DEFILED: A Dark Bad Boy Romance (Wicked Bones MC)

by April Lust

  That thought rocked him. The edge of the pool table collapsed, and the shiny resin balls clattered next to him. The cool touch of them against his hand felt vaguely surreal. Could anything be cold in the heat of battle?

  “Dad! Dad!”

  The sound of Rudy’s voice was the first thing Kellan heard when the ringing in his ears subsided. Rudy dove next to Leon’s body.

  There was a difference in the way a live body laid on the ground versus a dead one. There was more space with a live body, all those muscles working to keep a person in a rigid line. When someone was dead, well and truly dead, there was nothing holding them up. Nothing that kept every inch of the flesh from hitting the ground.

  Kellan didn’t need to check to know Leon was dead. He wasn’t the only one.

  Not many had survived the first round of shots, and even fewer had seen the fight all the way to the end. Vinny’s oversized form was found in a puddle of liquor, blood, and other bodily fluids. His face was slack, and his eyes had rolled back until all anyone could see was white.

  “Shit,” Kellan cursed. “Joe.”

  It seemed somehow more wrong to find Joe with his back against the wall, a pair of Barettas in his hands. Leon and Vinny had put in their time and had long since believed the life was going to claim them. Joe hadn’t. He was a business boy playing at being criminal. Kellan had always assumed he’d go crawling back to his wealthy dad or that heiress.

  The wounds were clustered in his belly, and already there was a smell. Kellan knew enough about hunting to know when a person’s bowels had been hit. It wasn’t a good death, it was a long and lingering one where a man’s own waste slowly poisoned him.

  “Kellan,” he coughed. Blood splattered onto his lips. “We get them?”

  Kellan glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, buddy, we got them.”

  Joe reached out one of his hands. Kellan took it. The grip was stronger than he expected. There weren’t even calluses under the layer of blood. “Good,” he nodded. “Very good.”

  He shifted his shoulder. The gun in his other hand clattered to the ground. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his wallet. It took more effort than it should have for Joe to open it, and shake a picture out of the folds. It was a woman, and Kellan didn’t need to see the back to know it was Barbie.

  “Her address is on the back. Send her a letter for me. Tell her I’m sorry, sorry for everything.”

  Kellan couldn’t speak. A lump had grown in his throat. He just nodded and tucked the picture into his pocket. “I can do that.”

  “Don’t let her go,” Joe said. “Don’t you dare.”

  They both knew Joe wasn’t talking about Barbie. His GQ cover boy face was set in stern lines. A sheen of gray was crawling up his neck. He coughed again. His stomach jerked with the movement and he shook.

  “I need you to do me another favor.”

  “You’re asking a lot for a prospect.” Kellan tried to keep his voice as light as possible. It didn’t work.

  “Shoot me.”

  At first Kellan thought that Joe was asking as a joke. It wasn’t until he started to laugh that he realized that Joe was being serious.

  “Oh, man.” Kellan looked down. “I don’t—”

  “What are you going to do, pres?” he asked motioning limply to his belly. “Take me to the hospital?”

  “They might be able to—”

  Joe let out a bark of laughter, empty of humor. It was empty of everything but fatalistic knowledge. “If you don’t, I will, and no one wants to see that.”

  Joe dumped one of his guns into Kellan’s hand. It felt heavier than it should, as if it was made of something besides metal.

  “Just not in the face.” Joe smirked.

  “Whatever you say, pretty boy.”

  He wrapped his finger over the trigger and pointed it at Joe’s heart. His hand shook just a little as he took the shot. Joe jerked suddenly, nearly coming off the ground. His hand squeezed around Kellan’s. He felt his bones grate together as a death spasm rocked through the other man’s body. Then Joe fell back to the ground with a mortal plank. His legs shook as his body struggled to stay alive for just a few seconds longer.

  He didn’t know how long he was staring at Joe’s dead body when a very pale hand tapped him on the shoulder. There was a lot of blood on Phantom’s shirt, but as far at Kellan could see none of it belonged to the boy. He stood there silently. The perfect soldier waiting for an order to act.

  “Who’s left?” Kellan asked.

  “Rudy,” he said, “and me.”

  Twenty minutes ago there were fifteen men in this room. Fifteen men who Kellan had laughed with, drank with, and partied with. Now most of them were dead.

  Kellan pulled out his cell. The battery was flashing an uncaring red. He shoved it back in his pocket.

  “Rudy, call Emma. See if she’s okay.” Kellan stood up. “Phantom, get all the weapons you can, pull a truck around. We need to get out of here as soon as possible. The cops will be here soon, and we need to be gone.”

  The two of them jumped to carry out the orders. Kellan racked his mind as he decided what they were going to do. The first thought that popped into his mind was simple, and brutal. He wanted to hit Gabriel back. He wanted to blow that little mansion in the mountains to pieces and make Gabriel walk through the bodies and the blood of the people he had trusted the most. It wasn’t a good thought, but it was the one keeping him breathing.

  A few minutes later Rudy came back. “Emma’s not picking up. I got ahold of Hannah. Apparently she went back to her dad’s place.”

  “Why?” Kellan demanded. “Why would she go there?”

  Rudy couldn’t quite meet Kellan’s eyes. “She said the two of you fought, that she wanted some space to figure things out. Hannah is trying to get ahold of her now.”

  “Gabriel’s got eyes on that place,” Phantom said.

  “Does she know that?” Rudy asked.

  Kellan felt a wave of cold hate wash through him when he said, “No.”

  Chapter 13

  When Emma left Hannah’s house, she stopped at Kellan’s long enough to pack just what she would need. Then she took the dog with her. Part of it was the fact that she didn’t know how long he would be gone, and part of it was that she was feeling just a little petty. Rocco was a great dog, and he deserved great treatment. Kellan didn’t know how to treat anything nicely. It was a shame to waste such a good dog on that low life jerk.

  “Come on, big fella,” she said as she closed the door to her father’s house behind her. The sound of it echoed through the living room. She had a grocery bag in one hand, and his leash in the other. She dropped the leash. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  Someone had cleaned up the place. It didn’t smell like cigarettes or medication anymore. It smelled like fake lemons and ammonia. Rocco huffed his dislike and snuffled around the carpet, looking for a place that smelled like him. His leash trailed behind him like a thick ribbon of dark red.

  Emma let him explore while she went to the kitchen. She set the big paper bag down on top of the counter and opened the fridge. It had been completely cleaned out. There wasn’t even a ring on the lowest shelf where her father used to keep his favorite beers. For some reason, that seemed wrong. She pushed it away. This wasn’t her father’s place anymore; it was hers. She could sell it or pass it along, or whatever she wanted to do. At this moment all she wanted to do was make something for dinner and then go to bed. Her eyes hurt from crying.

  Not that Kellan deserved any tears. Oh no. She had plenty of other reasons to cry. A chip in her nonexistent nail polish was worth more tears than that criminal.

  Her phone rang. She glanced down at the ID and saw it was Hannah.

  “Hey, girl,”

  “Hey, Brains, did you get to your dad’s okay?”

  “Your timing is ridiculous. I just got here. I did not crash my car. I told you I wouldn’t. It was only two glasses of wine.” Emma paused. “Wait, if I’m Br
ains, what does that make you?”

  “Beauty, of course,” Hannah teased.

  Emma smirked. It felt good to smile. “Gee, thanks.”

  “Did you grab a bunch of horrible things to eat?”

  Emma pulled items out of her grocery bag and laid them out on the counter. “I have a box of assorted chocolates, mint chocolate chip ice cream, the good root beer that comes in the brown bottles, watermelon gummy rings, and some of those frozen French bread pizza things with everything on them.”

  “Oh, that’s the stuff.”

  “I even stopped by the Red Box and picked up a couple of movies.” She pulled one more box out of the bag, but didn’t bother to relay its contents. There were some things Hannah didn’t really need to know.

  “Chick flicks?”

  Emma snorted. “I got The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the remake of course. The Conjuring. And something called Vampire Sorority Girls. I fully expect that last one to be terrible.”

  “Horror?” Hannah sounded confused. “You got a bunch of horror flicks?”

  Emma started preheating the oven. “Yeah, they make me feel better.”

  Her father’s life had been packed into cardboard boxes and Tupperware containers large enough to fit an entire body. Someone, Hannah probably, had left the lids open so Emma could go through the memories and decide which ones she wanted to keep, and which ones went on to the thrift store. She pawed through one of them, looking for a glass.

  “Sweetie, that’s weird.”

  Emma laughed. “Why? Because I’d rather see a bunch of idiots get chopped up than watch some pretty boy lie about being super in love with some pretty girl?”

  Hannah waited a beat. “All right, you may have a point there.”

  “Besides, it’s not like I don’t have a great big fuzzy guard dog to keep me company.” Emma plopped a glass down on the counter and filled it with ice from the automatic dispenser and spilled the contents of one brown bottle into the cup.

  “Holy shit, you took Rocco?”

  Emma looked through the boxes that were sitting on the dinning room table. After a moment she found a cookie sheet. It was nearly as old as she was. There was a single black ring in one corner where she had burnt a peanut butter cooking to smithereens when she’d been a little girl. She traced her finger over it. “I didn’t take him. I’m watching him. I’ll take him back whenever I know Kellan is done being a big poo-head.”

  “Poo-head? Really. Honey, I know you know how to curse better than that.”

  “He doesn’t deserve better than that,” Emma growled. Rocco glanced up at her.

  “Wow, he really made you mad.” Hannah’s voice rang with empathy. “I know you care about him.”

  “I love him. Hell, I didn’t mean to love him. I just…I just do.”

  “I know. What are you going to do about it?”

  Emma picked up the box and stared down at it. “I don’t know, Han. I really don’t.”

  Hannah made a sympathetic sound. “You don’t have to decide right now, Emma. Take the night. Take a few nights. Curl up with your bloody movies, your junk food, and the dog and don’t even worry about him.”

  “I will.”

  “Did you want me to come over?”

  Emma shook her head, even though Hannah couldn’t see it. “Not tonight. But maybe we can go shopping tomorrow? The estate checks from all my dad’s stuff have been deposited into my account. I could splurge and get my hair done and find a sexy dress.”

  “Oh, now that’s the spirit.” Hannah laughed. “How about one-thirty? I can drop the little ones off at my sister’s and we can even catch a movie and do a late lunch or early dinner. Whatever comes with margaritas.”

  “That sounds perfect. Wear comfy shoes. I plan on running up a bill.”

  Hannah made a heady sound. “I love it when a woman talks about bad financial choices.”

  Emma laughed. The preheat timer on the oven dinged its readiness. “All right, I’m going to pour myself into a junk food comma.”

  “All right, call me if you need anything.”

  “I will. Night.”

  “Night.”

  They hung up. Emma slid a pizza onto the tray and into the over. She let Rocco out into the backyard to run around and relieve himself. Then she plucked her last purchase off the counter and stared down at it.

  The box was plain white and just a little longer than her hand. One corner boasted a positive sign, another had a negative one. In the middle were the words Early-sign Pregnancy Test’. Beneath that it continued with, Can be used up to three days before a missed period.

  Emma took a deep breath. She was well beyond three days past her missed period. It was heading on day nine. It wasn’t that she’d never missed a cycle before. It happened. She pretty much expected it during finals week, but this was different. She had never been sleeping with anyone during the months before finals week. She knew that unless she was carrying the next baby Jesus that her missed period was all stress related, not pregnancy related. Maybe she was worrying too much about it. Emma had every reason to be stressed out.

  She also knew she’d been having round after round of wild lovemaking for the past few weeks. She ripped the plastic off the box and headed for the bathroom.

  She never knew ten minutes could take so damn long. The pizza was going to take longer than this. Emma paced the small square of her bathroom floor and waited.

  What would she do if she were pregnant? She quickly did the math in her head. By the time graduation rolled around she’d be around twenty-eight weeks. The average human pregnancy was between thirty-seven and forty weeks. If she managed to graduate, she could give birth and defer her loans for the few years of her non-collegiate life so she could take care of the baby. The money from her father’s passing would help. The house was paid off. She might have to get a part-time job after a while, but Hannah could probably help with that. That woman knew people.

  Kellan’s face swam up in her mind. How would he feel about having a kid? Well, she knew he wouldn’t be happy about it. Would he be mad at her? Would he think she got pregnant on purpose? Maybe she wouldn’t tell him. That seemed like the best idea. She didn’t want him feeling like he had to participate.

  Not telling him was wrong. If there were a child, he helped make it. Kellan had every right to know his kid. She imagined what it would be like to tell him. At first the daydream involved him sweeping her up into his arms, kissing her, and telling her everything was great. She knew that was bull. The daydream broke down piece by piece. His smile became a sneer of resentment, he yelled at her, called her names, and made huge accusations.

  Neither of those seemed right, but her brain wasn’t willing to come up with anything else.

  “Lots of help you are,” she said to her imagination.

  The doorbell rang.

  She sighed. It was probably Kellan. He had probably gotten home and saw that his dog was nowhere to be found, and neither was Emma. She glanced at the timer on her cell phone. She had two minutes left until the reading was ready. With an expert finger she flicked the timer into standby. Her hand, still wet from washing it, fumbled and her phone clattered behind the toilet.

  “Shoot.”

  She thought about going for it when the doorbell went off again.

  “Fine, fine, whatever,” Emma muttered. She opened the bathroom door.

  Rocco was scratching at the back door. She let him in and he went scampering for the front. The bell rang for a third time. Someone was pissy.

  “I don’t care if it is Kellan,” she said petulantly. “He’s not getting any pizza.”

  Rocco howled. He snuffed at the front door, and then he growled. Emma stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She took a moment to look through the peephole. Gabriel stood on the doorstep, his creepy brother stood behind him to the left, another man she didn’t recognize stood to the right. She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out.

  “Hey, gringa.” Gabriel’s voice came
through the door. The wood didn’t seem as thick or as safe as it should have. “Open up, let us in. We don’t have to make this too difficult.”

  Why were they here? Her father was dead. She had nothing to do with whatever had happened between them. Did that really matter right this moment?

  Emma took a step away from the door. She tried to be as quiet as possible. A dull part of her hoped they would just leave if they thought she wasn’t there.

  “Come on, baby.” Michael said. He made loud kissing sounds. “I wanna show you a good time.”