Never Have an Outlaw's Baby (Deadly Pistols MC #3)(31)

He'd told the boys my brother died in an accident. He'd dropped pure bullshit so we wouldn't go in hot and crazy, waging a blood war we couldn't hope to win just then.

Someday, he'd promised. Someday was coming sooner, too, soon as we ironed out how to hit the Deads hard, and when.

“Fuck you! Take your hands off me. I'll go out the gate,” Summer screeched. I was almost to the club's door.

I stopped with my hand on the handle. Don't turn around, *. Let her f*ckin' go.

For a second, I pinched my eyes shut, listening to her tires burn rubber as she tore through the open gate. After the mind-f*ck I'd given her, she'd never be back. She'd leave me to my hell, just the way it was meant to be.

Before I could pop the door, Skin opened it, staring at me from the other side. “Already done out here? That was fast. Who the f*ck was she?”

Didn't say a damned word as I pushed past, shoving my muddy arm against his cut. “Aw, f*ck!”

His curse echoed after me, barking through the open bar, as I continued down the hallway to the showers.

I'd need a f*ck of a lot more than hot water and good whiskey to wash away all the filth today.





5





Crash (Summer)





“Asshole, *, f*cking *!” I slammed my fist on the steering wheel again, adding one more muddy streak to the worn pink cover.

I couldn't believe he'd turned me away like I was nothing.

I couldn't believe I'd stood there and taken it, expecting a miracle, when I'd learned to stop believing in them years ago.

I definitely couldn't believe he'd rubbed his filthy body against mine, caking me in dirt, forcing me to feel those hard edges all over him one more time. The ones I'd tried so hard to forget.

For years, I'd wondered how much I'd hurt confronting him like this.

Now, I knew.

It killed me. Tore out my soul a second time, dashed it to tatters before my eyes.

God damn him. My love had turned to hate.

If it weren't for the monster holding the gun to my head, I wouldn't have come back. Ever. But that demon, Hatch, reminded me why I was here every few hours, pinging the phone he'd left me with a text or another nasty voicemail.

He'd made himself deadly clear. It took a lot of makeup and even more aspirin to cover up the blow to my head.

Then I'd gotten in my car and driven, non-stop with Alex, stopping only for gas. We checked into the hotel this morning, where I fed him and let him nap, before finding the closest babysitter.

If Hatch were a reasonable man, I would've moaned about how much this was taking out of my pocket. Naturally, I didn't say a word, fearing what would happen if I so much as asked for a penny.

Everything was going down, down, down.

My life. My bank account. My poor, sweet baby's future, handed off to strangers while I pleaded with a man who thought nothing about shredding my heart for the second time.

I picked up Alex at the little daycare in town, ignoring the dumbfounded looks from all the women, wondering how I'd gotten smeared with mud. Then we headed back to our room, where I took a long, hot shower, ignoring the hunger pangs ripping at my stomach.

Joker wouldn't leave my head. I couldn't get over the contrast, the change in the man I once knew. Where had he gone?

He'd been replaced with a killer robot wearing his skin.

His gorgeous hazel eyes didn't shine anymore. They just glowed like dull stones, dead and cold to everything they saw.

That tragic night three years past killed both the Taylor boys – just one less literally. Joker walked the earth and rode his bike like a shell, lost to his humanity, his love, and me.

Before, he'd been a deadly angel with a beautiful soul underneath.

Today, he'd looked just as handsome as before – maybe more so with the extra edges and tiny scars the last three years had given him – but now there was nothing underneath except ugliness.

Watching the last few bits of grime and soap disappear down the drain, I turned the nozzle, only to hear the damned phone I'd left in my jeans vibrating.

Sighing, I stepped out of the shower and started toweling myself off while I reached for it. “Yeah?”

“How'd it go, bitch? You were supposed to check in.”

An evil chill swept up my spine. Hatch's voice had that effect, just pure, vicious poison. My battered temple throbbed, remembering how he'd knocked me out cold.

“Not well,” I said. There wasn't any point in lying. “It's going to be tough to find out anything. He doesn't want to talk to me.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. I could practically see his nasty, leathery face pausing to take a long drag on a cigarette. His mismatched eyes must've trembled with rage.

“You're gonna do better, Summer-Bummer, or you're gonna get your f*ckin' guts hanging on a clothesline, mixed with the kiddo's. Quit f*cking around. We're paying for your room. Wasting the club's good money.”

Fuck you, f*ck your money, and f*ck your club, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. Tasted blood.

“I'll try again. Give me another day or two. I'll find out where he goes, follow him, try to pin him down somewhere outside the clubhouse.”

“Yeah,” he said calmly. “You will. Because if you don't –“