by Hart, Lane
“So your parents split up?” she asks.
“They couldn’t split up because they were never together,” I explain. “My father was in his forties when he knocked up my mom, a tourist passing through town for the weekend.”
“Oh,” she mutters.
“I didn’t see him much growing up because of the distance, but he spoiled me when I came down to visit during the summer and on holidays.”
“So when did you move down here permanently? After you graduated from high school?”
“I didn’t graduate,” I tell her honestly. For the first time, I’m actually embarrassed by that truth. “And I didn’t have a choice in relocating during the middle of my junior year of high school. My mom made me.”
“Why would she make you move when you were that close to graduating?” Peyton asks.
“Because I hung out with the wrong crowd. She was a struggling Broadway dancer and she was tired of dealing with my bouts in juvie, so after I got shot, she’d had enough. She sent me down here so that my old man could try to straighten me up.”
“You were shot?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t anything to do with the streets or a gang,” I reply. “Not that my mom knows that.”
“So then who shot you?” she asks.
Unable to lie to her, I give her the truth I’ve only ever told my pops. “Her best friend’s husband.”
* * *
Peyton
“Wait. Back up,” I tell Dalton when he starts spilling his past to me. I’m glad he’s opening up, I just wish he would slow down so I can keep up. Taking his hand, I pull him down on the sand dunes so we can sit and talk. “Your mother’s best friend’s husband shot you?”
“Yep.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Because he found out I’d been fucking her for weeks,” Dalton answers simply.
“Wow,” I mutter in shock. “How old was she?”
“She was in her thirties.”
“And you were…”
“I was sixteen when we started fooling around and seventeen when he caught us.”
“Jesus, Dalton. Did your mother know?” I ask.
He shakes his head as he looks out at the calm water that’s lapping on the shore. “Hell no. After the asshole shot me, he dragged me down and tossed me in the street where the ambulance picked me up. I guess that was better than letting me die up in his apartment.”
“Where were you shot?” I ask.
Since he lost his cut before we left the hotel to set out on this adventure, Dalton whips off his white t-shirt and shows me his back. He reaches around to point to the scar that’s right next to the bottom of the bearded skull. So close to his spine and vital organs.
“Oh my god,” I say as I reach my fingertips out to rub over the raised scar. “You could’ve died.”
“I almost did. And then when I didn’t, they told my mom I could be paralyzed from the waist down when I woke up, depending on whether or not there was any permanent damage to my spinal cord.”
“Thank goodness you were okay,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I’m lucky.”
“What were you…why were you sleeping with your mother’s friend? A married woman?” I ask.
“I was a horny teenager. Yes, now I know it was stupid, but back then, all I cared about was that a sexy as hell woman wanted me. She was so different from the stuck-up or shy girls I went to high school with. And I thought she actually loved me like I loved her. Turned out, I was just a toy she liked to play with while her husband was at work.”
“Was she your first?” I ask in concern.
“No, my third, but the first two didn’t really count because they were over so fast,” he replies with a chuckle. “Cora, though, well, she took her time with me for weeks, teaching me exactly how she liked things done. And then we practiced, a lot.”
“Yuck,” I say as a shiver runs through me. “I can’t believe a grown woman would do that to a teenager.”
“I was sixteen. It was legal.”
“It may not be illegal, but that doesn’t make it okay,” I tell him. “You thought she cared about you?”
“I thought she was gonna leave her husband to be with me, so yeah, I thought she cared,” he says. “As far as I know, they’re still together. It’s not like I visit often or keep in touch with my mom.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, reaching over to give his hand a squeeze.
“We never cuddled or even talked about such a thing,” he says. “I never spent the night either. It was more of a drop by and drop my pants as fast as possible deal. That’s why I never…I mean, even after eight years, all I know is what I did with her and women never complained.”
“She was your sex education,” I say in disbelief.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Dalton agrees. “She was using me. But it’s not like I regret it because I don’t. At the time, I was fucking ecstatic that I was getting laid every day by an amazing woman when a lot of the guys I went to school with were still dreaming of being with a girl instead of their hands. I could’ve done without the whole getting caught and having her husband try to kill me, but it was my own damn fault. I knew she was married. I was stupid to believe Cora was really going to leave him for me when ‘the time was right,’” he says, using finger quotes.
“Did you tell your father what happened when you moved down here?” I ask.
“Yeah. I had to tell someone,” he answers. “I was fucking depressed as shit after losing the woman I thought I loved and having to move from the only life I had known. That’s when we started working on bikes together, and he would take me camping and to the clubhouse to hang out with the guys. I think he was trying to take my mind off of everything.”
“And you didn’t want to go back to New York?”
“Fuck no,” Dalton mutters. “There was nothing left for me there but a shitload of problems. I didn’t want Cora’s husband coming after me again to finish the job. And she had a chance to choose me after it all went down. Not once did she come to the hospital during the weeks I was in there.”
“How did your mother not know what was going on?”
“She was working nights so when I got out of school, she was gone, and I was old enough to fend for myself. She knew I spent a lot of time at Cora’s in the afternoons before I came home since she lived in the building across the street from our apartment, but she didn’t know what we were doing. And I didn’t want her to know. If she had found out, she would have hated Cora and made us stop seeing each other.”
“But you wouldn’t have been shot,” I point out.
“Probably not,” he agrees with a smirk.
I’m about to ask Dalton if his history with the older woman is why he’s never settled down when there’s a sudden snorting sound that comes from behind us. And since we’re alone on the island, I jump to my feet to see where it’s coming from, wishing I had brought my gun.
“Relax,” Dalton says when he gets to his feet and stands next to me, looking out into the grassy dunes. “It’s just the horses.”
“Horses?” I ask. “There are horses on this tiny island?”
“Yeah, wild horses,” he explains quietly. Then he points out two brown and white horses that are bent over and grazing, just a few hundred feet away.
“Oh wow. Look at them,” I say in surprise. “How the hell did they get here?”
“I’ve always heard that there was a shipwreck or something hundreds of years ago and after they made it to the island, they just continued to thrive and breed.”
“That’s crazy,” I tell him as we watch the pair. “They’re beautiful.”
“They don’t usually get too close, but they won’t run away from people either,” Dalton says, gazing at the horses in awe. “My old man told me that there’s only one alpha stallion allowed in a harem of mares, and that all of the other males are forced to band together and roam the island as bachelors until they’re strong enough to challenge an alpha.”
And when I l
ook at Dalton, with his light hair blowing in the breeze, he reminds me of one of the wild stallion horses. He has quite a history with women, more than I imagined after what he just shared. And from everything I know, I don’t think he’s a man who will ever be tamed. But I can’t deny that the fact that he’s a savage outlaw is half of his appeal.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” I whisper to him as I wind my arms around one of his and rest my head on his shoulder to enjoy the peace and serenity of the island with him. “And thank you for telling me your secrets.”
“I like spending time with you,” he says when he looks down at me with a smile. “How much longer are you here for?”
“Just tomorrow,” I answer, even though the thought makes me kind of sad. It’s nice being with Dalton during the day and not just a few hours at night.
“You’re meeting with someone else tomorrow?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Will you stay here in town tomorrow night too?”
“Maybe,” I reply. “If you can give me a good reason to stay.”
“I think I’ll be able to come up with a few,” he says before he leans down and places a soft kiss on my lips and then pulls away.
The Dalton I first met a few weeks ago would have us naked and rolling around in the sand by now. But I’m starting to think I like this Dalton, the one who brings me to a private island and tells me about his history, even better.
Chapter Fifteen
Dalton
After we catch a ride with Sax off the island, I take Peyton to a little burger shop on the pier to eat dinner and then we head back to her hotel room.
Is it weird that I’m nervous that tonight will be a repeat performance of last night when I couldn’t perform?
I mean, I definitely want to be with Peyton. So hopefully the rest of my body agrees.
Instead of undressing and heading straight to bed, she thankfully opens up the sliding glass door that reveals the ocean, letting in the breeze as the sun starts to set.
Standing behind her as we silently take it all in, I wrap my arms around Peyton’s waist and rest my chin on the top of her head.
“I’m meeting with the chief of the Wilmington Police Department tomorrow about the Ace of Spades bar that burned down a year ago,” she eventually says while we continue to watch the waves breaking on the shore.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, even though I’m not all that surprised.
“Anything I should know going in, like he’s related to someone in the Savage Kings?”
“Not that I know of,” I tell her truthfully. “Wasn’t that, like, a gas line or a meth lab that exploded?” I hedge since I know damn well why it went up in flames because I was there.
“So I’ve heard,” Peyton replies. “I’ll see what the reports say.”
“Yeah.”
“If the Savage Kings go down and you’re the one in charge of laundering money, you would probably get the longest prison sentence,” Peyton says frankly.
“Then it’s a good thing we’re not involved in any illegal shit, right?” I reply, even though the thought of going to prison scares the piss out of me. It’s a miracle I’ve made it to twenty-five and never spent more than a night inside for questioning.
Turning around in my arms to look up at my face, Peyton says, “I don’t want to be the one responsible for sending you away.”
“That’s not gonna happen,” I tell her.
“If I find something in Wilmington tomorrow, I can’t ignore it just because we’re sleeping together.”
“There’s nothing to find,” I respond, even though I wish I could be completely honest with her and that she could overlook whatever the club has done because she cares about me.
“Well, if that’s true, then my job here in the Eastern District will be over soon, and I’ll be heading back to Georgia.”
“So, the only way you get to stick around is if you bring charges against the MC?” I ask in understanding. My chest tightens at the idea of Peyton leaving the state for good. And I’m not sure which is worse, not seeing her again or thinking about the MC that my old man not only helped form but loved more than life going down. Or my brothers who have become my second family having to serve long prison sentences.
“I’m sorry,” Peyton says into the long, drawn-out silence.
“Nothing to do about it tonight, right?” I ask, reaching for the hem of her shirt and pulling it up over her head.
“Dalton! The sliding door is still open!” she chastises me when I get to work on her pants.
“So?” I reply. “If I only know one thing about you, it’s that you get turned on at the idea of being on display. Besides, the Kings still own this town, at least for one more night. May as well make the most of it,” I tell her before I lower my lips to hers, trying to kiss away whatever the future holds, at least until the sun comes up tomorrow.
* * *
Peyton
“Thanks for meeting with me,” I tell the Wilmington PD Chief of Police.
“Not a problem,” Chief Adkins says. “I made you copies of all our files.” He hands me a stack of folders about three inches thick from across the desk. It’s so heavy my arm sags with their weight.
“This is all the Savage Kings?” I ask in dismay.
“Yes, ma’am,” he agrees, clasping his fingers on top of his desk. “No arrests came from any of it, though. The long and the short is, there was a fire at a rival MC’s bar and then a shooting on the highway. The fire was ruled an accident because there was a meth lab in a trailer behind it that exploded, killing the president of the Ace of Spades MC.”
“Wow.” I let that sink in for a second. “And what about the shooting on the highway?” I ask since I don’t have any information on that.
“One dead, two seriously injured, all three with connections to Hector Cruz who…”
“Was also killed in a shootout,” I finish for him since I know that much.
“Yes,” the chief replies.
“So why did you think it was the Savage Kings on the highway?”
“An eyewitness recognized the bearded skull king logo on the leather jacket that the rider had on. But we didn’t have enough evidence to bring the whole crew in for a line-up.”
“Oh,” I mutter, knowing from experience that the logo is one you don’t forget.
“Then the highway patrol officer who was investigating the case died just a few days later…”
“What?” I exclaim.
“It looked like an accidental drowning, and there was nothing else to point to any foul play, so the case pretty much just fizzled out.”
“Looked like an accidental drowning?” I repeat in concern.
“These MC guys are smart. They’re careful not to leave any evidence. Besides, rumors surfaced after the trooper’s death. No one likes to paint a dead officer in a bad light, so we didn’t investigate for his family’s sake, but I’ve heard the trooper also had ties to Hector Cruz…”
“Three separate deaths—eight, if you count Hector and the four other men found dead at his crime scene—all with Cruz connections and signs pointing at the Savage Kings having motive?”
“Sounds like more than a coincidence, doesn’t it?” the chief asks. “But only two out of those four incidents occurred in my jurisdiction. The rest were in Carteret, where the Kings allegedly control the law enforcement.”
“The sheriff is the stepsister of the Savage Kings’ president and VP.”
“Exactly,” he agrees. “Maybe you’ll have more luck than we did putting the puzzle pieces all together with the federal jurisdiction. But between you and me, I have to live here, and I have a family. The Savage Kings MC is not the group of men I want to piss off personally.”
“Right,” I agree.
Should I be worried about the MC doing something to me if I keep investigating? Dalton seemed a little concerned about someone in the club “fucking with me” while I was in town. I feel certain that Dalton would never harm me in any w
ay, but could I say the same for his friends that are more than likely connected to not one, but eight deaths in the area in a little over a year?
No, I can’t.
These guys live by their own code, one where brotherhood is more important than any other relationship.
So, if it came down to it, and Dalton had to choose sides, I have no doubt he would choose the MC over me.
Chapter Sixteen
Dalton
All day today, ever since I left Peyton’s hotel room, I’ve had this sense of impending doom, like there’s a guillotine blade hanging over my head, ready to fall at any second.
I’m sure it’s just my concern about what Peyton found out when she met with the Wilmington PD, and whether or not she’ll try to convince the U.S. Attorney to drop the investigation against the Savage Kings.
But when she opens her hotel room door, I know right away it’s not good news, based on the way her eyes immediately lower from mine.
“Hey,” I say in greeting.
“Hey,” she replies.
“Can I come in?” I ask when she doesn’t step aside to allow me entry.
“Yeah,” she agrees, but it’s definitely not the enthusiastic welcome I usually get from her when I show up to her house every night. Most of the time, she practically jumps on me before I get her to her bedroom.
“You okay?” I ask after she shuts the hotel door.
“Those are the files the Wilmington PD gave me today,” Peyton says with a nod toward the stack of documents on the small round hotel table near the kitchen.
Shit.
“Mind if I take a look?” I ask her.
“Go for it.”
Heading over, I sit down in one of the two chairs and start reading the first page. It takes me an hour to get through all of the various documents, none of which paint the MC in a very favorable light.
“Have you read it all yet?” I lean back in my chair and ask Peyton, who has been quietly watching the television from her seat on the foot of the bed while I was reading.