Deadly Seduction (A Rough Riders MC Novel) (The Rough Riders Series)

by Selene Chardou

  His dad’s good health regime went out of the window when he saw huge plates of sausages, fried chicken and steaks; potato salad, macaroni salad and mashed potatoes; Bushmills, Jose Cuervo and Jack Daniels; Becks, Heinken and Bud Ice.

  Cillian had a couple shots of Jack Daniels while Gisela helped with Bronaugh, Naomi, Lola, and Miranda—who’d Kink had persuaded to return after Dizzy’s triple bypass.

  “How’s everythin’ goin’ with the case?” Kink inquired after they’d downed another shot of Jack.

  “Same ole bullshit. Gisela is a nervous wreck and Kyra is helping out. I’ll probably beat it but not before they put my balls in a sling first.” Cillian poured himself another drink as his old lady came by and kissed his cheek.

  “I don’t need to drag your ass home tonight. For my sake, take it easy.”

  “What’s she got her thong in a sling about?” Kink wondered as soon as she walked off.

  “I’m tryin’ to knock her up.”

  Kink’s shot stopped inches from his lips. “Say what again?”

  Cillian rolled his eyes. “Brianna is being a bitch, demanding more money and sayin’ how expensive it is to live in Reno though I know she works at Bare Privleges so she’s making good money. However, she just wants to be a hard ass. After the case is over, I can divorce her ass and ask for full custody of the kids. That way, I won’t have to pay her shit.”

  “Yeah but how do you get from ‘Brianna is actin’ like a skank’ to ‘Gisela and I are tryin’ to have a baby?’”

  Cillian downed his fourth shot of Jack Daniels. The whiskey burned his empty stomach and he knew he’d be switching to Bud Ice after that one.

  “Listen, I love here. I know that is a hard concept for you to understand but we’ve got this beautiful baby boy out there who is a teenager and he wouldn’t even know us. I want to have a baby with Gisela. A kid we can both get to know and love. I’ve got Declan and you know about Caitlin but…they aren’t Gisela’s, not by blood. I want a child that connects us—you feelin’ me, man?”

  “Yeah, I am…I just didn’t think you’d be in such a hurry—”

  “Why? My ass ain’t gettin’ no younger and if I do go to prison, I want something that connects me with the woman I love. It might be all she has but at least I know I died and left a legacy—a child between us—behind.”

  Miranda embraced Kink from behind as Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” began to play. “Come on, you sexy motherfucker. Let’s dance.”

  Cillian smiled until the two were out of sight and on the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the parking lot.

  Gisela sat next to him and he grabbed her hand closest to his. “Baby, don’t be so maudlin. I swear I will do whatever it takes to get you out of this mess. However, I am pissed at you for not telling me the truth.”

  He abandoned his bottle of Bud Ice the prospect, O’Neal, had placed in front of him. “Take a walk,” he muttered in his direction of O’Neal and he abandoned the bar.

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, Cillian. It only makes you seem like you have something to hide. Do you?”

  “You tell me since you seem to know so much,” he snapped back before he swigged from his Bud Ice.

  “Ronan came to see me a couple of months ago. He said he killed Riley—not you.” Gisela’s amber eyes remained emotionless.

  “Ronan is full of shit—”

  “No, I don’t think so. That night, when you came back from ‘the scene of the crime,’ you didn’t exactly have the look of murder in your eyes…but Ronan did. Tell me I’m lying, love.”

  He turned away from her and swigged from his beer bottle.

  Fuckin’ Ronan, his guilty motherfuckin’ conscience, and his big ass mouth. His head began to swim from too many shots done in succession and the beer wasn’t making his situation any better.

  “What does it matter who killed Riley?” Cillian whispered in a soft voice. “He’s fuckin’ dead.”

  Gisela grabbed his arm and turned him toward her. “It matters to me, baby, to me. I’m not going to tell anyone but I need to know if you murdered a Fed that night; both Ronan and my gut are telling me you didn’t and…I have to believe there’s some good still left in you. I know what kind of person your father is and I’m not asking you to betray him. Hell, I don’t even plan to use it as part of the defense but I need to know.”

  He didn’t answer her question but he did face her and wrapped his arms around her neck. “This is all the answer you’re gonna get and if you need more then perhaps you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”

  Her arms hung at her sides for what seemed like hours yet eventually, she wrapped them around his waist and buried her head in his chest. “I’m such a fucking idiot. How can I love a man who makes me so angry I just wanna punch you in the nuts sometimes? A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have sufficed, you pompous asshole.”

  “Now, now, darlin’, that would’ve been too easy and you do know me, Gisella. I couldn’t go through with it—I was chicken shit. Too many dead bodies I gotta live with already and I couldn’t face another so Ronan took ‘em out. I didn’t want him too and I woulda worked up the nerve to shoot the bastard but Ronan was quicker.”

  They separated reluctantly and he started into her gorgeous eyes before she mouthed, “I love you.”

  Cillian smiled before he attacked those gorgeous lips and she responded in turn. How could he have gotten so lucky with a beautiful woman and someone who just happened to know him inside out?

  The question remained on his mind as Quinn and Bookie walked into the Club house and interrupted them.

  “Bro, we got a situation on our hands. You’re ex-old lady just turned up, and she’s drunk out of her head. She’s probably high too and she’s demandin’ to see the kids.” Quinn, always the worrier, glared at him with crystal blue eyes.

  “What are you telling us for?” Gisela responded though she knew an old lady’s smart mouth could land her in all kinds of trouble. “Let her in.”

  Cillian grabbed her by the shoulders. “Babe, if she’s drunk and high, the kids shouldn’t see her like that—”

  “She’s their mother. What the hell do we look like turning her away? Plus, half the people out there are drunk and high. Declan and Caitlin miss her and I can’t replace her either. Let them see her but we’ll just keep a close eye on her, all right?”

  He hated when she was right but at the same time, he couldn’t help feeling like this was a bad idea.

  Gisela grabbed his hand and her soft palm, so small and delicate in his own, gave him the strength he needed to walk out the Clubhouse doors and face the one woman he had no desire to see again.

  Someone had let her in and she strolled around in a pair of black daisy duke shorts, which displayed long alabaster legs, a ripped Joan Jett and the Blackhearts tee with a black bra underneath and a pair of black four-inch mules. Her hair was a deep auburn with subtle blondish-auburn highlights and her steel-gray eyes looked around before she finally settled on her two children seated at a picnic table.

  Declan dropped the hot dog back onto his plate, stood and ran to his mother while Caitlin also stood but she seemed confused and reluctant. His daughter walked over to him and Gisela before she grabbed the woman who had become her surrogate mother.

  “Don’t you wanna see your ma? I bet you she drove all the way from Reno to see you.”

  “I talk to her…every now and then.” Caitlin glanced up at her father. “She’s in Carson City now, Dad. I don’t…I can’t…I still love her but Gisela is like a mom to me now and I don’t want her to think I feel something I don’t.”

  Cillian watched as Gisela knelt beside her and embraced her. “You’re like a daughter to me too but saying ‘Hello’ to your mother over there doesn’t offend me, baby. She gave you life, and no matter what anyone tells you about her, she’s still your mother.”

  “You can say ‘Hi’ to her, Caitlin. She won’t take you away from us, I promise.”

&n
bsp; The tone of Cillian’s voice had changed from friendly to a quiet order; both, which Gisela and Caitlin had picked up on.

  The young girl smiled with bright hazel-green eyes, “Okay, Dad.”

  He watched her walk over to Brianna before she gave her an awkward hug.

  Gisela punched his arm. “Way to blackmail a kid, babe. She might not be ready to face her mother yet. She did abandon them, after all, and disappeared into thin air but at the end of the day, there was something vulnerable enough about that woman you made her your old lady.”

  He dug out a cigarette and lit it. “Yeah, but my past isn’t exactly something I’m proud of.”

  “Understandable but it still happened.”

  Cillian remained silent as he watched his ex-old lady and thought it was strange how he felt nothing. After all the years they’d spent with one another, and the two children they shared together, looking at Brianna brought nothing to him except bad memories. He wished he could erase the years between them and start anew with Gisela.

  “Listen, Caitlin looks uncomfortable. I’m going to walk over and make sure everything is okay.”

  He shrugged his shoulders in apathy. “Suit yourself.”

  Gisela began to walk away before she turned on him with lethal amber eyes. “No, I don’t think so. I’m trying to save your pathetic, worthless life at the moment so it’s not ‘suiting myself’ at all. The last thing you need are more enemies, Cillian. You need to make peace with your ex-old lady because this is never going to work if you don’t.”

  She strolled closer to him and got into his face. “You wanna blame Brianna for everything that went wrong in your life but the onus is on you—not her! You dragged her here, and you made her your old lady because you didn’t want to be alone with your demons. You turned into a monster while you two were married but that is your fault. You let your father use you for his benefit and when everything soured, you looked for someone to blame and she was perfect, wasn’t she? What scares me the most about this whole twisted, fucked up situation is if you would ever turn on me just like that—”

  “Don’t be stupid, babe. I love you—I never had the kind of feelings for her that we have for one another.”

  “How very…fucking sad.” She shook her head. “Our ‘young love’ was so toxic and dangerous, we couldn’t even bring ourselves to like our bed partners. I remember feeling a distinct loathing for every man other than you who touched me sexually and it seems like you had a similar situation. We did it to ourselves, and now we have to pay the price. I’m not going to hate Brianna because what happened between you and I caused our demise and no one and nothing else. Like it or not, she will always be the mother of those children and I can’t replace her. The sooner you realize that sometimes you need to stop being so fucking pig-headed and just let life run its course, the happier you’ll be.”

  Cillian felt like throwing the bottle of Bud Ice to the floor just to watch the glass explode but he got a handle on his temper and walked toward his boys. He needed to let loose and if that meant being away from Gisela while she kissed his ex-old lady’s ass then so be it.

  No one ever said love was easy but as much as he adored and worshipped her, she could still be a right pain in his arse.

  Cillian and Kink sat together in the Clubhouse, along with Ronan, Cricket, Bookie and Quinn. They were all quite drunk even though they’d eaten on top of the alcohol they’d consumed.

  “I’m worried, bro.” Kink belched loudly and swallowed another shot of Jack Daniels before he chased it with a freshly opened bottle of Heineken.

  “About what?” Ronan looked down at his iPhone and quickly replied to a text message.

  “This. Us. You. Look at ya, cocksucker,” Kink sneered. “The bitch is outside textin’ you and we’re supposed to be bondin’ before we make our last run for meth. The party was a great way to cover up what’s really goin’ on tonight.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was bein’ a pussy for caring about my old lady. My bad.”

  “Will you both shut the fuck up?” Quinn sighed and sipped from his Beck’s quietly. “We all agreed that this should go down one more time and then we’d have to end it. Dad’s medical bills weren’t cheap and even though we’ve got him some health insurance, we’re still responsible for forty percent of the cost. Sean and Brendan agreed with the run and said it had to happen.”

  “Yeah, I know what happened, dickhead. Sean’s my father, remember?” Kink glared at Quinn with cold blue eyes.

  “Sorry…I forget sometimes…you look like that Slavic Slapper who pushed you out her hole.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Ronan.” Cillian breathed deeply and prayed for the rest of the night to go down okay.

  “Fuck you,” Kink replied quietly. “My mother is half-Polish and half-Irish. She’s not a Slavic Slapper. And it wasn’t her fault my dad fell in love with a stripper and she decided to high-tail it before I was five. All I have is a faded snapshot of them together.”

  “Your dad loved her.”

  Everyone slowly turned their heads toward Bookie. He had acquired his name because of his love of books but he didn’t say much, not unless he had something constructive to add to a conversation.

  “I guess—”

  “Sean fucks Slappers—hell, I guess we all do with the exception of the Cox bros, and now you with Miranda bein’ back in your life and all—but he was in love with your mom. Mila Zawadzka Boyle was your father’s only love and if she walked through that door now, he’d take her back in a heartbeat.”

  Cillian felt the tears gather in his eyes but he refused to cry in front of his boys. He stood, and said, “Bookie’s right. It’s the same between Gisela and I. In all my life, I’ve never been able to see past her.”

  “Sometimes that’s how it is,” Cricket spoke up and stood too.

  “Let’s get ready to head out.”

  All the guys grabbed their gear while both Bookie and Quinn headed to the black van. Cillian, Kink, Cricket and Ronan would be on their bikes. It was supposed to be an in and out deal and then they would come back to the party and pretend like nothing happened.

  However, as much as Cillian had drank, he had a bad feeling about this whole setup. They’d pressed their luck with those White Knight psychos more than enough times. Sooner or later, something was gonna kick off they weren’t going to be able to walk away from it when it did happen. He hated how he knew it might be tonight that would be the last deal, and the one they would fucking regret.

  Kink slapped him on his shoulders before he got on his Harley. “What’s the matter, bro?”

  “Something’s not right. I don’t know why I feel it but my gut is never wrong. I don’t like this setup.” He swallowed past the lump in his throat and tried to get a hold of himself and his thundering heart.

  “You’re not high, are you?”

  “Fuck no! My kids are here and can you imagine what Gisela would say?”

  “Then let’s go so we can get this shit and get the hell back to the party.” Ronan turned on his Harley. “I have a bad feeling too and I don’t wanna be around those inbred hicks any longer than I have to be.”

  “Agreed.” Cricket slipped on his helmet.

  Cillian finally cranked up, put his helmet on and gave them the hand signal. They all took off in a trail of noise and exhaust fumes.

  “So, you hear from that fuckin’ Bastard who shot my brother?”

  Cillian glared at Jake with cold blue eyes. “Who? Lennon? He’s not even in the fuckin’ country.”

  “Yeah, we know.” Jake smiled and displayed off-white teeth in an otherwise brutally handsome face. “He’s in Belfast and we know where he and his bitch are…but then my dad heard something very interesting.”

  “Where’s all this going?” Ronan grabbed the duffel bag of money from Quinn and held it in one hand while he held his Desert Eagle in his other hand casually like it was a natural extension of his arm. “What are we? Demon’s Bastards’ keepers or some s
uch shit? Why are you askin’ about Lennon anyway?”

  Jake’s blue eyes held a twisted mirth in them. “Well…with Lennon not being a Bastard anymore…we heard he was a Saint. Now say it ain’t so.”

  Cillian glared at Ronan, and cocked his head to the side before he arched one of his eyebrows.

  Deny it.

  Ronan was a lot more intelligent than many people gave him credit for. Hell, he would have his own charter one day with Cillian’s help. The guy was that sharp.

  “Don’t know where you heard that bullshit rumor from. Why the fuck would we want that douchebag? Not to mention it’s unprecedented for members of MC to switch affiliations. It doesn’t happen. Stop usin’ so much of your own shit, Jake, you’re slippin’.”