After the Fall: The Fallen Men, #4

by Darling, Giana

“Now, I’m checking you out ’cause the company you keep, I suspect you got drugs or weapons on your person.”

  “That’s complete bullshit, and you know it,” I snapped, struggling out of his hold. “You pulled me over to start something.”

  McDougal pressed his groin into my ass and ground into me, his weight crushing me against the car so that I couldn’t wriggle. I shivered in revulsion as his voice wafted damply over my ear. “You want me to start something, that can be arranged, biker whore. I know you’re just gagging for dick.”

  Fuck this.

  Letting anger and my training at the hands of Priest and King fuel me, I carefully lifted one foot off the ground and angled it at McDougal. The spiked heel rammed into the tender inside of his leather encased foot, and he cursed loudly in my ear before relinquishing his tight hold on me.

  “You fucking bitch––” he started to holler, but Ares was suddenly there using his momentum as he burst out of the car to push the officer to his ass in the dirt.

  “Get the hell away from her,” he growled, small chest heaving, fists clenched at his side.

  McDougal lunged at him before I could move, shoving him brutally into the side mirror. I gasped as Ares fell to the ground with a quiet gasp of pain.

  Before I could think, I was on him. Using all of my weight, I shoved the officer to the ground and straddled him, pining his arms to the ground with my knees so I could land a brutal punch to his right cheekbone.

  Pain exploded in my knuckles, but I bore down on the yelling cop and prepared to make him pay for fucking with me and mine.

  Before I could do so, hands were wrenching me off McDougal and dragging me to the ground beside him where I was flipped on my belly to have my hands roughly shackled in handcuffs.

  “Cressida Irons, you are under arrest for assaulting an officer of the law,” the other cop, the one who had been waiting in the car, kneeled over me and clicked the bitingly tight cuffs around each wrist. “If I were you, I’d remain silent.”

  * * *

  * * *

  King

  * * *

  No. Fuckin’. Way.

  I turned off the engine of my Dyna Low Rider and swung off the bike before any of the brothers followin’ me could even park their rides. My boots ate up the asphalt as I prowled up the stairs to the Entrance Police Department and shoved through the glass doors.

  “Where the fuck is my woman?” I demanded from the center of the reception.

  The woman mannin’ the desk went pale as her eyes raked over my windswept hair, the leather cut sportin’ the infamous Fallen skull and tattered wings, and the wicked lookin’ knife holstered at my hip.

  “Um…” she hummed, but then interrupted herself with a squeak as the door burst open behind me and the stomp of motorcycle boots filled the suddenly dead quiet police hall.

  My brothers had arrived.

  “You want me to ask again?” I cocked my head and smiled at the woman, but it wasn’t a pretty thing. It was a threat.

  “King, Jesus, man, calm down,” Officer Gibson said as he appeared from down the hall, hands open and raised to the heavens in surrender. “We got her.”

  “Yeah, you fuckin’ do. I want to know why the hell she was pulled over in the first place?” I stalked forward, getting in Gibson’s face. He was tall, but I was taller, and the gym had been good to me, packin’ me with muscles so I was built stronger than most men too, him included.

  He didn’t let me intimidate him, not really, but I saw the flash of apprehension in his eyes, and it stoked the fire of my vengeful fury higher. If he thought his friendship and ex-partnership with Lionel Danner meant I wouldn’t nail him to the wall for keepin’ me from Cress, he would be sadly fuckin’ mistaken.

  “King, calm down. McDougal pulled her over for a broken taillight, and things got a little out of control.”

  “Yeah? Thinkin’ things have been out of control here for a fuck of a while now, Gibson. Only half-decent copper left seems to be you. So excuse me if I don’t buy your brand of bullshit. Now, bring out McDougal, or I’ll go back there and find him myself.”

  “I’ll have to arrest you if you manhandle an officer,” he warned me.

  I sneered down into his face, lettin’ him see a side of me that few ever saw. One that lived to dominate and subdue, one that yearned for chaos and rebellion against the fuckin’ Man. I let him see that barely leashed animal in my eyes and then smiled that weaponized smile.

  “You don’t take me to see my woman or that motherfucker in the next two seconds, I guarantee it’ll be more than just me you gotta arrest for manhandlin’ an officer,” I said with a jerk of my head to indicated the handful of brothers at my back.

  Zeus was there too, lettin’ me handle things my way because it was my girl they’d done wrong.

  Gibson swallowed thickly, searchin’ my face for somethin’ he wouldn’t find, and then sighed. He rubbed a hand over his buzzed head and then stepped slightly to the side in physical capitulation.

  “I’ll take you to see her.”

  I nodded, lookin’ back at my brothers in a silent bid for them to stay there, and then followed Gibson down the hall.

  “I am sorry about this,” Gibson muttered quietly as he led me through the maze of the station. “Things are…getting difficult around here for those of us who don’t agree with SS Danner. The cop with McDougal wasn’t okay with what went down, but he couldn’t very well side against him.”

  “He damn well could’ve,” I countered. “That’s the thing about you pigs, your blind loyalty means you don’t take care of business in your ranks. Your shit stinks to high fuckin’ heaven because you never deign to take out the trash.”

  Gibson sighed again as we stopped in front of a holding room door. “Not arguing with you, King. Cress is a good woman, and I hate to see her in here…’course, maybe it was only a matter of time since she hitched her cart to you.”

  I stepped forward threateningly. “Whatever you think of me and the club, keep Cress out of it. You got any honour at all, you’ll leave all our women out of this grudge match.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a grudge match.”

  I laughed coldly. “Should’a thought of that before you arrested my woman.”

  Gibson hesitated, fear ripe on his face for me to pluck and devour. But I was done playing games with him. I just wanted to see my girl.

  So I slapped a hand on the door and arched my brows.

  With a quiet sigh, he opened it.

  As soon as the door swung open, somethin’ came flyin’ at me.

  I braced on my back foot and opened my arms just in time to catch Cressida as she wrapped her limbs around me and stuffed her face in my hair.

  “King, King, King,” she chanted as she clutched at me. “Thank God.”

  I could feel the anger cracklin’ in my stomach, the inferno of my wrath lickin’ flames up the walls of my gut until they burned and smoked in my throat. Gibson closed the door after us as I moved into the room and perched her ass on the metal table so I could pry her gently out of my neck and check her over.

  Those whiskey eyes I loved so much were blown black with anxiety and too dark in her pale face. I cupped her cold cheek and gathered her hands in one of mine to inspect them too. The knuckles on her right hand were red and abraded from violence.

  A shock of mirth pulsed through my anger, and I barked out a laugh as I looked up into her suddenly sparklin’ eyes. “Please tell me you fucked that motherfucker up.”

  She laughed, but it was breathy, and I could see just how shaken she was. “I got one good punch in, but I did have him pinned for a hot minute. Got him in the foot with my heel too when he had me pressed against the car.”

  A low grumble worked its way loose from my gut. “He fuckin’ touched you?”

  She bit her lip and placed both hands on my chest as if soothin’ some rabid bear. At that moment, I felt like one too.

  “He pulled me over with some bullshit excuse and then made me g
et out of the car so he could ‘check me’ for weapons or drugs. Tayline told me in the shop yesterday that Officer Ormand had done basically the same thing to her recently.”

  “They’re askin’ for it,” I growled.

  There was no easier way to earn the wrath of The Fallen than to fuck with our women and families.

  “I think they are,” she agreed, wrappin’ my waist with her legs to pull me tight. “They know you’re more likely to fudge up and commit an actual punishable offense if they can get to us. But you’re smarter than that…right?”

  My woman was clever, playin’ on my ego like that, but still, I knew better than to rashly agree. My blood ran too hot in my veins, ignitin’ an anger that I didn’t know how to bank. McDougal had fucked with my woman. Put his goddamn hands on my woman. I had to show him what happened to a man who wronged Cress.

  I had to show him just what would happen if he did it again.

  “King,” Cress called, hands framin’ my face so she could pull my gaze down to her. “Please, don’t play into this game. They want you to blow a gasket and fuck up.”

  “Knew what kind of man I was when you started datin’ me, babe, and that is not the kinda man who stands idly by while his woman is harassed.”

  “He also shoved Ares,” she admitted and then winced when I cursed viciously and slammed a palm loudly against the table. “But he’s okay, really. He’s with a case worker drinking juice.”

  “The point is not that you and Ares are okay. Need you to get this, Cress, because you signed on for me prospectin’ with the club just as much as I did. We do not let things like this go unchecked. We will fuck up McDougal for fuckin’ with you and Ares.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I pressed a finger to her lips and ducked my head low so I could speak just for her and not the cameras recording us. “And we’ll do it in a way there’s zero blowback. You get me?”

  She sank her fingers into the hair over my ears and curled them in, holding me tight, eyes wide and so trusting it made my heart clench. “Whatever you have to do, honey.”

  “My rough and tumble Queen,” I praised before I kissed her because kissin’ her was the only option.

  I wanted to taste that trust and feel that love on my tongue. She moaned into me, chest archin’ so her breasts could press against my chest.

  “Proud of you,” I told her when we broke for breath. “My badass biker girl.”

  “You know it,” she said, beamin’.

  “H.R. is probably going to make you some kind of biker bitch reward,” I teased. “Maja and Hannah will take you out with your crew and get you drunk on tequila to celebrate, and I’ll have a drunk and horny Cress on my hands.”

  She laughed, her entire face so filled with light I felt the warmth of it in my chest.

  “Only you could make me laugh at a time like this.”

  I shrugged with faux modesty, which prompted another giggle as someone knocked on the door. We broke apart to watch Mr. White, the club’s lawyer, shove past Officer McDougal and Gibson.

  I started toward the fucker with a snarl, but Mr. White held up a stayin’ hand. “Just a moment before you slug him, please, Mr. Garro. I think you’ll be satisfied with the way I handled this, and I do prefer to get one Garro out at a time, so let’s focus on Miss Irons, hmm?”

  I swallowed the harsh burn of rage like cheap whiskey and moved around the table to sit beside Cress and Mr. White while the two officers took seats on the other side. Mr. White cleared his throat repeatedly, like an opera singer preparin’ for the stage, as he shifted through his briefcase and produced a folder of documents and an iPhone he lay on the table.

  He folded his hands over the pages and looked at the officers. “We seem to have a bit of an issue here. By all accounts, it seems Officer McDougal,” he indicated the pig, who sneered in response. I flexed my hands under the table and bared my teeth at him. “Pulled over Miss Cressida Irons because he thought she had a faulty taillight. Officer Hutchinson was kind enough to go to the scene just now, and he sent a few photos that show her light was smashed after this incident.”

  McDougal opened his twisted mouth to protest, but Mr. White kept on.

  “So not only did you pull my client over without cause, but you then proceeded to drag her from her vehicle where you then manhandled her against the car. When her nephew, a minor by the name of Ares Garro, tried to intervene, you then shoved him to the ground.”

  “That’s horseshit,” the cop spewed, spittle flyin’ over the table. “You got nothing but your word to prove that nonsense. The word of a biker’s bitch against the word of a policeman.”

  “Ah, I wouldn’t be so quick to smear the Garros any further, Mr. McDougal,” White cautioned with his small, polite smile that I knew well enough to know meant he had some ace up his sleeve.

  “They’re criminals and scum. Everyone in this town knows it,” he retorted.

  “McDougal, shut up,” Gibson warned.

  “Do as you’re told,” I muttered under my voice just so McDougal would look at me as I cracked my knuckles and leered menacingly at him.

  I wanted him to feel the force of hatred emanatin’ off me like radioactive waves from a nuclear bomb site. I wanted him infected with fear for me so that when I finally stalked him and captured him like a predator did his unworthy prey, he would reek of panic and stink with remorse.

  Mr. White swiped open the phone and pulled up a video clip which he then swivelled to face the two cops.

  “This is a video Ares Garro was clever enough to take of the incident before he became involved. In it, you’ll see Officer McDougal drag Miss Irons from the car and clearly assault her against the vehicle. While it’s true that Miss Irons used force to subdue him and then later pushed the officer to the ground, it was only an act of defense against the attack first leveled against her person and then that of young Mr. Garro. Coupled with the irrefutable fact that you pulled her over without cause, I do believe we have reason to press charges against the Entrance Police Department. Would you like to bring your Staff Sergeant in to speak with us or would you like us to wait while you call your lawyer, Mr. McDougal?”

  The silence that followed was as tenuous as a book held to close to the flame, a moment passed, and then it caught on fire when a little snort of humour escaped my throat. McDougal was up out of his chair in a heartbeat, leanin’ over the table to take a swing at me.

  About fuckin’ time. That was exactly what I had been hoping for.

  Before McDougal could right himself from his missed swing at me, I was on him, pushin’ him to the back wall with one huge shove and then holding hi’ up against it so that I could smile into his face.

  I loved to smile, and I’d learned that it was a valuable tool of intimidation when I was angry because it spoke to somethin’ that wanted to unhinge itself inside me, somethin’ dark and crazy that wouldn’t obey my rules.

  “You fucked with my woman,” I growled under the chaos of noise behind me as people reacted to my move. “And now, motherfucker, I’m going to fuck with you.”

  I dropped my hold on him and stood back before Gibson could pry me off him. Cress was already waitin’, purse in hand, for me to reach for her so we could walk together from the holding room.

  Mr. White followed close behind, his short legs strugglin’ to keep up.

  “Normally, I wouldn’t advise brutality against the police, King.”

  “I’m a biker, White. What else did you expect?” I countered with a cheeky grin.

  “You’re a good man too,” he said quietly, pushin’ his glasses up his nose. “I sincerely hope you don’t lose that now you’ve joined your father’s business.”

  I slung an arm around Cress and curled her into me so I could kiss her forehead, but I maintained eye contact with the lawyer over her head. “I have my North Star, if that’s what you’re worried about. She’ll always right my course, even when I could do wrong.”

  “Always,” she agreed proudly as we walked around the corner
into the front hall.

  My brothers still stood there, arms crossed, legs braced like men ready for war at the whim of their commander. It was the first time they’d done that for me, held position while they waited for my orders, and it was a heavy thing to realize men like that—dangerous, intelligent, fuckin’ incredible men—respected me enough to do as I asked of them.

  Zeus stepped forward, his face set to stone, eyes flashin’ like a lightning strike. “Good?” he asked Mr. White.

  The man must have nodded because his face softened slightly, and he continued forward to kiss Cressida’s head and clap me on the shoulder.

  “You okay, teach?” he asked my girl, dippin’ down so he could look her in the eyes and read what she might be hidin’ there.

  “Unfortunately, it’s not my first time in the police station, and it probably won’t be my last,” she quipped with an easy, one-shouldered shrug.

  I chuckled and tucked her further into my side. “Don’t you know, Dad? Cress is a biker babe now.”

  Zeus’s smile was a slow, wide evolution across his face, and then finally, he laughed. “Gotta thank God or whatever else for puttin’ women like Cress Irons and Loulou Garro on this earth, eh, son?”

  “Every fuckin’ day,” I agreed.

  The air in the room went static suddenly, and I knew without turnin’ around who would stand behind me just by looking at the expression mirrored on the faces of Nova, Bat, Buck, Curtains, and Axe-Man.

  Staff Sergeant Danner stood at the mouth of the hallway, hands fisted at his sides, mouth screwed up like a twist cap over shaken soda. He was about ready to explode, which surprised me because SS Danner had always been more of a cold, edge of the blade kind of crazy than a hothead. I’d heard from H.R. that his wife was divorcin’ him, and I knew despite whatever cold heart lay in his chest, that man had a soft spot for his wife, so apparently, he was takin’ the divorce hard.

  It was near on impossible to believe the man standin’ in front of me, painted red with hatred for me and mine, could ever have opened up his home to H.R. and me as kids when Lion had taken us in after Zeus had gone to prison. There was no trace of that man left in the villain who faced us, so I let there be no trace of remorse in my heart for the ways in which we’d end him.