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

by Ivy Black

  One that confirmed Harry’s side of the story.

  I slid my phone across the table to him, and he picked up and then his eyes slowly started to widen. He swallowed hard before looking up at me. “Where did you find this lie?”

  That made me angrier. He was prepared to lie to my face. To act as if I couldn’t see what was right there. “That’s just one article of fifty I found,” I said. “Don’t. Don’t lie to me anymore.” I set my hand on top of the box and he lurched forward a bit. “What’s in here?”

  “You already know,” he replied. “Your dad’s obituary. My thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills.”

  “How was I so goddamn dumb? Is it because you’ve been lying to me since I was fifteen? I just didn’t put the pieces together?”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “You’re lying,” I said. “About all of it. Medical bills are usually paid in car accident settlements, aren’t they? In situations like yours, people can be paid out extra for anticipatory medical costs.”

  “All the money I got I spent on—”

  “That’s a lie!” I screamed. “I called my school, they told me they’ve never received any large payments on my student loans. I thought I was paying back twenty-thousand dollars but I’m actually paying back sixty-thousand dollars. You told me you got a settlement, that my dad had gotten one, too. What money do I have if it’s not a settlement from the car accident?”

  “It is,” Darrien lied again.

  “No, it’s not.” I folded my fingers under the lid of the box to lift the top off, and to my complete shock, Darrien jumped up out of his chair. He came to stand on his feet and my jaw dropped. “You’re not paralyzed.”

  Darrien froze for a second before slowly lowering back down into his chair. “I have some mobility, but not full mobility.”

  “You jumped up!” I screamed. “I’ve changed you! I’ve bathed you! I’ve given up the last six years of my life taking care of you and you’re not even paralyzed?” Tears started to streak down my face, but whether they were from sadness or anger, I wasn’t sure. “I can’t believe this. I’m so dumb. I thought you loved me.”

  “I do, Celia,” he replied. “I’ve taken care of you this whole time.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve taken care of you.”

  I opened the box lid and started to drag out the contents one by one. There were medical bills inside, though they were the unpaid bills from my father’s emergency care before he was legally declared dead.

  I’d been told he was pronounced dead at the scene.

  His obituary was in there, but it was folded behind an article of the accident, the true story of the accident that I saw on the internet, how Darrien had caused it and my father had died for it. Harry’s words skidded across my mind about how my dad was begging Darrien to stop, but he wouldn’t listen.

  “You killed my dad.”

  “No. Harry killed your dad,” Darrien said.

  Inside the box as well were the legal documents containing my father’s inheritance. He had a will and life insurance, so when he died, that money came to me. Darrien told me it was a settlement. He also had told me there was only sixty-thousand dollars, but the paperwork detailed a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy.

  “Where’s the rest of the money?” I asked.

  “I used it for the funeral,” Darrien replied.

  “You gave me sixty and funerals cost a few thousand,” I spat back. “Where is the rest of my dad’s money?”

  “It’s gone, I don’t know what you want me to say!”

  “You wanted me to get revenge on Harry because you weren’t allowed into that motorcycle club?” I said. “You’re that childish?”

  “I should have been let in! I was a better biker than any of them! Who the hell was Harry, just some dumb kid who followed the rules and was a little bit better with numbers than the rest of us? Fuck that. They think they can give him my spot, then he had to prove to me that he was worth it.”

  “My dad died because of you!” I screamed. Continuing to sift through the box, I found a letter buried near the bottom. The envelope was worn and tattered and had been opened despite the fact that it had my name on it. “What’s this?”

  “It’s nothing,” Darrien said. “It’ll only hurt you to read it.”

  I shook my head. “How can you still lie to me after everything? Haven’t you hurt me enough?”

  Sliding my finger into the already cut-open slit across the top, I pulled out the note inside. It was just as tattered and old as the envelope and had clearly been handled a few times.

  Celia,

  The doctors just came in and told me that my chances for survival are not high. I want you to know that I love you more than life itself, my beautiful girl. You are smart, and kind, and funny, and I want you to achieve all of your wildest dreams. Do it and know that Daddy’s up in heaven cheering for you.

  Please don’t blame your godfather for what happened to me. He’s just misguided, but he needs your love more than ever, now that I’m gone. Take care of him for me and have him do the same for you.

  Use my life insurance to pay for college and go change the world, baby girl! Daddy believes in you.

  I love you,

  Daddy

  My throat was tight with emotions and tears were streaming out of my eyes. “How could you not give this to me? The last thing my dad ever wrote me? Just because it incriminated you? You are the most selfish, careless man I’ve ever known.” Just as I was about to tear into my godfather even more, my phone buzzed. It was still in Darrien’s hand and he looked down at it and then glared up at me. “Give me it.”

  Though I should have known he wouldn’t. He pulled back his hand, gave me one last evil look and then threw it against the wall, shattering it. Part of me wanted to get angrier, to scream more, or run over and punch him in the face, but all I could do was stand up.

  “I’m so sad for you,” I said. “I’m moving out. Enjoy your life alone.”

  “Celia,” Darrien said, but I ignored him and continued for the door. “Celia! Get back here. Celia!”

  I left the house, knowing I’d probably need to bring a cop back when I came to collect my stuff. There was still about forty-thousand dollars of my dad’s settlement left, which would be enough for me to move back in with Laura and cover my expenses for a while, but I’d have to make those arrangements later. For now, I needed to talk to Harry and I was really hoping he was at his home.

  I drove straight there, praying that what I’d done hadn’t been discovered yet. Whether he forgave me or not didn’t matter, if I could tell him what happened before anyone saw it, maybe he could fix it.

  His bike was parked in front of his house, and I was relieved that he hadn’t been to the bar yet for the day. I was trying to work out how I was going to explain everything was running through my mind, but I was thinking more than anything, that I just needed to tell him the truth from the beginning.

  If I told him it was all meant to be a ploy, but I fell in love along the way, would he believe me?

  “Harry?” I said as I knocked on his door. “It’s me.”

  Very near the door, I could hear a weight settling, followed by footsteps getting closer to the door. It opened, and I was immediately hit with a feeling of dread. The look on his face could peel the paint off the walls. Neither of the cats were anywhere in the vicinity.

  “Come in,” he said without even looking at me. “We need to talk.”

  Shit. He knew.

  “Okay.” I stepped into the living room and walked over to the couch and sat down.

  Harry walked over and sat down in the armchair perpendicular to the couch and folded over, setting his arms against his legs and balancing his head in his hands. “I’m confused, Celia.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s fair.”

  There was a heaviness in the air that was suffocating. I wanted to wrap my arms around Harry and just beg him for h
is forgiveness, but the situation required me to hold back.

  When he looked up at me, even with the sadness in his eyes, I was reminded of how good he looked. “Are you going to explain yourself?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Um…” I took a deep breath. “Remember that car accident that you were in?”

  He recoiled at that. “Yeah? What does that have to do with this?”

  “I’m Darrien Pescoe’s goddaughter.”

  Harry’s eyes widened. “You’re what?” He stood up. “You’re what? Celia, that man tried to kill me!”

  “That’s not what he told me!” I cried. “He told me you killed them. He told me you killed my dad!”

  “Your dad?” He dropped back down into the chair. “The other man in the car was your dad?”

  “I was doing it for revenge. All of it,” I said. “This was all just a ploy to destroy you for ruining my family.”

  Harry folded his hand over his mouth. “It was all fake?” he asked.

  “At first,” I said, and a toxic sludge knotted itself in my throat as I continued to speak, “but I fell in love with you, Harry. For real.”

  Harry shook his head. “No.”

  “I swear,” I said.

  “No, I don’t believe you. You stole money from the club.”

  “I didn’t!” I said. “I only fudged the numbers so that it would look like you were stealing.”

  “Well, it worked, so congrats. You pulled off what you wanted to,” he said. “The numbers got reported as you wrote them, so now we’re fifty grand in the hole for this month. I’ve got to use what’s left of my settlement money to pay them back.”

  “What about looking for your brother or sister?” I asked.

  “Well, I guess I’ll have to stop that for now, won’t I? Hopefully my mom doesn’t kill them between now and when I can afford to pick the P.I. up again. It’ll be hard, since I’m no longer VP at the club, but hey, I’m sure Hoppa is just full of lucrative jobs.”

  “I’ll go to the club,” I begged. “I’ll tell them it was me and not you.”

  “They know that, and we were able to figure it out, but I stepped down because it was my fault you were there. The trust between Nick and me is all fucked up now, and it was sketchy to begin with, but none of that is as bad as the fact that I really did fucking fall in love with you. I was sitting at that dinner table thinking, ‘Damn this is what I want my life to be like’. And you weren’t even serious.”

  “I was!”

  “How can you say that when you just fudged the numbers. If you loved me, how could you do that to me?” I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. There wasn’t a good answer. “Exactly,” Harry said. “Now you need to get out.”

  “Harry, I—”

  “Get out. Now.”

  I stood up from the couch, my heart breaking and breaking with each step. As I opened the door, I saw the cats peeking out from the kitchen, and I gave them a little wave before walking out, closing the door behind me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bullet

  I was struggling to do much of anything for the rest of the day, but I knew that I had to get the rest of the money and get it over to the club so that they were all set for bills. Unfortunately, my money was listed in both my name and Cameron’s so that he could use it as he saw fit, meaning I had to involve him in pulling the money out, and explaining why. I flopped down to my bed, laying on my back, and trying to figure out how I didn’t see the signs. Obviously, Celia didn’t really care about me. There were so many red flags, I just chose to ignore them because I loved her and didn’t want it to be true.

  How dumb could I be?

  There was no time for moping. Cameron and I were going to need to pull out the money, and I was battling between just calling him or actually going to see him in person, when my phone rang.

  It was Cameron.

  “Hey,” I answered, and even I could hear how exhausted I sounded.

  “Where are you right now?” he asked. “Are you at your house? I’m almost at your house.”

  The cats scattered from around my feet as I sat up. I hadn’t even realized they were there. “You’re coming to my house?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Because I have huge news. Come let me in,” he said, and then the line went dead.

  “Okay,” I replied to no one, then slid my phone into my pocket and stood up out of bed.

  With the cats leading the way, I made my way down the hallway and up to the front door, and as he said, Cameron’s car was pulling up in front. He parked and was out of the car in a flash. He ran up the sidewalk and had a huge smile on his face.

  “Hey!” he said, throwing his arms around me in a hug. “Is Celia here?”

  It burned my throat just to hear her name. “No.”

  “Okay, well let’s head in and I’ll give you the good news!”

  We walked back inside the house and sat down at the dining room table. I grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the fridge and went and sat down across from Cameron.

  “Okay, guess what?” he said.

  “What?”

  “You have a little sister!”

  “Marisha’s pregnant?” I asked.

  Cameron shook his head. “No! Your sister! The private investigator found her and your mother living in South Florida!”

  My stomach emptied out. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes!” Then he frowned. “Now, it’s not all good news. He found her because another C.P.S. case got opened, but this is kind of a final strike situation. Your mom is being arrested and your sister is being removed from the home. It’ll be kind of a long battle, but as long as we can fund it, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting custody of her.”

  Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. “What’s her name?”

  “Ruby.”

  I smiled. What a cute name. “Wow. This sucks.”

  Cameron furrowed his brow. “Sucks? Why?”

  My head dropped into my hands. “Everything with Celia was a lie, Dad. Her godfather is Darrien Pescoe.”

  Cameron’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “She lied to me, about everything. Apparently, it was all part of a plan to get revenge. Her dad was the passenger that died.”

  Cameron deflated. “I can’t believe that. She really seemed like she was crazy about you.”

  “She tried to tell me that she fell in love throughout the process, but I struggle to believe her because yesterday, before we came over, we swung by the bar. She fucked with the numbers in the books to frame me for stealing. They wrote a check based on the bad numbers and now they’re short fifty grand. Guess who has to repay it?”

  “Not you, right? You didn’t know she was going to do that. Make her pay for it.”

  I shook my head. “She doesn’t have any money. Besides, I’m the one who brought her back there. She only had the opportunity to do it because I was blind and didn’t pay attention to what she was doing when she was there.”

  “Fifty grand is like, all you have left,” Cameron said. “This is going to be an expensive process. We’ll have to pay a lawyer, pay for traveling costs, and I remember when I wanted to foster you, I had to shell out like fifteen-thousand dollars just to make sure my house was up to code, and you’ll probably have to do the same thing. You need that money for Ruby.”

  It was so much more painful knowing her name. When she was just a concept, it was much easier to think about. Now, she was a real person out there who needed me, and I wasn’t able to help her. It was killing me.

  “I don’t have any other choice. I’ll find a way to make more money, or maybe I can take out a loan, I don’t know. For now, I need you to come with me to get the money so I can bring it to the club. I don’t want things to get any worse.”

  “If there’s really nothing else we can do…” Cameron said.

  “There isn’t,” I assured him.

  “Okay. Let’s do it then, I guess.”

  “Can you drive?
” I asked, heartbroken about Celia and heartbroken about Ruby. “I probably shouldn’t be driving anything right now.”

  “Yeah,” Cameron said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Celia

  The wind blew through my hair as I got out of my car in front of Hoppa’s main cemetery. It’d been a long time since I had been there, probably because I was avoiding it until I was able to get the revenge that Darrien convinced me my dad deserved. All this time I’d been chasing the ghost of something and I didn’t even know the real story.

  My dad must be so disappointed in me.

  Instead of the typical flowers I used to bring, I instead chose to bring some birdseed to scatter around my dad’s grave. He was always a huge fan of birds, and I figured having some hanging around would be a good way to ensure he’d forgive me for what I had done. I grabbed a blanket from my car, the birdseed I’d purchased, and made my way into the cemetery. The afternoon sun was just cresting over the mountains in the distance, and I remembered the times my dad used to bring me out for picnics on days that weren’t too hot.

  It was time for another picnic with my dad.

  There were a few people dotted around the cemetery, but none of them looked up; people typically didn’t. I made my way back to where my dad was buried and unfolded my blanket in front of his headstone. My heart ached to look at it as I remembered his warm smile and big, bear hugs.

  “Hi, Daddy,” I said. “I’m gonna invite some birds, okay?” I sprinkled some squirrel-friendly birdseed behind the headstone where they could get to them without bothering me too much, and almost as soon as the seed hit the ground, some nearby birds scurried down from the trees and helped themselves. I returned to the blanket I’d spread out and sat down. “How are you? I miss you. I’m sure you’ve been watching the trainwreck I’ve been becoming over the past few months, so I’m sorry about that.”

  One bird hopped closer to me. It got closer and closer until it finally hopped up onto my leg. I didn’t move, hardly breathed, but it didn’t seem super skittish. I tilted my head to the side and looked at it and it tilted its head to the side and looked back at me.