by Gemma Weir
“I want to speak to my sister. If you won’t let me see her, then I want to speak to the club president. I don’t want to deal with all this club bullshit, but if I have to, then I’m gonna play with the organ grinder and not the monkey,” she purrs, tapping her fingernail point down onto my chest as she says the word ‘monkey’.
Bristling at her barb, I grab for her as she turns to walk away and pull her in close to me. “Duchess, who the fuck do you think you’re calling a monkey?” I growl into her ear. “I’m the fucking V.P., not some idiotic prospect you can boss about. You might be Dove’s ‘back from the dead’ sister, but you’re starting to piss me off.”
The door opens and Anders walks in, taking one look at me and Nicole before smirking. “Take a seat. Grits has gone to check on Daisy and Dove; I’m sure they’ll be here in a minute.”
I raise an arched brow to Anders and loosen my hold. Nicole yanks herself from my grip and steps closer to Prez. “Look, I just want to get my sister and leave. Is all this,” she says, waving her hand around the office, “necessary?”
Anders holds out his hand. “We haven’t been introduced. My name is Anders and I’m the president of the Doomsday Sinners.”
Nicole sighs, but reluctantly takes his outstretched hand. “Nikki Coleman.”
Anders’ eyebrows lift in question. “Coleman?”
“I changed my name a little over two years ago,” Nicole says.
“Right.” Prez points to a chair.“Take a seat, Nikki. I think we need to have a quick chat before Dove gets here.”
Nikki rolls her eyes, steps back, and reluctantly sinks into the chair Prez pointed to.
“So, what exactly is your plan? Did you think that you could turn up here, barge into my club and then walk out with one of our women?”
Nikki leans forward in her chair. “With all due respect, Angelique isn’t a club whore. I don’t know how she ended up with you guys, but she’s too young and too naïve to be here. I’m sure you have a hoard of women all clambering over one another to suck biker cock, but my sister isn’t one of them. Big guy over here already told me she isn’t a prisoner, so when she gets here we can leave. No harm, no foul,” she says, her tone condescending.
Prez bristles. “Little girl, I suggest you tone down the fucking attitude because I don’t give a fuck who you are. Be warned, I won’t tolerate being spoken to like I’m a fucking idiot. Dove is Daisy’s old lady. She came to us for help, but she stuck around because we’re her family and we love her. She isn’t—and has never been—a club whore, and the fact you would even suggest it, shows that you don’t know your sister at all.”
Nikki sighs. “Look, I’m not trying to be a bitch, but I’ve waited a really long time to take my sister away from this fucking hellhole of a town and now I finally can. I just want to speak to her.”
Anders’ eyes narrow at her. I don’t know what he’s thinking but his expression softens.
“Please,” Nikki says quietly.
I’m begging this biker asshole to see my sister. Fuck my life.
Why of all the places she could have ended up, did it have to be a fucking biker club? Why couldn’t she have gone to a church, or a school, or somewhere innocuous and easy to extract her from? But no, my innocent little sissy had to end up surrounded by uber-alpha bikers who think women are property and won’t give them up without a fight.
The door pushes open and a woman enters, followed by the big blond biker and Angelique.
“Sissy,” I cry, jumping up from my chair and rushing toward her.
Her smile changes her entire face. She launches herself across the small office, pushing the others out of the way and throws herself at me. My arms are open, and I wrap myself around my sister, cocooning her in the biggest hug I can manage.
We’re in an office full of people, but this moment isn’t about them, this is about me and my sister. Eventually Angelique pulls back. “Where have you been? Why did he say you were dead?”
Holding onto her hand, I glance at the others in the room. Everyone’s focus is on us. “Can we go someone more private?”
Angelique’s eyes go lifeless. “They’re dead. Both of them. Mama and him.”
“I know,” I say matter of factly. “I’ve been out of town and my private detective only told me about them a couple days ago. Once he found you, I came straight here.”
“You’ve been out of town? Like Archer’s Creek town?”
“No, I’ve been living in Chestnut Grove.”
Angelique drags her hand from mine and steps backward. “For the last two years you’ve been less than ten miles away?” Her voice wavers.
I nod.
Reaching blindly behind her, she holds her hand out and the big blond biker reaches for her and pulls her into his lap. “Shhh,” he coos into her neck.
“If you’ve been in Chestnut Grove, why are you only turning up now?” Big asshole biker Blade asks.
“Because I had to wait until you were eighteen,” I say to Angelique, ignoring the big guy.
“I don’t understand,” Angelique says, her eyes filling with tears.
“I know you don’t, but I can explain everything. Come with me. I have a house in Chestnut Grove; or if you want to live in the city, I just closed on an apartment in Houston. Hell, if you want to get totally out of Texas, I’ll buy us a house wherever you want to live. I have plenty of money, sweetie, we can go wherever you want.”
Angelique looks shell-shocked. “You own a house in Chestnut Grove and an apartment in Houston?”
“Yes,” I say nodding.
“How?”
“I trade stocks and shares. I’m good at it. Does it matter? I have money. We can leave this god-awful town and never look back,” I say, taking a step closer to her.
She shakes her head. “No. No. I can’t leave. This is my home.”
I scoff dryly. “It’s only your home because they brought us here. We can start a new life. You can throw a dart at a map and we’ll go there. I don’t care where—anywhere.”
Angelique stands up, pulling the blond guy up with her. “No, you don’t understand. This is my home, and this is Daisy,” she says, looking up at him with love-filled eyes.
Crap.
I run my eyes over the blond guy whose arm is slung over my sister’s shoulder. He’s big, attractive, and a biker. Pushing the look I’d seen in my sisters eyes to the back of my mind, I dismiss him and move my gaze back to Angelique. “Sissy, we have the chance to start over.”
“I don’t want to start over. Daisy is my man and I love him.” Then she looks up at the guy and smiles. “Daisy, this is my sister.”
When Daisy turns away from Angelique, his expression darkens and his menacing eyes assess me. Scowling, he begrudgingly holds his hand out to me. “Hey, I’m Angel’s old man.”
“Nikki,” I say, reluctantly taking his hand. His grip is firm, and when I look into his eyes I can see warning, determination, and finally love, reflected back in them. This man is in love with my sister. We shake and when he releases me, I glance back at her. The love and adoration on her face as she looks at him is so obvious that I’m amazed I didn’t notice it before.
This is so not part of the plan.
Angelique steps away from Daisy and clasping her fingers around mine, she leads me forward to the others who are all silently watching us. “Nicole, this is Grits, and I’m assuming you’ve met Anders and Blade,” she says, pointing to each of them in turn.
I’m met with a cold assessing stare from the woman, and ‘I told you so’ taunts from the two men. I watch as they each look back to my sister and instantly soften. Blade was right, these people are her family.
Well, fuck!
My plan had always been to wait until Angelique was eighteen, then get her away from our parents and start over somewhere new. But she already has a new life: a new family and a man.
Studying my sister, and the others in the room who are all watching her with concern etched across their faces, I
come to a spur-of-the-moment decision. I won’t give my sister up again.
Pulling my cell from my pocket, I dial Trish—my real estate agent.
“Nikki, hey,” she says when she answers.
“Trish, have we closed on the Houston apartment yet?”
There’s a pause for a second. “No, my assistant has all the paperwork to file this afternoon.”
“Good. I changed my mind. I need you to find me a house in Archer’s Creek. At least two bed, two bath, and a garden. See what’s available, then call me back with options. I need something that can close quickly.”
“Are you sure? You loved the Houston apartment last week.”
“Yep, I’m sure.”
“Err, okay, give me a couple of hours and I’ll come back to you with some places to view tomorrow.”
“Perfect, thanks,” I say, then end the call. Sliding my cell back into my pocket I look up to find everyone in the room staring at me.
“What did you just do?” Angelique asks.
I shrug. “I won’t lose you again, so if you’re here, then I’m here. Now, I hate this fucking town and I figured you would too, but if you really feel like this is home and you want to stay in Archer’s Creek, then this is where I need to be too.”
Angelique throws herself into my arms again, burying her face against my shoulder. “What happened, Nicole? Why did he tell us you were dead?”
Pulling out of her embrace, but not releasing her hand, I eye the others in the room warily. “Sissy, I’d really rather we talked about this in private.”
Her eyes shutter nervously. “Okay. Erm, we can go to mine and Daisy’s room.” She steps toward Daisy and he scoops her into his arms, whispering into her ear and holding her close as she clings to him. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but when they release each other he leans down and kisses her sweetly. Angelique smiles at the others reassuringly and then leads the way from the office.
I move to follow, but a hand on my arm stops me. “Be careful with her, she’s been through a lot. She’s fragile. If she starts to shutdown, come fetch me as I can snap her out of it,” Daisy says gruffly.
I nod, but his grip on my arm tightens. “I’m fucking serious. She’s my fucking everything and I won’t stand for you messing with her head.”
I don’t need him to explain how he feels about my sister, it’s written all over his face. He loves her, worships her, and even though I still plan to try to convince my sister to leave, his look tells me I won’t be successful. “I’m not a fucking moron. If anything happens, I’ll come find you, I promise. But I don’t want to hurt her, she’s all I have.”
With a sharp nod he releases me, and I leave the room, following my sister.
The door closes with a resolute click and I move from my sentry point and slump down into the chair next to Daisy.“She is one fucking piece of work,” I say angrily.
Anders chuckles. “Yeah, she’s not like our Little Dove is she? Wanna explain why your belt is on my desk?” He asks me.
I smile and reach forward, grabbing the leather strap. “Little bitch wouldn’t stay put, so I threatened to strap her to the chair.”
“Jesus,” Anders groans. “You sure know how to make friends, don’t you?”
“I have zero interest in being friends with that angry little hellcat. She tore at my back with those sharp claws of hers, crazy fucking bitch,” I say, standing and pulling up the back of my shirt to try to inspect the scratches.
“I don’t know if Angel can cope with her sister showing up like this,” Daisy says, his voice full of concern.“She never really had a chance to grieve for her before her dad started using her as a punchbag. I only just got my woman back to normal, I don’t know if she can pull herself out of another depression like she had after her parents died,” Daisy adds, his head in his hands.
“Dove will be fine. She’s strong, and she has you and us. Nikki’s the one I’m more concerned about. What the fuck happened two years ago that made Jefferies tell his wife and kid she was dead? We all know what a sick motherfucker Jefferies was, so what the hell happened that was so bad it made Nikki run and leave her sister behind?” Anders muses.
“When I mentioned Jefferies beating the shit out of Dove, Nikki went pale. She did a Dove and kind of spaced out for a minute, then she snapped out of it and went back to being an angry bitch. We need to keep an eye on her. She wants Dove and she wants to get out of town. I don’t know what happened between Jefferies and his oldest daughter, but my guess is that it was pretty fucking bad if it kept her away for two years. Maybe everything that’s gone on with Jefferies was just history repeating itself? Has anyone considered that he had no problem offering his kid up for sale because he’d already sold one daughter?” I say.
Prez scowls. “Fuck, I hadn’t thought of that. I wouldn’t put it past Jefferies, he was a heartless bastard.” Pulling out his cell he taps at the screen, then holds it to his ear. “Puck. Yeah, you at the club? Yeah, come to my office. Okay.”
Ending the call, he drops his cell to the desk. A moment later there’s a knock at the office door. “Come in,” he calls.
Puck enters the room and nods to me, Daisy, and Grits, in greeting then he addresses Anders. “What’s up, Prez?”
“Take a seat,” Prez says, gesturing to the spare chair next to Daisy. Puck crosses the room and sinks down into the chair. “I need you to do an in-depth background check on someone.”
Puck nods. “How in-depth?”
Prez sighs. “I need everything. Nikki Coleman AKA Nicole Jefferies came back from the dead today. I want to know everything she’s done for the last two years. Where she’s been and who she’s been with. I want to know what happened two years ago and why Jefferies told his family she was dead.”
Puck rests his elbows on his knees and leans forward. “Is this the hot piece of ass that was shouting her mouth off earlier?”
“She might be hot, but she’s fucking crazy,” I mutter under my breath.
Anders glares at me before turning his attention back to Puck. “Yep. It’s Dove’s sister and I want to know everything before we let her loose around our girl. I want you to get on this today, top priority.”
“Okay, I’ll look into her. But if she went to ground, then there might not be much,” Puck warns.
“Do what you can, I want an update ASAP. Right now, we’re thinking that Jefferies trying to sell Dove might have been a repeat performance. If Nikki’s someone’s property, I want to know who owns her and if that’s gonna cause a problem for Dove or us,” Prez says.
Puck nods. “Got it, boss. Leave it with me and I’ll see what I can find. The cameras will have picked up her face when she turned up at the gate, so I’ll run some reverse image searches and see what turns up.”
We all watch as Puck leaves the office, closing the door behind him.
“I don’t think Nikki is gonna be a problem,” Grits says from her perch on the edge of Prez’s desk. Absentmindedly, she reaches out a hand to massage the back of Anders’ neck. “I think she escaped a shitty home and waited until her sister was old enough to leave too. She could have moved on and never looked back, but she didn’t. Instead, she stayed close to a town she hated for two years, just so she could reconnect with her sister when her parents couldn’t stop her. I can smell a manipulative bitch a mile off, and Nikki doesn’t set off my bullshit-o-meter.”
Prez sighs. “I hope for Dove’s sake, you’re right.”
I groan internally, why do I have a feeling that Duchess is gonna be a pain in the fucking ass?
I follow my sister as she walks away from the office we were just in and down a hallway. She pauses outside a door and pulls a key from her pocket, unlocking the lock and pushing the door open. She gestures for me to enter and I walk in and scan the room. It’s a decent size with a big bed, a couple of chairs, a dresser, and a predictably huge T.V. It’s a masculine space, but feminine touches are dotted throughout the room: jewelry, a hairbrush, heeled boots. All of the in
nocuous items confirming that my sister either lives here or at least stays here regularly.
“Do you live here?” I ask. My P.I. had tracked Angelique down to the club and I’d bulldozed straight down here. I’d been so desperate to get to my sister, it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder why she was here.
“Yes, although we’re actually going to get the keys to our new apartment today,” she says blushing.
“You don’t have to move in with him. I mean, you could come live with me. You’re a little young to be moving in with a guy.”
Angelique’s face twists into a scowl and she blurts out. “Where have you been for the last two years?”
Shocked, my mouth falls open. “Okay, so I take it we’re not gonna do small talk. Can we sit, maybe?” I say, pointing to the chairs.
“The bed’s more comfortable.”
Crossing the room, I sit on the edge of the bed. Angelique climbs onto the mattress, resting her back in the pillows. I take a moment to look at my sister. She’s changed so much in two years. Her cheekbones are more defined, her lips are fuller, and she looks older, more mature. Her skin is fresh and makeup free apart from a little mascara. She looks beautiful. Without realizing, I reach forward and take her hand in mine. “I missed you so much, Sissy.”
A single tear runs down her cheek and she squeezes my hand. “What happened, Nicole?”
“Nikki, it’s Nikki now. I changed it.”
“He hurt you, didn’t he?” She asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to remember. Closing my eyes, I try to block out the memories; but no matter how hard I try to stop them, the images flash into my mind.
Four Years Ago
“Nicole.”
My father’s voice booms from downstairs and I cringe, wishing I could crawl under my bed and hide. If only hiding worked. I tried it once, but he found me almost immediately, and my disobedience at not coming when he called had only made it worse.
Rushing to the mirror I glance over my reflection. My long blonde hair is loose and hanging halfway down my back. Plain black jeans that aren’t too tight, cover my legs. My blue checked shirt is buttoned up all the way to the neck, and my simple black ballet pumps cover my feet. I assess myself. I can’t see anything in my appearance that might aggravate my father, but then I can never see the flaws he always seems to find in me.