Corrupted: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Blacktop Sinners MC)

by Kathryn Thomas

  “Well he turned out to be a crazy murdering thug. Clearly, you were wrong, Lizzy.”

  “Then” she said, leaning back against the headboard. “I see that I’m not needed. I can go. Except, what are you going to do with that. It’s a goddamn murder weapon. Why didn’t you just text me or something and have me take it directly to Ricardo, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars?”

  “Because,” Tess countered. “I still don’t know what I’m going to do with it.”

  “You did hear the part where I told you it’s a murder weapon. This is basically catching Derek red handed, even down to the red crusted blood on its hilt. What’s there to hesitate on?”

  Tess bit her lip, confused about everything. Her blood was boiling but only part of that was rage. Most of it, granted, was anger but a large part of her was still attracted to Derek. He’d been so kind and gentle with her when they’d made love---it had been too sweet to be just fucking---under the stars. She didn’t think his own sorrows in the foster care system had been a ruse either. It was too authentic. Before the Everharts, she’d known the pain of peanut butter and jelly and being dismissed or forgotten too.

  But he’s a murderer, Tess, and a damn drug dealer. You have to let him go.

  Beyond that, though, she was scared to relinquish the weapon to Ricardo. Boone P.D. wasn’t exactly the FBI. Even with Lizzy as a go between, well, there was no guarantee the facts about the blade wouldn’t leak to the Sinners. Besides, when they had enough to take in Derek or the whole damn club, they’d know exactly who had turned in the blade because Tess was the only person who knew where it was.

  There would be retaliation.

  She had no doubt of that.

  Scared, she rubbed her cheek and winced at how swollen and painful it had already grown. They could go after her family and Lizzy and Ricardo both. Besides, if they were such extensive meth dealers in this town, didn’t it follow they had people in the police department and mayor’s office under their thumbs?

  If she or Lizzy or both of them turned the blade over, she’d be signing the death warrant for everyone she loved.

  “How well could the Boone P.D. even protect us? Once it’s in evidence and they start busting up the clubhouse, the Sinners will know. I can’t explain to my parents why their house was burned to the ground. God, what if they came after you and put a bullet in your head?”

  “They wouldn’t. Ricardo’s great, and the cops are competent.”

  “Do you want to bet your life on the fact everyone in the Boone P.D. is on the level?”

  “Do you want to hide a murder weapon and never force Derek and his gang to face justice?”

  Tess brushed a hand through her long, pale gold hair. “I promised Mom not an hour ago that I’d always play it safe from now on. We’ve been through too much for one stupid one night stand to get us all roughed up or killed.”

  Despite everything, Lizzy grinned. “So you guys did?”

  “God, Lizzy, yes, but it was a huge mistake. He’s a monster. I just need a few days to figure this out, a way to get it anonymously to the station. The Blacktop Sinners won’t get away with anything, but I’m not going to get you or my family hurt by doing it the sloppy way, okay?”

  “As long as you’re not backing out of the right thing because of blue eyes and a six pack.”

  “Oh it’s an eight pack,” she said, blushing even at the thought of Derek’s amazing abs.

  Lizzy glared back at her. “Do the right thing. I agree we can’t be too fast about it or be obviously traced, but we have to do the right thing. I…you have a week and then I have to tell Ricardo. I love him, and I can’t lie to him. That’s not right.”

  “Alright, deal,” Tess said, biting her lower lip and already trying to run through whatever options she might have. “So Mom said she’d make extra chicken for tonight. Do you want to stay? Get some more fuel before an hour ride home?”

  “No, not this time. Not when I’m your scapegoat,” Lizzy said, stomping out of the room.

  ***

  “I noticed that Lizzy left in quite a hurry,” her mom said, as she finished slicing a huge piece of apple pie for her.

  Tess sighed and started stabbing half-heartedly at the crust with her fork. “She actually has work coming up tomorrow. She was just tired and needed the rest.”

  “She peeled out so fast that she left graveling flying around all over everywhere,” Sarah said.

  “Sarah, Dan, maybe it’d be best if you left,” her mother said.

  “I understand dear,” her father replied, standing and helping to usher Sarah to the living room.

  Tess frowned and pushed her plate away completely. If there was going to be a serious conversation, then she had no energy to eat. “It’s complicated. Lizzy’s been setting me up on bad blind dates and pressuring me to get out there more.”

  “That’s not a terrible idea.”

  “Trust me, this time it was. Derek was a complete freaking disaster.”

  “Maybe, but you must be hung up on him even now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” her mom said, smirking back at her. “You mentioned his name. I don’t think you’ve done that since the accident.”

  “Mom---”

  “Sweetie, I know you loved your brother. I understand how much you two meant to each other since it was originally you two against the world.”

  “He was my only biological relative left,” she said, her tone brittle. She rarely said things like that because it hurt her mom and dad’s feelings, but she still had felt closer to Jason than anyone in the world. Him being snuffed out like that was the harshest pain she’d ever known, although the sting of betrayal from Derek was a close second. Tess hated being treated like a fool.

  “I’m so sorry, but if Lizzy was encouraging you to get back into life, then I think I’m on her side.”

  “And I’m trying.”

  She sighed and stroked Tess’s hair from across the table. “I wish you were. Sweetie, it’s like both of you died, and I hate that for you.”

  Tess stood quickly and shoved the chair hard under the table. “I can’t do this right now. Everything with Derek is way too complicated. I have to go.”

  Her mom reached out for her hand but Tess pulled away. “You can’t run away from pain forever. Honey, you just have to stop running.”

  “Maybe I feel like I’ll never stop,” she said as she rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  Tess stopped at the threshold to Jason’s room and eased open the door. Unbidden, she turned the knob and let it swing open. It was impossible to go in, or at least she’d always felt that way. It was like the perfect tomb or shrine, nothing changed from before, even his fun fossil kit she’d bought him frozen half finished. If she tried hard enough and built up her denial fiercely, Tess could imagine him rushing in late and coming into his room to finish everything. It was a fantasy she’d indulged in for so long.

  It was something that kept her sane, even if denial wasn’t healthy long term.

  It was all she had.

  Biting her lip, Tess tried to force back an idea, one she wished she hadn’t had. Something deep inside of her was whispering that she had the perfect place to hide the switchblade until it was time. She’d be staying with her parents this week and Mom had used “just doing laundry” in the past as a way to snoop through things. The last thing Tess needed was to explain a bloody weapon in her damn underwear drawer.

  But, except for Sarah about once a year, no one went into Jason’s room.

  She wasn’t even sure if she could do it, but if it kept the weapon hidden until she figured out how to get it safely to Ricardo, then it was worth it. Tess rubbed her cheek again. There was no way she’d let the likes of Bones and Bullet and all the other biker thugs hurt her family because she got too careless. It was time for her to pay for and work to correct her mistakes.

  Rushing to her room and grabbing the switchblade, Tess took a deep breath and hesitated
once more at her brother’s room’s threshold.

  It’s just a room, the actual ghosts aren’t here anyway.

  The first step was the hardest, and it hit her gut like a sledgehammer. She’d broken the sanctum and now it was just a room, one far too quiet and with dust that filtered through the air and clogged her sensitive nose. Heading over to his desk, she let her fingers trail over the fossil kit she’d bought him. The fake bone was only partially exposed. She picked up the kid-approved chisel and, on a lark, shoved it in her pocket. Then she pulled out the switchblade from her other pants pocket and held it in her hands.

  Odd, shouldn’t something with so much power to destroy her life and her family weigh more? Shouldn’t it feel heavier?

  Sighing, she set it in the cup of pens and pencils that had always sat on Jason’s desk. It would be hidden there, camouflaged and no one would want it.

  “Help me hide this, Jas, for a while longer.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Derek stumbled like a man who’d had quite a few too many shots of Jack out of Tess’s home. He probably should have been more relieved that none of his gang was still waiting outside for a double cross. Smitty was beyond impatient, and it worried Derek. Someone on their side had to have set the whole original deal up, right? Was Smitty under Trent’s direction and looking to move over into the hierarchy of the Death’s Head crew? Was there a huge motivation for the other man to make sure that Derek never got the blade back?

  It sure fucking felt like it.

  Still, as bad as being pummeled by two huge enforcers for the Blacktop Sinners and their vice president would have been, that was the least of Derek’s problems. Tess. Dear God, Tess. She’d gotten under his skin in so short a time. No one had really shown him kindness and trust outside of Ron and, at one time, he’d thought the rest of the Sinners. At first, he’d assumed it was just because that was Tess’s nature. She was a nurse after all, and it was her job to care for other people. But the night under the stars it had felt like so much more, like they were connecting soul to soul. She understood the loneliness and isolation of foster care. Hell, if things had turned out better, if he’d been lucky enough to get a good family instead of the shit parade of foster burn outs, maybe he’d have ended up something decent like a doctor or a nurse too.

  The way she’d screamed at him.

  Damn it, there was no way to make her understand. Yes, asking her out at first had been about getting the blade and getting the info he needed to keep himself alive and his president out of the state pen. It was so much more than that. He’d started to actually fall for his little blondie, and to have her throw him out like so much garbage hurt worse than his broken toes or the nasty head wound he’d gotten crashing his motorcycle.

  He needed her to listen, but Derek needed out of her front yard more.

  If she called the cops on him, he had zero answers for anyone, and his three strikes were about to be out.

  As he passed by her car, his throat clenched at how the door was still left open. After all, Bones and Bullet had dragged her out by her shirt collar. There’d been not time for discretion, apparently, or for shutting the door after they’d done their damage. Something bright and glinting caught his attention then and he got to his hands and knees.

  Eureka!

  There in the puddle collecting between her front right tire and the curb was the St. Christopher medal she valued so much. Maybe he could rush that back to her. It could be an overture, something that would maybe help calm her long enough to explain everything. He wasn’t a killer in this case. Yes, he’d gone to prison last time for manslaughter in a rumble against the Death’s Head crew, but that was a heat of the moment thing. He wasn’t cold blooded or ruthless like that. It was more than he could say for Trent and whoever else from the Death’s Head crew who had set him, Spike, and Ron up to die in an ambush.

  If only he could get her to listen. Grabbing the vaunted silver chain and shoving it in his denim jacket pocket (his leather cut from the Blacktop Sinners had been cut off of him at the hospital and was in pieces), he was about to stand when he felt the cold press of steel against his neck.

  “Drop it,” a muffled voice growled.

  Derek froze, thinking that perhaps the Death’s Head had stalked them too. Hell, he wouldn’t put it past Smitty to have sent a probie after him, just to fuck with him.

  “I have more than a day left. Deadlines and oaths matter for the club. Everyone knows this.”

  “Then why are you fucking around your sweetbutt’s house, Deri.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief and stood up. Turning around, he slapped his best friend and almost-brother upside the head. “Are you kidding me, Ron?”

  His friend shrugged and shoved his nine mil back out of sight in the back of his jeans’ waist band. “Look, I’m making a point. You’re basically Boone’s most wanted between the cops, the Death’s Head and our guys. You don’t have time to be playing in puddles, man. It was me this time, but next time? It could be a fuck ton worse.”

  He grumbled and started stalking to his truck. “Or you could have taken years off me by sneaking up on me, brother. What the fuck?”

  “You’re getting sloppy. Your hot nurse---”

  “Tess!” he said, whirling around and grabbing Ron by the lapels. “Her name is Tess, she’s not just some ‘hot nurse,’ and she sure as hell didn’t deserve for Smitty, Bones and Bullet to rough her up.”

  Ron’s smirk disappeared instantly. Good, now they were both on the same wavelength and nothing was funny right now. “What?”

  “Oh yeah. Did you know about that? Did Spike order that to happen? I didn’t know that was his kink. He’s usually fair and doesn’t make family members or loved ones pay if the debt is square or provisions are in place.”

  Ron whistled shrilly and pulled away, his hands held up high. “Man, I’m serious, Spike didn’t order that. You think if he did that I wouldn’t have warned you or been here too to stop the junior varsity?”

  “Of course not,” he said, his brow furrowed in confusion. With how many alliances were topsy turvy now, to be honest, Derek wasn’t sure what he believed anymore. “But then that means right now we have a rogue VP who thinks he knows best how to run the Sinners. For him, that includes trying to drag Tess into it.”

  “She does know where the blade is or at least where lost and found would be, right?”

  “At least where lost and found is,” he said, hedging about the blade. She’d found it and tested it, been more than prepared to call him on any bullshit he’d tried to work through. “Then we need to get to it ourselves. If we just get it and get it to Spike then this nightmare ends,” Derek finished as he opened his truck door.

  Ron followed suit and pulled on his seat belt. “Then what are we waiting for, Deri, we get to the hospital, go all Mission Impossible, and drag it back out.”

  “No more nicknames. God, we’re not eight.”

  “No, but we’re about to raise a hell of a lot of trouble. So that’s just like old times,” Ron said, smirking again and Derek just rolled his eyes. That smirk always meant that bad things were on the way, but at least he had his best friend in his corner. If he didn’t, Derek might just have gone mad.

  ***

  “Brother, I think that avocado green is completely not your color,” Ron said, slipping on the face mask and also a hair covering. Covered up like that, it would be hard to tell him from any other orderly or candy striper who hadn’t taken off their anti-contamination gear. Still, Derek resented the fact the other man, almost six inches shorter, was able to wear blue.

  “It’s fine. We get to the nurses’ station, make some bullshit up about being new and get our asses down to the lost and found and hunt like crazy,” Derek said.

  “Just saying, you look like a big 1970s refrigerator. It’s not a good look.”

  “It’s moot with everyone packing in this county on our asses,” he said, slipping his own mask into place and striding out of the closet do
or.

  Slipping in there had been hard enough, but a few lies at the front desk about a sick aunt and then smiling pretty for an actual candy striper had gotten them through the first bids of the so-called security at Boone General. Derek led the way as he walked down the winding, color-coded corridors. Currently the magenta walls indicated if they kept going another hundred yards that they’d be at the emergency desk.

  He at least knew that and figured the lost and found for the E.R. had to be close to the actual E.R., even if hospital policies were probably far from sensible or logical. He stopped at the desk and swallowed hard. It was very late that night, and he hadn’t expected the other nurse who attended to him that night to be there. Was it Lizzy? That was the woman who’d left the first voice message for him, wasn’t it?