Bullet: An Alpha Male MC Biker Romance (Steel Knights Motorcycle Club Romance Book 2)

by Ivy Black

  “Sorry, it’s not you. I want to spend more time with you, too, but I’m having dinner with my dad today. I’m meeting his girlfriend. I’m supposed to go over a little early so that I can get to know her.”

  Harry’s dad had a girlfriend? He hadn’t mentioned that to me. Maybe he was feeling a little uncertain about her. “Oh, well that’s okay,” I said. “We can see each other this week again though, right?”

  “Yeah, of course,” he said. “Just try and keep me away from you.”

  My heart jumped up again. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “All right,” Laura said. “You guys are too cute and it’s making my sadly-single ass jealous, so I’m leaving for work.”

  “You work weekends, too?” Harry asked.

  “Yup. Training to be a parole officer. Crime doesn’t take Sundays off,” she quipped.

  Harry nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

  “I’ll clean up the plate,” I told Laura. “You go.”

  “Thanks, babe, see you later. Harry, this was lovely,” she said.

  “It was. Thanks again for the amazing dinner,” he called after her, then she collected her things, slipped on a pair of her black heels, and left. “Hey, you know what?”

  “Hm?” I replied.

  “Why don’t you come with me today?” Harry asked.

  “With you… to your dad’s?”

  “Yeah. You brought me to meet Laura, I’d like you to meet my dad. Besides, I could really use the backup. It’s like you said last night, me, dinner with strangers, especially strange women… you pretty much hit the nail on the head.”

  Harry wanted me to meet his dad? That felt so heavy and definitive, but for some reason, it didn’t freak me out. A smile rose to my face and I nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

  He suddenly backed off a little. “I don’t want to pressure you or, if that feels like too much, you don’t—”

  “Harry,” I cut him off. “I’d love to come.”

  He relaxed then. “Okay. Good. I’ll call my dad and let him know. Do you mind if we leave here sooner rather than later? I need to change and take a shower and stuff.”

  “Of course. I’ll just go pick out something to wear and we can leave.”

  “Cool, but uh…” He pointed at me. “I’ll need that for the trip.”

  “Obviously.” I then grabbed the shirt and pulled it off, revealing my naked body underneath. I handed it over with a sly grin. “Here you go.”

  Harry sat in stunned silence for a minute, then stood up out of the chair. “Okay.” He lifted me up out of the chair and flung me over his back, before carrying me back to the bedroom.

  So, we didn’t leave for another couple of hours.

  When we were finally done gallivanting, I took a quick shower of my own before donning one of Laura’s pink day dresses that was hanging in my closet for dinner, then we left and made our way back to Harry’s. He plugged his phone up to charge in his living room and left me there while he went to take a shower and change, and eventually, both cats found me to get some cuddles.

  We quietly listened to music and waited for Harry until his phone suddenly started to buzz with notifications on the table next to me. It was just one at first and I ignored it, but then there was another and another and another. Purely to make sure there wasn’t an emergency, I looked over at the phone, and it appeared to be someone from Harry’s work named Seth. I couldn’t see all of the messages, but he appeared to be asking about the books at Harry’s job, and cutting a check.

  Whatever it was about that moment, it all came slamming back into me. For at least four hours, I’d been operating as if Harry really was my boyfriend. He had dinner with my roommate, we had an amazing night together, I made him coffee and breakfast, because that was what I felt like I should do as a good girlfriend, and when I whined about not wanting to be apart from Harry today, it was for no reason other than the fact that I truly didn’t want that.

  But none of this was supposed to be real. I was supposed to be looking for a way to destroy him…

  And this was it. The books, the money, his new promotion. I saw the way people treated him once he became VP. His job was the window to truly crush him and take everything from him.

  It needed to happen, and it needed to happen today. I was falling in love with Harry, drowning, and I needed to get out.

  “Hey.” I jumped sky-high at the sudden sound of his voice, jolting both cats. “Whoa, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “That’s okay. Your phone has been going crazy,” I said. I looked up at him, but he was wearing a light blue button-up shirt, with a white t-shirt underneath, and navy slacks. He looked so good, and I couldn’t focus my attention there, so I averted my gaze back to the cats.

  Harry picked up his phone and scrolled through it a little before grumbling, “Shit.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “They need me to stop by the bar and sign off on this check for the expansion.” He looked down at me. “I’m sorry, but do you mind running with me there?”

  A golden opportunity. “No, not at all.”

  “Okay then, we’ll leave straight from there for dinner.”

  He finished getting ready, then we packed up and took his bike to Hoppa’s Taphouse. The regulars were already starting to file in for the day, as it was late afternoon, so Harry took me around back and used a key to walk us through the back door. There was only one member of the club back there, and he was sitting at a table looking over some paperwork. When he looked up and saw me, his head tilted, then he smiled.

  “Celia, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He stood up and walked over. “Seth, nice to meet you.”

  “What’s going on?” Harry asked.

  “Nicky wants the check cut, but had to make an emergency run with Bucky, so I need you to sign off on it.”

  “Okay. I have dinner at my dad’s in an hour, so let’s hurry,” Harry said. He kissed me on my cheek, said, “I’ll be right back,” and walked over toward some filing cabinets with Seth.

  They stood with their back to me, talking quietly so as not to have me overhear what they were discussing, but what they weren’t worried about were the books that were open on the table. One of them specifically, looked like a book for reconciling cash in and cash out. I looked over at Harry, and there was a little bit of resistance in my head. Once I did this, there was no going back.

  But that was what I wanted.

  I sneakily picked up the pencil and flipped the book backward until I got to the months before Harry took over VP. I erased some of the numbers, just the second digit or third digit, something unnoticeable and replaced the numbers with smaller ones. Numbers that looked similar were my target, changing 9s to 8s, 3s to 2s, anywhere I could, then I flipped back to today and changed a number from an 8 to a 3 by erasing the sides of the 8. I set the pencil down and stepped back from the table to where I’d been and started flicking through my phone.

  Finally, Harry and Seth walked back to the table and they both started looking through the book. My heart started to pound, afraid that they were going to notice my change, but neither of them seemed to. Harry wrote out a check, for fifty-thousand dollars I spied, and then signed it, Seth signed it, and then he packed it into an envelope.

  “Thanks, Bullet. Sorry for calling you in while you’re with your lady,” Seth said.

  Harry walked over to me and put his hand behind my back. “No worries, right?”

  I smiled and nodded. “Right.”

  “I’m pretty sure this girl and I could sit and watch paint dry and enjoy ourselves,” Harry said. “It was really just an excuse to drag her around with me more.”

  My stomach turned a little and I experienced a tinge of remorse. It really was going to crush Harry when he realized this was all just a ploy.

  It would be hard to go back to life without him for me, too.

  “Well, I think that’s all I needed, so unless you need anything from m
e, you guys can head out. I’m done wasting your time,” Seth explained.

  “Just make sure you get a copy of it, and don’t hand the check over until you get the copy of the signed contract by both parties,” Harry said.

  Seth nodded. “You got it, boss.”

  “All right. See ya later, Dynamite.”

  “Bye.”

  Harry linked his fingers with mine and pulled me back out of the warehouse through the back door. Just before we got on his bike, he dragged me toward him. I was anticipating a kiss, but he just stood there, staring at me for a while.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he replied, then he did kiss me, passionately and deep, in a way that shook me down to my toes. “You ready?”

  “Yeah,” I answered breathlessly.

  “Cool. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Celia

  Harry held up a bottle of wine. “Is this a good enough kind? I don’t want to seem cheap.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s good,” I said.

  We’d swung by a grocery store at my behest to get a bottle of wine and flowers for dinner. It was the kind of decorum that I had learned from my dad who was something of a stickler for manners. Maybe it was because he was born in Athens, Georgia, which was a bit of a debutante city, but practicing good gentlemanly and ladylike behavior was something he preached until his dying day. I no longer felt the need to put on airs or pretend as if I wasn’t enjoying my time with Harry or looking forward to dinner. It was all going to fall apart at the seams soon anyway, why not give us both one last night of fun?

  “I have no idea what kind of flowers she likes,” Harry said as we perused the floral section.

  “It’s less about her specifically, and more just about flowers for the house. It’s a sign of being grateful for the invitation.” I pulled out a bouquet of sunflowers. “These are always good. They’re pretty and not overly difficult to maintain if they want to.”

  “Okay,” Harry said. “If you think sunflowers are the way to go, let’s do sunflowers.”

  We took the flowers and wine to the front to checkout and standing next to Harry in the grocery store line felt oddly domestic yet comfortable. Thinking about what I wanted from my life, that was it. Someone that I didn’t feel the need to constantly be talking to or regularly entertaining, but we could just be in one another’s space and be okay.

  Was I wasting my luck of ever finding something like this by intentionally torpedoing things with Harry? What we had seemed rare. I hoped there was someone else like him out there for me.

  We got back on his bike after carefully packing the wine and flowers into the back compartment where they’d be safe, and then made our way to Harry’s dad’s house. He actually lived a little outside of Hoppa, which Harry explained was so that Harry wasn’t regularly triggered by being near to where he grew up. He had a nice home, and it somehow fit who Harry was. I was hoping to get a few stories of young Harry running around while I was there, maybe even seeing a picture or two.

  Harry parked his bike in the driveway, and we got off. The front door was already opening, likely called by the roar of the bike, so we pulled out the wine and flowers quickly and made our way up. Before we even got to the door, an older-looking dog came rushing out of the house wagging its tail with excitement. Harry bent down and lifted the Dachshund up from the ground with one hand and held him out toward me.

  “This is Milton. He was my therapy dog.”

  I rustled Milton’s ears. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  We walked through the open front door and came face to face with a fairly attractive man with caramel skin and warm eyes that reminded me of my dad, and next to him was a tall, peach-skinned woman with short black hair and pristine blue eyes.

  “Dad,” Harry said, “this is my girlfriend, Celia.”

  My heart jumped up into my throat. It was the first time I’d heard him phrase it like that and I loved the way it sounded. I was suddenly feeling like I might have made a mistake. Maybe Harry and I could have come to some sort of understanding. He did kill my dad, but… maybe there was something I was missing.

  It was too late. I’d already fudged his books. It was just a matter of time.

  The man stuck out his hand and I took it. “Nice to meet you, I’m Cameron.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I replied.

  Cameron put his hand behind the back of the woman next to him. “This is my beautiful girlfriend, Marisha. Marisha, this is my kid, Harry.”

  I saw the shake in Harry’s hand as he stuck it out to take Marisha’s. She must have noticed it, too, because when Harry’s hand got into hers, she closed over it with her other hand to calm him. She gave him a warm smile and said, “It’s so lovely to finally meet you.”

  “Yeah, sorry about it taking so long. I’d give some excuse, but really I think I was just procrastinating,” Harry admitted.

  “I’m glad you brought backup then,” Cameron said, winking at me. “Well, come in, dinner is on the table already, and we can get started.”

  Harry had mentioned that Cameron was a chef in the past but had definitely downplayed how amazing he was. He could have easily been a famous chef in New York or California with the way he presented freshly roasted brisket, perfectly cooked, over rice pilaf and a bed of greens. The red wine Harry and I bought just so happened to go perfectly with it, so we popped it open and poured everyone a glass, then settled down to eat it.

  “So, Celia, how’s it going dating my boy?” he asked.

  I looked over at Harry and smiled. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve him.”

  “Right?” Cameron said. “I never had kids, but then Harry came into my life and it was like ‘Wow. How did I get so lucky?’” He looked at Harry while pointing at me. “I like her.”

  “Me, too,” Harry replied.

  Cameron gushed about Harry and Marisha over dinner, clearly going the extra mile to make sure they liked one another. What he didn’t see, but was plain to see for me, was that Marisha and Harry were silently bonding over how much they both loved Cameron. Every time he told a story or laughed, they exchanged a quiet glance of understanding, and each time it happened, things at the table got more and more relaxed. It was surreal to be around, and I felt honored to experience it firsthand.

  “Have you heard from the private detective?” Harry asked Cameron after a while.

  “Private detective?” Marisha and I asked at the same time.

  “You didn’t tell her?” Cameron and Harry asked each other in unison and then we all laughed.

  “I kept it to myself because it’s not my place to share,” Cameron said.

  “Yeah, I guess we never really got around to talking about it,” Harry said. “I have a younger sibling out there somewhere. Living with my mom. We haven’t really talked about it all that much, but she’s the reason I had my, you know, trust issues. I’ve been using some money I got from a settlement to fund searching for him or her so that, hopefully, I can save them before my mom screws them up like she did me.”

  Settlement. “Were you in an accident?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “A handful of years ago. Four, maybe? Five?”

  “Six,” Cameron said.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “It was not long after I joined the Steel Knights. I was on the road headed to the club, and this guy started up with me,” Harry explained.

  “Darrien Pescoe,” Cameron hissed. “I’ll never forget the name. The man who almost took my son from me.” Marisha put a hand on Cameron’s wrist, and he calmed a bit. “One day I get this call that a car ran Harry off the road, flipped his bike, and he was in the hospital.”

  “I guess the guy had pledged for the Steel Knights, but didn’t make it,” Harry said. “When he saw me in my colors, it pissed him off and he tried to race me. Although it was less like a race and more like a demolition derby. I felt bad for the other guy in the car, he was clearly trying to get him to sto
p, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  My heart started to beat faster and faster. “He hit you?”

  “Yeah, he tried to just nudge me, I think, but he had no control over the car. I was flying, trying to get away from him, so he had to be doing like a hundred or more in a car with low handling. I tried slowing down, speeding up, this guy just would not let it go. Finally, he scooted over and hit my tire, and we both lost control.”

  “If it hadn’t been for the way Harry handles his bike, he would have died,” Cameron said. “He at least had the frame of mind to get sideways so that he didn’t flip and go flying. At that speed, his trajectory…” Cameron started to get emotional and then he reached out and put a hand on Harry’s face. “I thank God every day that he survived.”

  “What about the car?” I asked, even though I already knew the outcome to the story.”

  “It flipped,” Harry said. “A bunch of times. I lost consciousness and it was still flipping. I never knew his passenger’s name, but I know he died. I only ever knew Darrien’s name because it was in all the settlement paperwork.”

  Nothing made sense. If the accident was Darrien’s fault, what money was I living off of? I’d always wondered why Darrien didn’t have settlement money, too, if my dad did, but he always claimed he used it to cover my college tuition, although it didn’t cover all of it because I still ended up taking loans and having payments.

  “So Harry’s using that money to find his sibling,” Cameron added. “He’s already said he’s prepared to become a dad if he can hunt them down.”

  “I learned from the best,” Harry said, then he looked at me. “Sorry, I guess I probably left that out for now so that it didn’t apply too much pressure to us.”

  It had to be wrong. I had to just be hearing their slant on the story. Even if Harry’s control of his bike always left me wondering how something like that could happen. Even if certain things happened with Darrien that made me question his story, I always wrote it off.

  It can’t have been a lie. There’s no way.

  “Did someone find you, Harry?” I asked. “You said you passed out.”