“You don’t vote at all, so who the hell cares?” I asked.
“I don’t give a shit about her personal opinions of the situation. If things go south, one of you is gonna have to go with his daughter. That means I don’t want you asshole blabbing anything you shouldn’t. Got it?” Doc asked.
“Crystal,” I said.
“Okay. We’re gonna hold a vote,” Doc said. “All in favor of the job, raise your hands.”
All of our hands shot up around the room and it was finished. I sure as hell wasn’t gonna allow a pregnant woman to dangle out there helplessly, and I knew all my brothers felt the same way. Doc-- President of The Black Angels-- had a soft spot for kids. Blade-- our treasurer-- had three of them. With different women, but he kept tabs on all of them and was the best father he could be. Ink-- our Sergeant at Arms-- was raising his nephew after someone gunned down his own damn sister, and Vex-- our road captain-- was expecting twins with his newly-wedded wife.
And me? I just didn’t like people fucking around with pregnant women.
“Church is adjourned,” Doc said. “Meet back here tomorrow at eleven so we can ride.”
I hopped on my bike to take a ride. I needed to clear my head and get in the game. It was a ritual I always performed. The day before a job, I took a ride on my bike. I rode across town and into the clay mountains of New Mexico and ate at this diner no one knew me at. It gave me time to think and process the job, then I headed back to my apartment and slept. The ride gave me enough time to center myself, the food helped to energize my body, and a good night’s sleep gave me the strength I needed to be the protector I’d been hired to be.
After all, being Vice President of The Black Angels meant I had to set a standard.
According to Doc, this almost-mayor was willing to pay a shitload of money for protection. And if he got elected and we did a good enough job, that meant a lot more business for the club. That meant no fuck ups could happen tomorrow unless we wanted to jeopardize taking on another potential full-time client.
Riding down the highway with the wind whipping past my helmet, my mind flashed back to Harper. It’d been five or six months since I’d seen that woman, and every time I got on my damn bike, I thought about her. I thought about her long, juicy legs wrapped around me in those short leather shorts. I could hear her soft moans pouring from her mouth. I could taste her pussy on my lips and how willing she was to give her body over to me.
I was still left speechless at how well she took my punishments.
She was a one-night stand at a bike rally I went to with The Black Angels, but I wished I’d had her for another night. I found her the last two days we were there and was only privileged to have one night with her. I fucked her against every single surface of that dingy motel and marked her body everywhere I could find that made her jump. I bit into her and pinched her and bent her over my knee to spank her. The way she groaned my name would flood back into my mind every time I got myself off, and images of her bouncing tits would always push me over the edge.
I couldn’t shake her, and I hated that I had to way to track her down.
We never exchanged numbers, and I had no idea what state she was from. We had attended one of the largest biker rallies on the South Dakota, which meant she could be anywhere. And I was only assuming she lived in the U.S. because she didn’t have an accent.
At least not from what I could tell from the way she yelled my name.
I had to shake her from my mind. I needed to center myself for this job. I needed to let the bike ride clear my head instead of reminding me of some woman I’d never see again. But if I closed my eyes and sniffed just right, I could still smell her. If I concentrated hard and allowed myself to be pulled back, I could still feel her hair wrapped up in my fist.
And if I wasn’t careful, I could wake myself up uttering her name.
Chapter 3
Harper
The September winds of New Mexico woke me up early. My pregnancy heartburn was getting worse, my father’s election rally was today, and there was no way in hell I could cover up my ‘bump’ any longer. The red clay mountains back dropped our venue for the afternoon, and I would have to listen to my father preach about familial values and how he loves this town for a fucking hour. My year off from school was almost up, my parents had isolated me from the world, and I was alone.
Completely and utterly alone.
When I had to tell my parents I was pregnant; they were livid. My mother cried, and my father flipped a chair. The local press in my hometown had a fucking field day with my pregnancy and tried to spin my character as the rebellious daughter who hated the very town my father loved. I had become the villain, and my father had become the hero, taking in a child that supposedly hated the entire world because she was carrying his grandson.
If only they knew what took place behind closed doors.
They kept hounding me as to who the father was, but I wouldn’t tell them. The press speculated, drawing off random pictures of me out and about in the town. If I walked by a man and the picture was taken at the right time, he was supposedly the father of my child. My parents got harassing phone calls on a regular basis from the families of these sons who ‘had higher standards than me’ and ‘would never touch the likes of a young woman like myself.’ And instead of defending me, my father simply agreed with them and pedaled his campaign.
On the backs of the people that hated me.
I had no intentions of telling Cade about the baby, either. Setting aside the fact that he lived fuck-knows-where, the press didn’t need any more ammunition. At one point, I thought I could confide in my mother. And I almost did. One night, I had been so sick with my pregnancy that I started throwing up blood. While my father fielded the press, my mother rushed me to the hospital. I didn’t know what was happening and I almost caved and told her.
Until a news segment came on the television in my hospital room.
It was a segment of my father talking about what was happening with me. How I was throwing up blood and very sick. He was demeaning the father of my child on television without even knowing who he was. Calling him a coward and talking about how I was ‘lucky’ my parents had stepped in to help me in my time of need.
It made me sick, and I vowed to never tell a fucking soul.
Tensions were high between us. My mother was running around the city trying to find me something to wear that would tastefully cover up my protruding stomach. My tits were getting bigger, which meant all my shirts now looked inappropriate, and my father couldn’t stand to look at me. I knew I was a disappointment to them. I could hear them talking about it every night. I’d sit at the top of the steps and hear my father say things like ‘what was she thinking?’ and ‘where did my little girl go?’
The person I was growing into broke their hearts.
But, there was nothing I could do about it. And I knew once the election was over, they would want nothing to do with me. I had coped with that reality. Come to terms with it. Cade, and the type of men like him, would never care for me either. I was on my own one hundred percent, and I preferred it that way. No one to answer to, no one to disappoint, and no one to ram their own beliefs of my life down my throat. Despite what my parents thought, I worked hard through school. I saved up as much money as I could. I was strong, I was intelligent, and I knew I would be able to care for this child on my own.
Which was what I intended to do after this election.
I was going to pack up my shit, throw it in my car, take what money I had, and leave. I could figure this out on my own, raise my child to be better than my own fucking parents, and stand in awe of who this little boy would grow to become.
That was my plan. But first, I had to get through this fucking rally.
My mother tossed me some clothes to get into and told me to put on a nice face of makeup. Even though I hated the shit, I obeyed their every word. Until this election was over, they were all I had. Following their lead was the only thing that kep
t the vultures of the media at bay, and I knew if I just kept my head down until the election was finally over, everyone in our town would move on, and I would be ancient history. Besides that, I needed to keep this roof over my head as long as I could. I put on the clothes and painted on the makeup, looking as good as I could for the cameras that would be focused on us.
Then, I rode with my family so we could stand backstage and be introduced.
I hated rallies. I hated this stupid ass campaign trail. I would’ve rather gone to law school four times over than dealt with this shit. But it was my decision, and I had to live with the consequences. It was all so fake. Smiling and waving for the cameras like the perfect fucking family. It was all pretend. All a sham to get people to shade in a box come November.
Finally, our family was introduced, and my mother took my hand as we walked out.
I got up on stage and plastered on a smile. My father was waving as people cheered, holding signs that bore his name. They chanted and clapped, and some people even whistled. They adored my father, and he adored them in return.
Too bad he didn’t fucking adore his own damn daughter.
I stood off to the side with my mother and slowly scanned the crowd. There was a circle of men in leather cuts, sitting on bikes with their engines running. They had sunglasses on and pistols on their hips, and I wondered why they were there. Everyone knew about The Black Angels. No one talked about them because they were fucking outlaws, but everyone also knew of the benefits they gave this town. They were guns for hire. Offered protection services at the right cost. They lived by a code that didn’t fuck around with women or children, and that was why the town tolerated their existence.
I was in awe of them. How they ran their lives and how protective they were of their own. I lived off stories about them when I was younger. How they would come riding into town, leave their mark, help someone in need, then ride off into the sunset. They were a real family. They stuck by each other’s side. They were devoted to their gang and their code, and they looked fucking hot in their leather cuts. The men were real men. Muscular men with attitudes and loyalty that ran as deep as the ocean.
And the women were strong. Thick-legged women with attitudes, a nurturing heart, and a mouth that could run down a sailor. Nobody messed with them or their town.
No one fucked with us because of them, and I loved that. But there was one man in a leather cut that didn’t have sunglasses on. One man who was looking right up at the stage.
And I held my breath as my eyes finally caught his. I would recognize those eyes anywhere.
Cade.
Cade was in the fucking crowd.
Chapter 4
Cade
The morning of the rally came around, and it was time to start my ritual. A steaming hot shower that left my skin red, two cups of black coffee, four hard-boiled eggs, and a fresh pair of jeans. The monotony and the regularity of the routine gave me time to think. A death threat against a pregnant woman usually meant one of two things. One, the person making the threat was the father of the child, or two, the person making the threat had a vendetta against the mayor and wanted to get to him through his daughter. I had to prepare myself for either scenario, just in case someone showed up and decided to do some damage.
I pulled my leather cut over my shoulders and started for the clubhouse. All of us gathered and stacked ourselves with weapons; then we headed out. Knives in our pockets, guns on our hips, tasers on our belt loops. Not to mention running down people on our bikes. Whenever someone called on our protection, we meant business. No one came into our part of New Mexico and fucked around like this. These people were ours. These towns were our turf. And while our club was guns for hire, the one thing we never fucking did was mess with the good people that lived in our space.
That was fucked up, and this world had enough bullshit in it to slay the heavens.
By the time I got to the clubhouse, most of us had shown up. Usually, it was the core group that took on a job like this. But with it being Ryan Thomas, we figured the whole of the club should get involved. A statement needed to be made, especially when it came to his pregnant daughter. If you fucked with them, you fucked with all of us.
All in all, there were one hundred of us. We rode out at eleven in the morning to get to the rally site so we could scope things out. We would have people backstage watching out, we would have people surrounding the rally crowd, we would have people on the sidewalk, and then we would disperse people through the crowd to watch out.
I was always on crowd control because of how tall I was. Standing at six-foot-four, I could see above the heads of every fucking person in a crowd. It gave me a vantage point no one else had, and it allowed me to easily scan for threats.
As for the core group, they all had their stereotypical positions. Doc, Ink, and Vex were the backstage workers and Blade was always higher up so he could overlook the crowd. We got set up with the intercoms in our ears, making sure we could all hear one another. Blade was our call guy and our sniper. I kept things in close range in my peripheral, but he scanned the whole of the crowds from above. He was our bird’s eye view with the ability to take down anyone with a fucking head shot within eight hundred feet.
Blade was our secret weapon for shit like this.
The crowd started funneling in, and we all went on high alert. Doc, Ink, and Vex were chattering away, making mindless jokes as the Thomas family pulled up. The group surrounded the quickly-growing crowd as I stuck myself in the middle of it all, keeping my head on a swivel just in case something happened. Being in the middle of the crowd enabled me to get to any corner of the crowd quicker. Blade watched my back, I watched everything else, and with all of us combined, we could catch the son of a bitch if he appeared.
“This family’s pulled up in a limo,” Ink said.
“You’d think he was running for president,” Doc said.
“I don’t know; they’re daughter’s already pregnant. Isn’t that a box future president’s have to tick?” Blade asked.
I grinned at their jokes as they kept chirping in my ear.
They always had fun with this type of shit. When it was all of us, and we busted out the earpieces, they felt like the secret service. We had on our black jeans and our leather cuts with sunglasses and earpieces. We all stood out in a crowd, and that was how we liked it.
Why? Because we wanted people to know how many of us there were to fuck them up if they tried to pull some shit.
“All right, gang. Listen up. They’re gonna be introduced in about five minutes, so get your eyes ready. You see anything?” Doc asked.
I started my first scan of the crowd and watched as the rest of the gang did theirs.
“Normal in the crowd,” I said.
“Normal back here,” Ink said.
“Family’s safe right now,” Vex said.
“All clear up here,” Blade said. “Nice ass, Cade.”
“Thanks. I work hard on it,” I said, grinning.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming,” the announcer said.
“It’s starting. Shut up,” Doc said.
“I would like to introduce you to a personal friend of mine. I grew up with this man. We played together in the creeks down by the red clay mountains. He’s lived in this town all of his life, married his high school sweetheart, and they both had a beautiful baby girl. Now, he’s about to become a grandfather for the first time. He has vowed to be the strong, firm male role model his little grandson will need in the presence of an absent father. He’s a good man, with strong morals and a backbone with the strength of Atlas himself. Here he is, Ryan Thomas!”
“How much you guys wanna bet this dude’s a dick in real life?” I asked.
“Probably. All self-proclaimed family men are,” Doc said.
Everything was going smoothly so far. There were no shifty characters in the crowd, and nothing seemed out of place. The crowd was going wild as Ryan Thomas stepped onto the stage, then hi
s wife and his daughter quickly followed to the other end of the stage.
And time ceased to exist in that very moment.
I’d recognize her anywhere. Those deep blue eyes and that beautiful strawberry blonde hair. She had piled the makeup on so I couldn’t see the dusting of freckles on her nose that crinkled whenever she smiled. Her strong shoulders slipped into a beautiful rack I could remember burying my face into. Tits I remembered marking as my own bled into a delicate waist despite the pregnant stomach she was carrying. Her hips were a bit wider, no doubt shifting in order to accommodate the load her body was carrying.
Memories of our night together pounded behind my eyes as I scanned her once again.
Harper. The woman at the bike rally that I couldn’t get out of my head. Harper. The woman who rode my cock with such elegance and grace that it spun my head. Harper. The woman with the sun in her smile and the sensuality of a vixen.
Harper was Ryan Thomas’ pregnant daughter.
And someone wanted her dead.
Chapter 5
Harper
I kept blinking my eyes, thinking I just saw things. Was Cade part of The Black Angels? I never saw him wear the cut at the rally. I had no idea what to do. My mother’s arm was around me, keeping me close to her as my father droned on mindlessly about policies he wouldn’t keep and morals he didn’t hold. My stomach was concealed well, but it was still obvious. I could see his eyes latched onto my stomach while his body stood in the middle of the crowd.
I wish I’d worn a looser dress. His eyes shifted back to my stomach as something akin to panic crossed his face. I should’ve put myself in a control-top girdle. Anything to hide this stomach. If I minimized it for the rally, I could’ve brushed it off as eating a big breakfast.
A really big breakfast.
But it was no use now. Cade was here, Cade was looking at my stomach, and Cade now knew. I broke my eyes away, casting them out towards the crowd and smiling. My father said something that made the crowd erupt into applause, and that sent The Black Angels looking around. I tried my best not to let tears come to my eyes. The last thing I needed was to show that kind of emotion on stage. If I did, my parents wouldn’t stop hounding me until I told them what was wrong.
Snake (The Road Rebels MC Book 3) Page 19