Tempting Fate

by Kylie Hillman

  “I’d say at least two are broken. There’s significant deformity and more bruising than I’d expect from a simple punch. Are you sure he hit you with his fist?”

  “JJ,” I grimace at her line of questioning. “Mik wouldn’t beat me up on purpose. He was having a nightmare. I probably hurt my ribs more than he did when I wrestled him onto his back.”

  She appears to accept my explanation, until her green eyes light up with another question. “If he only hit you with his fist, how do you have such extensive bruising around your neck? The marks tell me he was using both hands.”

  I don’t want to get into exactly what happened with her—not if she’s going to judge Mik for something he didn’t mean to do—so I deflect her attention. “Well, you’d be the expert on how many hands it takes to leave a mark.”

  Timber’s kinkiness is well-known, and JJ’s enjoyment of it became apparent when she took to wearing scarves in the middle of summer. Most of the Shamrocks are too scared to say anything to Timber’s face, but they’ll all have a good laugh behind his back about him meeting his match in a tiny Doctor who looks like a child next to his gargantuan frame.

  “Oh, shut up.” JJ’s face turns red and she nudges me lightly.

  “Bitch,” I gasp, clutching my side and trying not to laugh.

  She has no remorse. “You deserved it. I told you in confidence.”

  “Told you what in confidence?” Timber asks as he walks into the bedroom with Mik trailing him. He forgets to duck through the lower than usual doorway and hits his head. I bite my bottom lip so hard trying not to laugh that I swear I’m close to drawing blood. Are these two deliberately trying to make me laugh today?

  “Dumbass,” I tease him.

  “Pipe down,” he shoots back at me, rubbing his forehead.

  “Are her ribs broken?” Mik hasn’t even cracked a smile at our exchange. I stare at him, willing him to look at me. He doesn’t.

  JJ shoots him a sympathetic look, before giving him the bad news. “Yeah, I’d say at least two are. I’m a bit worried by the amount of bruising. I’d like to get Doc to x-ray them.”

  Mik meets my eyes for the time this morning. Purple rings underline the bottom of his eyes, the whites bloodshot like he hasn’t had much sleep. “So am I. She didn’t get much sleep with the pain.”

  My eyebrows lift, almost meeting my hairline, at his response. I’d try to be as quiet as I could because I thought he was asleep beside me. Laying on my back because it was the only way to take the pressure off my side, Mik had curled into my non-damaged side and barely made a sound all night. If I’d known he was lying there stewing on his emotions, I would have gone out of my way to talk to him. Instead, I’d fallen asleep just as the sun was rising and had woken to find him gone.

  “I’m a little confused by the bruising around her neck. I thought you hit her then she woke you up?”

  I curse JJ in my head. “It’s nothing—”

  Mik cuts me off, exclaiming loudly, “What bruising?”

  Timber shoots him a look of reproach, then points at Kaden, who’s still sleeping. JJ lifts my hair from my shoulders and pulls the neckline of the T-shirt down. I haven’t seen the marks left by his hands, although, I’m guessing they’re bad. Mik steps away from me, looking at his hands as he opens and closes his fingers. Timber’s face darkens with anger. JJ doesn’t see it because she’s let go of my hair to lean down and fuss over Kaden, who’s stirring. I shuffle forward and lay a hand on his arm. “Don’t.”

  My crazy-protective best friend shakes my hand off, reaching out one big paw to straighten me when I begin to fall off balance. Happy that I’m not going to tumble over, Timber pounces on Mik. He grabs the front of Mik’s shirt, then pushes him against the closest wall. JJ takes one look at her man, then picks up Kaden and leaves the room. Timber towers over Mik, snarling his anger in his face.

  “Princess’ coming home with me. You’re not sleeping near her until you come clean and get your fucking head straight. Hear me?” Mik doesn’t argue. His expression is blank when he nods. “How can you just fucking nod? Did you see what you did? How close you came to killing her?”

  “Just take her.” Mik pushes Timber off him. Approaching me, he struggles to meet my questioning gaze. When he does, I see that oh-so-familiar-defeat in his eyes. Holding my hands up as far as I can, I ignore my sore throat to yell at him.

  “No!” I close the distance between us and plant myself in front of his stiff body. Using the pain in my side to strengthen me, I pound my fists on his chest. “You’re not leaving me again. You can’t promise me forever, beg me for my blessing to kill my father, then run at the first bloody hurdle. I won’t let you.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MIK

  Ignoring the heat of Timber’s glare, I call our meeting to order. The hand that’s wrapped around the handle of the gavel doesn’t feel like it belongs to me anymore. Before last night, I would have sworn on my mother’s grave that I’d never lay a hand on Lainey. Fuck, I would’ve gambled her life on the fact that I’d never be added to the list of cockhead’s who’ve hurt her physically. Not anymore. Her busted ribs and bruised neck—they’re all on me and my fucking bullshit nightmares

  Night terrors is what JJ called them. Like changing the name makes them any less embarrassing. When she’d started dropping shit about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and flashbacks that can lead to psychosis, I’d told her that she could send that crap Lainey’s way. I’m fine; my woman is the one who got hurt. Only problem is that ever since she mentioned PTSD, it’s been circling my fucking head. The entire ride home behind the three of them while they travelled in Timber’s truck, the argument I’d had with Lainey when we arrived so she’d leave me the fuck alone, and even in here—the one place where I’m the goddamn king—JJ’s words have echoed around my head.

  I don’t have PTSD. That’s for soldiers who’ve been to war, women who’ve been raped—not dumb fuck bikers who let themselves get ambushed in the infirmary of a prison and—

  “Mad Dog?” Kids voice interrupts my mental argument with myself.

  “Yeah?” I drop the gavel, then watch the colour return to my white knuckles. Looking up, I find everyone staring at me. “What?”

  “Do you want me to report what I’ve found?”

  Rolling my shoulders, I try to loosen up my body and get my head back in the game. Clearing my throat, I sit up straighter and try to be the President I’m supposed to be. “Tell us what you’ve found.”

  Kid stands and shuffles the paperwork he has in front of him. He looks around, starting once he has the attention of the room.

  “I’ve found Wendy’s kid.” He picks up one of the sheets of paper and starts reading from it.

  “You alright?” Smoke leans over, nudging me with his shoulder.

  Still shitty from our terse exchange the last time we saw each other, I growl at him. “I’m fucking fine.”

  “If you say so. You look like a dead man walking to me.” He chuckles. “Did Maddi catch you out?”

  “I told her.” Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it. Something Kid says catches my attention and I hold up a hand. “Whoa. Back up. The kid is a girl? And, she’s how old?”

  Kid looks at his sheet, then gives me the answers I’m looking for. “Yep. Definitely a girl. The original birth certificate that I found lists Wendy as the mother and Thomas Taylor as the father. No other kids for either of them. She turned twenty-eight just over a month ago.”

  I slap my palm down on the table. “She’s the same age as fucking Brendan. Right down to the month. Do you remember his birthdate, Kid?”

  My gut is screaming at me. It’s too much of a coincidence for Thomas Taylor to have his wife and his lover pregnant at the same time. Something doesn’t add up. Wendy doesn’t strike me as the sort of woman who’d mess around with a married man.

  “He’s born on the twenty-third. That’s a day after the girl’s birthday.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” Cona
n speaks up. “Surely, there’s no bloody way?”

  A few of the Shamrock’s are slow on the uptake; however, most of them have leapt to the same conclusion me and Conan have. “Kid, go and find out the date Thomas married his wife. Also, pull any hospital records for Brendan’s birth and cross-reference them against Wendy’s kid.”

  Kid leaves the room at a trot to find the answers we want. Timber decides to end his bout of silent treatment, shuffling his chair next to mine and lowering his voice. “I think you should bury this if it turns out to be what we think. It’ll kill Wendy. She loves Princess like her own.”

  My initial instinct is to bury it as well. Except, the woman deserves to know the truth. She’s missed out on her daughter’s life—could there be some comfort to be found in knowing that she knew her son? No matter how big of a piece-a-shit he turned out to be.

  “No. If it’s true, she should know.”

  Timber grunts his disapproval. I turn narrowed eyes on him, ready to put him in his place when the chapel doors swing open. Kid runs in, coming to a skidding stop next to me. He places his laptop on the table and shifts the screen so I can see what’s on it. “Brendan’s birth is listed as a home birth and Thomas married his wife a month after he was born.”

  Something flickers on the screen, Kid touches it, bringing up another document. “The search I was running through births, deaths, and marriages just finished as well. I’ve found the girl’s name and adoptive family. Give me five and I’ll find out where she is now.”

  I slide my chair back so he can get to his keypad. Watching his fingers glide across the mouse pad, opening one tab, then closing another has me shaking my head. Give me a monkey wrench and grease over this computer shit any day. I can send an email, search for good porn, and waste time on Facebook; that’s enough for me.

  “Ah, that’s weird.” Kid steps back from his laptop and scratches his head.

  “See that?” He points at a picture of a pair of women on the screen. It’s an old picture, similar to what I’ve seen of my mother from when I was little.

  “Yeah, they’re women. Surely, you’ve seen one before?”

  Kid lets out an exasperated sigh. “The one on the right is Brendan’s mother. In a bikini. With a flat stomach. The week before he was supposed to be born.”

  We’ve all heard about our own life flashing before our eyes at times of high stress or when you’re about to fucking die. Well, at this moment, all I can see is Wendy’s devastated face flashing before my eyes. Hot on her heels, Lainey floats in front of my vision, broken once more, now that she realizes that her stepmother’s son is responsible for the carnage that’s been wreaked on her life.

  “The woman on the left is the adoptive mother of Wendy’s other kid.” Seems like Kid has decided that our assumptions are correct.

  I can hear my mother’s voice in my head whispering one of her favourite sayings, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave.” She used to tell me that it was always better to tell the truth than to lie because you always get caught by the tangled web of lies you needed to weave to cover for that first lie. Little did she know that so long after her death, I’d be learning this lesson the hard way.

  Sit on the truth to protect Wendy; we run the risk of it coming out in the future and hurting her.

  Tell her what we’ve found and watch her life as she knows it implode—complete with unimaginable guilt, loss that she’ll feel right to her marrow, and no fucking way to fix any of it.

  And then there’s Benji. If we let this go; he’s going to prison.

  “Okay. Everyone needs to keep this shit under their hat until we know more details. Now is not the time to be making snap decisions. Our main objective is still destroying Thomas Taylor.”

  Facing Timber, I cock an eyebrow at his narrowed gaze. “Anything, you’d like to add VP?”

  “Yeah, you gonna help us move your shit from your dad’s shed to your new house now you’re back in town?”

  Smirking, I shake my head. “Nope. I’m taking Kid and we’re going to get a look at the girl” I click my fingers at Kid. “What’s her name?”

  “Sascha Koswalski”

  The room holds its collective breath. Dead silence—of the stunned variety—takes hold.

  “As in Koswalski’s with the hotel chain? The asshole who’s been the most vocal supporter of the anti-biker laws?”

  “The very same,” Kid answers, solemnly.

  “Shit,” Smoke verbalizes all of our feelings. He looks at me, dumbfounded. I nod in agreement.

  “Shit, indeed.”

  ***

  “That’s her,” Kid passes me the binoculars, then concentrates on balancing his laptop on his knees. I hold them in front of my eyes and follow his direction. “The chick with the black hair. She’s wearing a pair of black pants and a tight white workout top.”

  Finally zeroing in on her, the resemblance hits me straightaway. “Fuck, her hair’s darker, but other than that, she’s the spitting image of Wendy.”

  “And Brendan.” Kid adds.

  Looking at her again, I let myself see the likeness. “Yeah. That fucker, too.”

  “Let me have a look,” Joel pipes up from the backseat. I pass him the binoculars, then practically sit on my hands so I don’t give in to the urge to help him when he struggles to bring them to his face. A quick glance at Kid tells me he’s doing the same thing. Joel might be the Master of Zen when he’s all up in our asses—telling us how to live our lives—but, he can be a right prick if anyone tries to help him with his limitations or dares to suggest that he might benefit from going back to physio.

  “Ah, she’s pretty. Definitely Wendy’s daughter. Same eyes, same nose, same lips.” Joel seems to be talking to himself rather than me and kid when he continues. “More than pretty. Downright gorgeous.”

  Exchanging a grin with my Information Officer, I get back to business. “Tell me more about her. We need an in; some way to make contact with her that isn’t going to tip off anyone watching her.”

  “I already told you that she’s twenty-eight and she was adopted by the Koswalski’s. Um,” He touches the screen of his laptop. “She’s a single mother to one kid. A girl, who’s five. Never married the kid’s father and he’s not on the scene—hasn’t been since before the kids first birthday. She’s a physiotherapist. Owns the building she just left and has a team working under her. Seems like Daddy set her up with her own business straight outta university. Other than that, she lives a quiet life. Apart from regular Sunday brunches with her family, I can’t see anything else she spends her money on. I shit you not; she’s boring as fuck. Takes her kid to school, then goes to work, picks her kid up, then goes home. Wash, rinse, and repeat.”

  My phone lights up with a message.

  LAINEY: I’m looking for Joel. Is he with you?

  I turn to the backseat to tell Joel that his sister wants him, only to find that he still has the binoculars to his eyes watching Sascha make her way down the street. Seeing his fucked-up hands wrapped around the rubber grips, gives me an idea.

  “Fuck, I know how we can get close to her,” I nudge Joel, who drops the binoculars and then hits me with an annoyed scowl. “You. If we send you in as her patient, no one’ll think anything of it.”

  The words aren’t out of my mouth before he’s objecting. “No way. I told you, I’m not interested in fucking physio.”

  My mouth twitches when he swears. It sounds bloody ridiculous coming from him. Now, I’m not prone to flights of fancy, however, the perfectness of this plan just can’t be ignored. This gets us close to Wendy’s kid so we can get a handle on the situation and keep her safe, if need be. It’ll also force Joel to do something about his shit. “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”

  “That crap might work with the Shamrocks but it’s not going to with me. I’m not one of the brothers who you get to boss around.”

  Fuck. He has a point. Time for another tactic. “Fair enough. I’m not asking you to actually do the fucking
physio. You’ve made your feelings very clear about that. I need you to pretend. Get to know the girl. Not for the Shamrocks; for Wendy.”

  Swallowing hard, I fight back the desire to laugh at my pussy-ass pleas. I sound like a bad actor in a midday fucking movie trying to motivate a soldier for war. Do it not for your country, son. Do it for the children, they are our future. Honest-to-God, I’d piss myself laughing if the situation wasn’t so fucking serious.

  It must work. He looks at the floor then back at me and nods. I file away the knowledge that Wendy is a soft spot of Joel’s for future use. It’s always good to have a handle on what makes people tick.

  “You’ll do it?”

  “Yeah, asshole. I’ll do it.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MADDI

  Five Weeks Later

  “Are you all ready?” I ask Lachie, Matty, and Joel as they pile out of my car. Looking up at the huge building in front of us, I try to reconcile its elegance with its purpose. Who’d have thought a rehab needed to look so fancy.

  The loud rumble of Mik’s Harley heralds his arrival. He comes to a stop next to my car, then kicks down his stand, and climbs off. Opening my driver’s door, he tosses his helmet on my seat then slams the door shut. Nodding at my brothers, he gives me a quick kiss then jerks his head toward the entry.

  “Let’s head in.”

  I start walking toward the front door, only to be pulled back into his side. He slings his arm over my shoulders and walks beside me, following my brothers who grin at us when they see our closeness. Having Mik next to me felt a little strange for the first few steps, but it quickly began to feel familiar. Our relationship has been strained for the last few weeks, ever since Mik accidentally broke my ribs. He arranged our move into the new house, which was great, and allowed us to feel like we had a home again. It was his refusal to sleep in the same bed as me that was causing our intimacy to suffer—that, and the bed rest I’d been ordered to undertake so my ribs could heal. The combination of our physical distance and my continuing inability to give him my blessing was leaving us in unfamiliar territory. We’ve gone from a couple who has sex at every opportunity to one that’s barely touched for over a month.