Fallen Lords MC: Books 4-6

by Winter Travers

  “Yeah.” She still sounded tired.

  “You gonna sleep again?”

  “As soon as you tell me what is going to happen tomorrow.”

  I pulled the covers over her body and slid in next to her. “No one is supposed to know who we are when we get there.”

  “Does that mean I get to pick a new name for me? This is like witness protection,” she said excitedly.

  “Uh, you get a new name but you don’t get to pick it.”

  “Totally unfair. First, I bust my ass and head, and now I don’t even get to pick my new name,” she pouted. “Please let it be something cool at least.”

  “Uh, Bertha Norman.”

  She tilted her head back to look up at me. “Well, it’s official. Wrecker hates me.”

  “Yeah, you and me both.”

  “Please tell me he gave you a name as horrible as mine.”

  “Melvin Norman.”

  She blinked twice and licked her lips. “Uh, are we married Melvin? Or brother and sister?”

  No way in hell anyone was going to believe Bertha and Melvin were related. “Married,” I drawled.

  “Were you just going to leave that little tidbit out?”

  “At least until we got there.”

  “You do realize how insane this is, right? We’re driving freaking clear across the country to some place Wrecker told us to go where we have to pretend like were married. I think surrendering to the Banachi’s would be less stressful.”

  She was possibly right, but I knew surrendering to the Banachi’s would more than likely lead to her dying. So, just a different kind of stress. “I’m going to keep you safe until we get the Banachi’s off your back. Speaking of, I think it’s time you tell me exactly what is going on.”

  “Um, what did Wrecker tell you?”

  “Your dad died. Your mom took over his debt. She died, and now you’re saddled with it, but you ran.”

  She closed her eyes. “I’m pretty sleepy. Maybe we can talk about this another time.”

  “Ignoring the Banachi’s is not going to make them go away.”

  “Figured that out seeing as I’m in a hotel with you God knows where.”

  I brushed her hair back from her face. She tensed under my touch, but she didn’t move away. “You can’t run away forever, M-baby.”

  “Just give me one more night,” she whispered.

  One more night, I could do.

  But after that, I was going to get some damn answers.

  *

  Chapter Eight

  Mayra

  “So, I bruised the hell out of my butt, and I got a goose egg on the back of my head.” I looked up from the pile of papers in my hand. “You could have just paid me the two hundred dollars and I would have told you the same thing.”

  “I needed to make sure you were okay. You looked about ninety trying to get out of bed this morning. I was worried you broke your tailbone.”

  I rolled my eyes and tossed the papers on the dash. I was moving somewhat better than yesterday, though my whole body was sore as hell. “I wouldn’t be moving if I had broken my tailbone.”

  “Can we stop pretending you’re a doctor now?”

  “Maybe I am one?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I did diagnose myself today.”

  Boink started the truck and glanced over at me. “Just sit on your tube and try not to hurt yourself anymore.”

  I leaned into the door and adjusted the inflatable ring the doctor had given me to sit on. “Don’t be jealous.”

  “Yeah, so jealous,” he muttered.

  I held up the small, orange bottle of pills. “Though, I have to admit, I wouldn’t have been able to get these super-duper amazing pills if you hadn’t made me go to the doctor.” I gave the bottle a shake and laughed. “I think they’re already working.” My butt was still sore, but the pain was slowly fading away.

  “Good. We’ll stop at a fast food place to get some food in your stomach and then you can sleep the rest of the way.”

  “You’re bound and determined for me to sleep, aren’t you?”

  Boink pulled out of the parking lot of the doctor’s office and headed out of town toward the interstate. “The doctor said you’re in the clear with your concussion, and my mom always said when you’re not feeling good, sleep always helps.”

  “Your mom, huh?” I asked. It was odd to think of Boink having a mom, let alone listening to her. “I figured you just kind of appeared one day as a twenty-something biker with a crazy road name.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Mom and a dad, M-baby. Grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and was normal as the next kid.”

  “And then the Fallen Lords happened?”

  He nodded. “Yup. I moved away, got into a bit of trouble, and ended up at a bar the same night that the Lords were there.”

  “From the suburbs to a bar with the Lords. Sounds like the makings of a song or a good book.”

  “Sounds much more exciting than it really is, M-baby. Ended up getting in a fight and Wrecker helped me out.”

  “And the rest is history, huh?”

  “That it is.” Boink pulled into a drive-thru and ordered three bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches with two large coffees.

  I pulled out one of the sandwiches and opened it. “You know, I much prefer sausage.”

  Boink looked over at me with a smirk. “That’s what she said.”

  I rolled my eyes and thrust the sandwich at him. “Do I have fun-loving Boink with me today?”

  He grabbed the sandwich and tore off a huge bite. “I’m always fun-loving,” he insisted around a mouthful.

  “Really?” I pulled out another sandwich and unwrapped it. “You could have fooled me yesterday.”

  We merged onto the interstate, and he set the cruise control. “Tensions were high yesterday.”

  “Oh yeah?” I muttered. “So today is a new day where you don’t hate me?”

  “Didn’t hate you yesterday.”

  I rolled my eyes and munched on my sandwich. “Could have fooled me.”

  “A lot of stuff going on, M-baby. Most of that doesn’t involve you so it’s hard for you to get why the problem you have caused a hell of a lot more stress on the club.”

  “That was why I didn’t tell anyone. If you guys wouldn’t have gone snooping around, I would have been fine.” The less people I got involved, the less people who would get hurt.

  “Wrecker checked into you because that’s what he does. If you would have told us right way that you were in some deep shit then we would have been able to help. Going two weeks with you laying low in the clubhouse could have led the Banachi’s straight to our door. There is no way of knowing how long it’ll be before they figure out you were there.” Boink finished his sandwich in three bites and crumbled up the wrapper. “So, since you aren’t asleep yet, you can keep talking and tell me just what happened to have the Banachi’s looking for you.”

  “Everything you told me yesterday is true. There isn’t anything else.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “There are a shit-ton more details that I don’t know. Start from the beginning.”

  The sooner I told him, the sooner I could fall asleep. “My dad was great. He loved me and my mom. He doted on us like the perfect husband. The one problem he had was he liked to go to the racetrack.”

  “A gambler,” Boink mumbled.

  “Gambler with a capital G. He wasn’t half-bad at it either. About once a month, he would manage to win big, but he would gamble it away trying to win even bigger.” I sighed and stuck the last of my sandwich in my mouth. I washed it down with a hot sip of coffee and settled my butt better onto the tube. “I didn’t know just how bad his gambling was until my mom died.”

  “He died before her, right?”

  I nodded. “Yep. He died when I was seventeen. I came home from school to find my mother crying in the living room holding my dad’s hat he always wore. She told me he had gone to the track around noon to play a little bit so h
e could be home when I got off school so we could go buy a Christmas tree. He died sitting in his favorite chair cheering on the horse he had bet on.” I laughed flatly. “The horse lost and so did my dad.”

  “I’m sorry, M.” He leaned over and laid his hand on my thigh.

  “It’s okay. I know it sounds weird, but it was a sort of relief when she told me. I loved my dad, but the older I got the more I realized that he wasn’t the best person in the world. I mean, who gambles away all of the grocery money then wins big the next week? It was like whiplash the way things were always up and down.”

  “I’m sure he tried his best.”

  “He did,” I whispered. I dashed away the stray tear that streamed down my cheek. “He tried, but it was never enough.” I cleared my throat and forged on. “For ten years, I thought things were fine. My mom and I never really had much money, but things felt different. A weight had been lifted and it felt like we were finally able to breathe. That breath I was so thankful to have got knocked out of me when my mom died, and two weeks later two men in suits showed up at my apartment wanting to know where their monthly payment was.”

  “She had been paying on his debt all of those years?” he asked.

  “Over ten years, she paid Leo Banachi fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Holy shit, Mayra. She paid over fifty thousand dollars, and his debt still wasn’t paid off.”

  I shook my head. “Turned out all of those times he won big were times he would borrow money from Leo. My father owes over one hundred thousand dollars to Leo. My mother had barely paid off half before she died.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “Jesus Christ. And Leo being Leo means he’s not going to write that money off.”

  “He wants every penny of it back,” I finished.

  “There’s gotta be something we can do, Mayra.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I don’t have fifty thousand dollars just laying around.”

  “Can’t you just pick back up on the payments your mom was making?”

  I shook my head. “He wants it all. Now.” I had tried pleading with the men he sent, but they said I only had a month to gather all of the money. That had been three months ago. I had managed to go two months without Leo finding me, and I had been hopeful when I went to work for Oakley Mykel that he would help me out.

  “So, you ran and wound up working at Oakley’s.”

  He didn’t know I had purposely gone to work for Oakley. When my mom died, she left me with my father’s debt, but she also left me with something that would hopefully save me.

  I hadn’t been able to use it before, but now I had no choice but to see if the envelope she had left for me would actually help me or cause a whole new pile of problems.

  *

  Chapter Nine

  Boink

  “I hadn’t planned on carrying you across the threshold, but seeing as you’re stiff from the drive, it seems fitting.”

  She slapped me on the shoulder and rolled her eyes. “Just get me inside so no one sees us.”

  Not likely that anyone would see us.

  Wrecker had set us up in an A-frame cabin settled in the middle of a large patch of woods. The only way someone was going to find us was if they knew we were here.

  I angled us through the doorway and strode over to the L-shaped couch in front of a large fireplace. “Will this do?” I asked.

  “I think it’ll more than do.”

  I gently lowered her onto the couch on her side. “I’ll get the bags from the truck.”

  After I got both of our bags, I set them by the front door and hollered to Mayra that I was going to grab some firewood. It was October, and from the chill that was in the air last night while I got dinner, I knew I was going to have to start a fire.

  After four trips to the wood pile on the side of the house, I decided that would be enough to get us through the next couple of days.

  Mayra was standing in the kitchen when I walked through the door. “There isn’t any food.”

  “We passed a store on the way in.”

  “We don’t need to get a lot. I had some money saved up that we can use.”

  “Save your money.”

  She rolled her eyes and walked stiffly over to her suitcase. “Nonsense. You paid for all of my snacks and the doctor today. The least I can do is pay for groceries.” She looked down at her suitcase and tried to bend over. “Uh,” she wheezed, “I might need a little bit of help getting into my suitcase, though.”

  I walked over to her and picked up our bags. I set hers on the kitchen counter and unzipped it. “Looking for anything in particular?”

  She waddled over to me and tossed back the top of the case. “Just a small wallet.”

  I moved off to the side and wondered how Mayra only had a few pieces of clothing in her bag. “I told you to pack everything.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “This can’t be everything,” I insisted.

  She glanced at me. “It is, Boink. I’m not a very high-maintenance girl.”

  Shoot. High-maintenance? There was no way anyone would ever think that about Mayra if they could see her suitcase. I had packed more clothes than she had.

  She grabbed a small dark green wallet and stuck it in her back pocket. “Let’s go to the store. I’m hungry.”

  She wasn’t going to pay for any of the groceries. She turned her back to me, and I snatched the wallet out of her back pocket.

  “Boink,” she yelled. “What in the hell are you doing?”

  I walked into the kitchen and tossed her wallet on top of the tall cabinets. “Now we can go.”

  “Are you insane?” she squawked. “I need my wallet, and there is no way I’ll be able to reach it up there.”

  “That’s the whole reason why I tossed it up there, M-baby.”

  She hobbled over to me and slowly raised her arms over her head. “I can’t even reach halfway up the cabinet. A chair isn’t even going to help me.”

  Not like she could actually expect to move a chair over to the cabinet. “Just let me know when you need it, and I’ll grab it for you.” Though I hoped she was going to need something more than her wallet eventually.

  *

  Mayra

  I rolled my eyes. “I need it now.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Except for right now. You’re not going to buy groceries. I have money for that.”

  “You buying me everything is not going to be good with me.” He had about thirty seconds to get my wallet down before I freaked out on his ass. “Give me my wallet.”

  He walked around me and headed toward the front door. “Nope. Not happening.”

  He thought he was being funny.

  I didn’t think he was funny at all.

  “Boink…Boink,” I faltered. I didn’t know the man’s real first name or even his last name. “Get back here and get down my wallet right now.”

  “Not happening. Get in the truck. We need food for dinner.” He walked out the front door, and I stomped my foot.

  “Damn that man,” I muttered. I turned around and looked up at the cabinet he had tossed my wallet on top of. “I’m never going to be able to get my wallet down from there.”

  “Get in the truck, Mayra,” he hollered.

  I gimped out the front door and closed it behind me. “I’m temporarily handicapped. You can’t do that to me,” I complained.

  Boink stood next to the door of the truck and held his hand out for me. “I can’t pay for the groceries because you broke your butt?”

  “I didn’t break my butt, you did,” I insisted.

  He quirked an eyebrow and smirked. “M-baby, if I’m around, you’re not paying for jack shit. You get me?”

  I grabbed his hand and put one foot in the truck. “No, I don’t get you, B-baby.”

  “You’ll get me eventually.” He leaned close. “I kind of like you calling me baby.”

  I couldn’t control my eyes, and they rolled back in my head in the most ep
ic eye-roll ever. “You’re crazy.”

  He helped me in the truck and pulled the seat belt across me. His body was partially plastered against me, and I inhaled his scent.

  “Getting a good whiff?” He turned his head, and my nose was an inch away from his.

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” I breathed out.

  His eyes connected with mine. “Sure, you don’t.”

  “I’m not sure I like your tone.” I also didn’t like the things I was feeling with him being this close. My voice was breathy, my pulse was racing, and I had the urge to lean forward to find out if his lips were as soft as they looked.

  “Bet there’s other things you like.”

  I blinked slowly and tried to get a grip. “Boink,” I whispered.

  The click of the seat belt broke the nice but confusing moment between us. He moved back and looked at me. “Let’s get some dinner.” He slammed the door and moved around the front of the truck as if he wasn’t two seconds away from kissing me.

  At least, I hoped he was about to kiss me.

  *

  Boink

  “He won’t let me pay. He tossed my wallet on top of the cabinet and since he broke my butt the other day, I can’t get it down.”

  The clerk slowly scanned a can of corn and stared at Mayra. “There is so much you just said in that sentence I have questions about.”

  “He won’t let me buy anything,” Mayra repeated.

  The clerk scanned two more items. “Well, that I get. He is your man so he’s just trying to take care of you.”

  Mayra scrunched up her nose. “He is no—”

  I bumped her further down the check-out lane. “Why don’t you scoot down a bit, Bertha? The sooner we get home with these groceries, the sooner we can eat.”

  She curled her lip at me. “Sure thing, Melvin.”

  “We just got married, and she keeps forgetting,” I explained.

  The clerk smiled huge and gushed, “Oh, my goodness! How amazing!” She clasped her hand together and sighed. “Did you just move here?”