Reaper's Fall (Reapers MC, #5)(73)

“No f*ckin’ way.”

Something twisted inside. I’d like to say it was my heart breaking, but odds were high it was heartburn. I’d been having that more and more lately.

“Never?” I asked, my voice small.

“Mel, I grew up in the foster care system. I was one of the lucky ones, because I got beat up, but I never got raped. Watched kids get raped, though. Watched kids pimped out. Ran away when I was eleven with a couple other boys and lived on the streets after that, right up to the point that they threw me in juvie. Wanna guess what I did to get locked up?”

I swallowed. “What did you do?”

A bitter smile twisted his face. “Not a goddamned thing. They throw you in detention if they don’t have anywhere else to put you. I had a bad reputation—troublemaker. None of the foster families would take me. Spent six months inside before they found me a new place, but by that point I’d already figured something out.”

He leaned closer, eyes intense.

“If you’re gonna do the time anyway, might as well do the crime.”

Then he sat back, crossing his arms in front of him.

“No f*ckin’ way I’d bring a kid into this world. Wouldn’t risk doing that to him, and I already know I’d be a shit dad. I don’t even like kids. They smell weird, they do crazy things, and they’re always jumping out of nowhere. You want a baby daddy, you better look somewhere else.”

I swallowed again, staring at him.

“Okay, then. Good to know.”

He smiled at me, and this one reached his eyes. “Can’t wait to see you tomorrow, babe. Hold you. It’s gonna be great.”

“Sure,” I said faintly. “Great. We’ll have a spiffy good time. If you could excuse me, I need to hit the bathroom.”

Painter frowned. “You okay?”

“Fabulous,” I said, smilingly tightly. “But I really need to pee. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Then I got the hell out of there.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN





ONE DAY LATER

PAINTER

Mel wasn’t waiting for me outside the jail.

Okay, so I wasn’t exactly expecting her to be . . . I knew she had class, and I didn’t want her to miss school. Still, some part of me obviously wished she’d blown it off, because I found myself looking for her, even as Picnic walked toward me, flanked by Horse.

“Good to see you wearing something that isn’t orange,” Pic said, pulling me into his arms for a rib-crushing hug. “You do okay in there?”

“Fine,” I said, glancing back toward the door, where a corrections officer stood watching. “You ever figure out what the f*ck happened with Torres?”

“We’ll talk about it in the chapel,” he said, lowering his voice. “The brothers are all waiting for you. Oh, and the girls are planning a party for you tonight—should be nice. Mel’s been real solid while you were in here. Might be time to go ahead and talk to her about the old-lady thing.”

? ? ?

Forty minutes later we were all in the chapel. Took another ten to get settled enough to talk, what with all the hugs and shit.

“Okay, let’s get moving,” Picnic finally said. “Painter, grab a seat. There’s a lot going on and we gotta fill you in.”

To my surprise, Duck pulled out his usual chair for me, patting me on the shoulder.

“Enjoy the moment, brother,” he told me. “There’s a hard road up ahead, no question.”

“Christ, don’t play mind games with him,” Ruger snapped. “You’re a bastard, Duck.”

“No, Boonie’s a bastard. I’m a Reaper,” Duck replied, chuckling at his own lame joke. Horse rolled his eyes as Bolt snorted.

“Enough,” Pic said. “Let’s get moving on this, okay? The girls have food going and it smells too damned good to sit in here all day. Not only that, London just messaged me. She’s on her way out with Melanie, and somethin’ tells me Painter will be real interested in seeing her again.”

“The dick goes inside the girl,” Horse said helpfully. “Not your hand. Got it?”

“Shut the f*ck up,” I said, grinning. I had a whole new list of fantasies to work through now that I was out again.

“Okay, here’s the story,” Pic said. “Apparently they’d been watching Torres for a while. The Evans bitch is out to get us—always suspected the club was behind her brother disappearing—and when she learned about the investigation she was all over it. She’d been setting him and several others up for at least six months before they pulled the trigger on it.

“Torres is still on administrative leave, but they’ll be pressing charges against all of them. Apparently they had a hell of a payoff system set up. The good news for us is Torres is stupid, but we aren’t. That means there’s no trail leading to us and they got plenty to convict him without the Reapers. He knows better than to cross us, so I think we’re in the clear there.”

“Guess that’s something,” I said. Pic shrugged.

“Well, the real problem is the rest of your parole. You’re out of chances now—she’s looking for Reaper blood, and you’re vulnerable. She’s convinced the club killed her brother.”