar with the gross tendril of jealousy that burrowed through my chest. Yasmine straightened, clenching a screwdriver in her hand. Her lips moved quickly, aggressively, as she stepped away from his touch and shoved the screwdriver at him. Wrench tilted his head and grinned.
“How’s she doing?”
Creed startled me with his low voice, but I absorbed my surprise well. I cast a side glance across the wooden table to Modo, who continued to watch Yasmine and Wrench in uncharacteristic silence, his eyes covered by his black Ray-Ban sunglasses.
“Don’t know.” I turned my head and peered out over the green land that stretched for miles. “Don’t care.”
Smiling, Creed moved in front of me and leaned against the black porch beam. He bent his leg at the knee and folded his arms over his chest. “You’ve been watching her for an hour.”
“So has Modo.” I looked at him again. His lips parted, but he didn’t utter a word. “Modo.”
I angled my hips and stretched my leg under the table. I shouted his name and kicked his plastic chair. Gasping, he choked on a snore and jumped a few inches out of his seat, his sunglasses falling from his face. “What?”
Creed laughed. “Were you sleeping?”
“Nah. Nah.” He rubbed at his tired face, stroked his beard, then adjusted his cut. “Just resting my eyes.”
He propped his elbow on the armrest and rested his cheek on his tattooed fist. Creed and I watched him. Three silent seconds passed before a soft snore vibrated the table. Useless.
“I’m supervising.” I propped my legs up on the chair across from me, crossing them at the ankle, and I slouched. “Making sure she’s doing what she’s told.”
“I think Wrench can handle her.”
I blew air between my lips. Wrench couldn’t handle shit, especially Minnie. He hadn’t left the property in seven years. He spent his days and nights in the garage, talking to himself. He was a recluse, a fucking weirdo, but he’d taken a liking to Yasmine.
And she didn’t like it.
I didn’t like it either.
“What do you want, Creed?” I demanded, hating the way he stood there, smug, like he knew everything I was thinking.
“The weekend off.”
“The weekend off,” I repeated, pulling a face. I couldn’t hide the bitterness in my tone. “Didn’t you just take a weekend off? You went to Sacramento.”
“I’ve got no runs scheduled this weekend, Judge. Got no meetings, and no duties. I want to take Blondie away for a couple days.”
Away? They lived in their own big-ass house, not at the clubhouse anymore, for God’s sake. Besides, sometimes things weren’t scheduled. Sometimes shit happened and he needed to be here when it did. The rules had never changed. The club came first. It always has and always will. Blondie was fun, but fuck her. She didn’t need to stay at a five-star resort every month, but there she was, dragging my VP out to day spas
and nail salons. Creed happily went with her whenever he could. He did everything for her—fucking spoiled her—and I couldn’t help but wonder if he did it because he was trying to keep up with her old, lavish lifestyle. Maybe he was afraid she was gonna get bored of him and leave. God knew she had the money to go wherever she wanted.
“Where’re you two headed this time?” I asked.
I wasn’t going to argue with him. He deserved the time off. He’d been my right-hand man since we were teenagers, and he did everything I asked without question. I owed him the private moments he wanted with Blondie during this rare peacetime. It wouldn’t last. Once the heat died off and the FBI permanently left the town, we had a lot of money to recoup, and a lot of ground to recover—years of it. Isabelle better stay the hell out of my way when the time came.
“Vegas.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Ventilli territory? Ballsy.”
“I won’t wear my colors. We’ll be fine.”
I knew they’d be okay. Ventilli wasn’t stupid, even our small Exeter chapter could wipe them off the map, but if Creed gave them one, shitty reason to kill him, they would without hesitation.
“Don’t recall you asking me if I wanted to go to Vegas…”
“One of us needs to be here.” He flicked his head toward the garage where Wrench stood close behind Yasmine, his covered cock inches from pressing against her ass. My cheek twitched. “Anyway, you’ve got your hands full with that one.”
“I want nothing to do with her.”
“Maybe you should have a little fun with her,” he said, and I looked at him. “Who knows, maybe you’ll like her enough to keep her and leave Izzy the fuck alone.”
I laughed. Shit. She really did tell him everything. I wondered how long he was gonna wait before bringing last night up with me. It was a marvel, really. Since dating Blondie, he’d developed some restraint. Old Creed would’ve murdered me where I stood.