Red Eyes MC: Books 1 - 3

by Grey, Blair

  Will shook his head, though. “That’s not a good idea,” he said. “Your dad already suspects that you’re seeing someone. The last thing we need is to piss him off right now.” He paused. “Let me talk to him first. Once he’s agreed to the marriage, we can go from there. But until then, we should probably keep our distance from one another.”

  I frowned and looked away from him. Even though I knew he was right, I felt disappointment well up inside of me. Just because I knew that this was the way things had to be, it didn’t mean that I liked it. Not for the first time, I felt a longing for a normal relationship. But unfortunately, I couldn’t have that.

  I tried to smile as I watched Will leave.

  “Well?” Nicole asked.

  I sighed and glanced over at her. “I’m getting married, I guess. If Dad approves of it.”

  Nicole stared at me for a moment and then laughed incredulously. “If your dad approves of it?” she asked. “Fat chance!”

  I knew that marrying Will was the right thing to do. Either way, whether it was so that he could get the inheritance and go to college or so that he could save Red Eyes and protect all the rest of us. But I couldn’t help feeling like now I was just some bargaining chip. Will had made it all sound so logical, like I was the only person he could ask. What had he said—that I was the only person who could be trusted with this?

  I understood where he was coming from, but he made it sound like he had no desire to pick me at all. Like he didn’t want to marry me. Which was hard to swallow, as I was starting to realize that I wanted him. I was starting to realize I had feelings for him.

  I wanted him to feel like he had a future beyond the MC. I wanted him to feel like this marriage was about more than just convenience. I wanted him to want me.

  I sighed and shook my head. I should have known better than to let my feelings get tied up in this. It was a sham marriage, nothing else. And once Will had his hands on the money, we’d get divorced, and it would be over. I had to remember that.

  25

  Will

  I waited until Tuesday to go to Ray’s house, hoping that a little more time would give him a chance to calm down and figure out a plan of his own. Maybe a better one than the one I had come up with, because the more I thought about it, the more the idea of marrying Belle—even if it was just a fake marriage so that we could wave a piece of paper in front of the lawyer—seemed absurd. There was no way Ray was going to agree to that. I was surprised Belle had agreed to it, even. Although she had said it was Nicole’s idea, so who knew, maybe the other girl was pressuring her somehow.

  But when I got to Ray’s house shortly after lunchtime, Marcus and Cameron were also there, and all three of them looked agitated. “Ah, good,” Ray said, leading me into the living room. “You must have a sixth sense; we were just about to call you. We need your muscle, I think. We have a plan.”

  I tried not to grimace at that. Who did he need me to beat up now? If Marcus was there, it was probably one of the Unknowns. Ray must have decided there was no other way to do this than the violent one.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We’ve decided on our reaction to the clubhouse ransacking. We’re going to kidnap one of the Unknowns. Get them to tell us if they’re the ones who took the money and ransacked the clubhouse,” Ray told me. “Marcus’s contacts have a pretty good idea of who’s likely to talk, and once we know for sure if they have the money, we can go about getting it back. It’s not the best plan, but it’s really the only thing we can do.”

  I frowned, thinking that over. That seemed practically designed to start a full-fledged fight between the Unknowns and Red Eyes, and that was the last thing I wanted.

  “If fighting breaks out, though, won’t it draw the attention of the authorities?” I asked.

  “It likely will,” Ray said. “Which isn’t a problem as long as we manage to get our hands on the money first and as long as no civilians get caught in the middle of things. As long as we can pay off the police, get them to look the other way, convince them that this was just a one-off gang-on-gang act, they’ll be fine. We’ll need to act fast, though.”

  “And we’ll need to act before those Unknowns can cause any more problems for us,” Marcus said fiercely. “Not that we have much for them to tamper with at this point. They’ve got our money, and they’ve stolen our clubhouse out from under us.”

  “But we still have all our businesses. For now,” Cameron reminded him, and I could tell that he, like me, was leaning away from the idea of violence. Ray seemed on board with Marcus now, though. I wondered what had changed. But maybe he was just desperate. Maybe he really didn’t see any other way to do things.

  Ray nodded. “As soon as word gets out that we’ve lost all this money, shit’s going to hit the fan,” he added. “We need to act before that word gets out.”

  “I have another plan,” I said slowly.

  Everyone turned to stare at me. Marcus looked frustrated; Ray and Cameron both looked intrigued. “Go on,” Ray said, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “Remember my grandmother’s will?” I said.

  “You were filing all that paperwork to get your hands on the inheritance, yes,” Ray said.

  “It’s a pretty big inheritance,” I admitted. “A fortune, really. Enough to cover our losses.”

  There was silence in the room. Ray was the one who finally broke it. “And you’ve finished signing all the legal documents?”

  “There weren’t that many documents to sign,” I admitted. I took a deep breath. “The main holdup is I have to be married in order to get my hands on any of it.” Another silence. I forced myself to continue. “Ray, I know you’re not going to like this idea. I know you want to keep Belle as far away from the MC as you can. But you know that if shit goes south, things are going to affect her as well. And she’ll want nothing more than to keep you safe if she can.”

  Ray’s eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

  I swallowed hard. “I’m not saying that we have to be married forever,” I said. “But if Belle were to stand in as my wife until I got my hands on the fortune, we could get the money back before any of the businesses found out. Before anyone else tried to move in on our territory.”

  Ray stood up slowly, still staring at me, and I could feel my eyes widen. I didn’t know what he was going to do. Was he angry enough to throw me out? To beat me up? What would he do? I tried to think of some way to backpedal, but I couldn’t think of anything. I had said it; the words were out there now. And anyway, I didn’t regret them. I thought this was a good idea. A much better one than kidnapping some member of the Unknowns and beating him up until he told us where the money was.

  “So what you’re saying is, you want to marry Belle so that you can get your hands on this inheritance of yours, and then you’re going to give the money to the club?” Ray asked.

  I nodded. “I know you don’t want anything to happen to your daughter, and I know you don’t want her involved in club business. But it’s the only way I can think of to get my hands on that money.”

  “I think it’s a horrible idea,” Marcus said. “I’m sorry, Will, but what do you think is going to happen when the Unknowns find out about this? They’re just going to come back and steal our money all over again. It’s a quick Band-Aid, if nothing else. We need retribution, not just an easy cover-up.”

  “So we’ll keep our money hidden next time,” I suggested. “Split it up between us, keep it somewhere safe where they can’t get to it as easily.” It still wasn’t a great plan, but I didn’t know what else to say.

  When Ray didn’t say anything, Marcus continued. “Besides, this is Belle we’re talking about here. You can’t just treat her like a pawn. You can’t just force yourself on her.” I was surprised at the way he said it. For the first time, I wondered if maybe Marcus had a thing for Belle, too. Was that why he didn’t want me anywhere near her?

&n
bsp; But no, I would know about it if that were the case. He probably was just trying to keep Ray on his side by appealing to Ray’s relationship with his daughter.

  Ray tugged at his beard. “Nobody will be forcing themselves on her,” he said slowly. He continued to stare at me, his eyes glinting. “I think it’s the perfect idea. One of the best ones that anyone has come up with. But you’re going to have to get Belle on board with it.”

  “What?” Marcus sputtered.

  Ray silenced him with a look. “This would buy us the time that we need. I agree with Marcus that it’s a cover-up more than anything else. We would probably still need to challenge the Unknowns and get the rest of our money back. Eventually. But this would give us the time to collect all the information first, rather than having an awkward kidnapping situation on our hands and risking the authorities getting involved.”

  He gave me a sharp look. “But if Belle says no, then you will drop it, do you understand me? I don’t want to hear that you coerced her into this.” He paused. “And I’m not sure that she’ll agree. If she’s seeing someone, this will be the last thing she wants to do, even if it isn’t forever.”

  It hit me like a punch in the gut. Here was Ray, praising my idea, telling me that it was okay for me to marry his daughter. Because again, he trusted me. He didn’t know I was sleeping with her already behind his back. He didn’t know I was the one that she was interested in, the one she was spending her late nights with.

  Not that I could fess up to that now. Especially not in front of Marcus and Cameron.

  I forced myself to smile. “I’ll talk to her,” I said, getting up. “I’ll swing by the diner on my way home and see if she has a minute.”

  “No, I have a better idea,” Ray said. “Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? We’ll talk to her together.”

  That sounded like a horrible idea. It would be asking a lot of Belle; she would have to pretend like she didn’t know about the trouble the club was in and pretend that she hadn’t already heard my plan for the two of us to get married to solve everything. Not only that, but I would have to keep my hands off her for the night.

  Keeping my hands off her might be easy under Ray’s watchful eyes. The man would kill me if he suspected that I had already laid hands on her. But keeping my eyes off her was another matter entirely. Would Ray be able to tell just from looking at us?

  “Come on,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t want to make this some big deal. You know how girls get. If she thinks it’s, like, you giving her away on behalf of the club, like I’m buying her, that’ll just piss her off,” I tried.

  Ray raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you really think Belle would think that? That I’m that kind of father?” Even though his tone of voice remained casual, I could tell I had offended him. I could already feel the deal slipping away between my fingers.

  “No!” I said quickly. “In fact, you have such a good relationship with her, why don’t you just talk to her yourself?” That would at least keep him from seeing the chemistry between the two of us.

  But Ray wasn’t having any of it. “No,” he said firmly. “I want you here. Seven o’clock. Don’t be late.”

  “Okay,” I said meekly, glancing over at Marcus and Cameron to see how they were taking this. Marcus still looked frustrated; Cameron looked mildly amused if anything. That fucker.

  I nodded at Ray, knowing it was time for me to leave, and I headed out. I debated stopping in at the diner on the way home, just to give Belle a heads-up, but eventually, I decided against it. I didn’t want to look more suspicious than I already had. On the off chance that Ray had someone tailing me, I didn’t want him to think I had gone against his express orders and stopped in to tell Belle about the wedding before he could talk to her about it.

  The wedding. I couldn’t help thinking about it. Sure, it was just to get my hands on my inheritance. And when Belle had suggested it, she had said something about just going to the courthouse, keeping it quiet. But now that Ray was involved, maybe it would be more like an actual wedding. He’d want the best for his daughter, after all, even if this was just a sham.

  Belle would look incredible in a white dress, with her hair all done up and a soft smile on her face. And at the end of the night, I’d whisk her away back to my place and have my way with her. She wouldn’t have to slip out afterward, either. I could curl myself around her, trail my fingers over her smooth skin. Wake up next to her the following morning.

  I shook my head, trying to get rid of those thoughts. This wasn’t a marriage, except on paper. Just a legal proceeding, nothing more.

  I had to wonder, did I want it to be something more? Belle was incredibly sexy, and I liked the way she made me feel about myself. I liked that she thought I was more than just some big dumb goon like everyone else seemed to think. She had never questioned it when I said I wanted something more, that I was thinking of going to college.

  I smiled, thinking about the packet of brochures she’d brought me the previous day. And the application. She really believed that if I wanted to go to college, I could. And I started to believe it as well, given the strength of her conviction.

  Maybe I wanted something more. Not marriage per se, not yet. But I certainly wanted to be with her, and if this was the only capacity in which I could do that, then maybe it was for the best. I was relieved that Ray seemed to think it was a good idea as well. Now, I just had to hope that Belle and I could pull off this dinner tonight without giving too much away.

  26

  Belle

  I was surprised when Dad called me at the diner on Tuesday to ask me to come over for dinner that night. He didn’t give a reason for it; it wasn’t like he was canceling our Wednesday-night dinner because of some conflict. Instead, he just said that he was hoping I didn’t have any other plans.

  I had to laugh at that. Of course, I didn’t have any other plans; he didn’t let me have any other plans. Especially not since that night I had stayed over at Will’s; he didn’t even like me staying late at work anymore. Controlling didn’t begin to cover it, but I knew he just wanted the best for me, no matter how frustrating it might be.

  I couldn’t stop wondering why he wanted to see me for dinner that night, though. I mean, I had a good idea of it. He probably wanted to tell me at least the bare bones about the situation with the MC. He’d want to make sure that if I saw anything suspicious around town, I’d tell him right away. Oh, he wouldn’t tell me that they had lost tons of money or that there was another club moving in on their territory. What had Will called them? The Unknowns, that was it.

  No, Dad wouldn’t tell me anything in so many details. At heart, he would still want to keep me in the dark about all of that. As maddening as that was, I knew he just didn’t want me to worry. But he’d want me to be safe, and he would know that the only way to really do that was to give me the information I needed to keep from doing anything too stupid.

  But I hoped this was about more than that. I hoped that this meant Will had gone to talk to Dad about the marriage idea. And that Dad was on board with it. Still, I wasn’t sure I dared to hope that. I rubbed at my temples, wishing I’d been firmer with Will when he’d suggested not keeping this a secret. No one knew Dad like I did. Even if the MC was in danger, Dad would do anything to keep me from getting involved in it.

  And there was no way he was going to let me get involved to the point where I ended up legally married to one of the MC’s members, even if money and lives were at stake.

  Probably what had happened was, Will had gone over to Dad’s and told him his plan, and now Dad wanted to have dinner with me to tell me there was no way in hell I would be marrying Will. That if I so much as gave the other guy a second glance, he would string us both up by our toes.

  I hoped he hadn’t been too hard on Will for suggesting it. Will was just doing the best he could. He probably should have propositioned Nicole or somebody, though.

  That evening, back at Dad’s house, I was surprised when
I walked in and saw Will sitting there, lounging on the couch with a drink in hand while he and Dad laughed about something. I don’t know why, but I had thought I would be having this conversation alone with Dad.

  Seeing Will made my heart start beating fast in my chest. Could I keep it together? Act friendly toward him but not too friendly? Did Dad already suspect that Will and I were involved? I froze in the doorway, not even sure where to sit, let alone what to say.

  “Oh,” I said weakly. “Is Will joining us for dinner?” I gave him a look I hoped wasn’t too panicked or searching. Why hadn’t he given me some sort of heads-up about this? God.

  “Come here, Belle,” Dad said, smiling at me as he stood up. He folded me into his arms, lightly kissing my hair, and then pushed me down to sit next to him on the couch.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, even though I knew it wasn’t.

  Dad sighed. “Let’s wait for dinner,” he suggested.

  But when we finally got to the table, he dug into his dinner, chicken and mashed potatoes, without looking at me, either. Now, I was starting to get worried. Maybe there was more to this than what Will had told me. Maybe something was seriously wrong.

  “Dad?” I asked timidly, glancing over at Will.

  Dad threw down both of his utensils, staring at me. “I’ve tried my best to make things as easy as possible here,” he said slowly.

  “I know,” I said.

  “But sometimes, that’s not possible,” he continued, glancing over at Will.

  “Dad, what’s going on?” Maybe Will hadn’t told me the whole story. Maybe this wasn’t solved as easily as he’d maintained. A quick marriage, whatever.