Corrupted: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Blacktop Sinners MC)

by Kathryn Thomas

“Hell yes. We were supposed to kill Spike, but word is the cops are hot on the investigation. His ass in Butner state pen is good enough for us.”

  “And which one of us---” Derek started and was cut off by the loud bang of a gun. He flinched as the noise rang through his ears and when he looked back, the punk was already sagging to the ground and out of Ron’s reach. “The Hell?”

  Two more bullets ricocheted near them, one so close it almost clipped his cheek.

  “Fucking Death’s Head, man!” Ron shouted, and they rushed back to their bikes, barely dodging shots as they did it.

  Great, all they knew was that there was, for sure, a traitor in their midst who wanted the president dead. They had no proof, no way to stop the blade yet from getting to police hands---even if Johnson was on the take, it wasn’t a guarantee, and their one leak was fucking stiff. Shouting his frustration, Derek mounted his hog and raced back to his home. He was in no mood to be a repeat customer at Boone General; that was for sure.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Derek and Ron were stopped at the door to the roadhouse the next afternoon. He rolled his eyes at some meathead probie and Bullet, his mullet exceptionally greasy and tangled today, standing before them with their arms crossed over his chest. Bullet did the talking, his voice sibilant and wheezy.

  “Do you have the blade, yet, traitor?”

  “Funny you mention that,” Derek said. “I’m not a traitor, but the blade we’re still working on. We tried to break into the hospital, didn’t work, but we found something else out last night, and Spike needs to hear it.”

  Bullet shook his head. “I let you in and you promise shit won’t start?”

  “It never started before early this week.”

  Ron held up his hand. “I appreciate you enforcing, brother, but Derek’s still one of us.”

  “Traitor won’t be breathing in twenty-four hours.”

  Ron smashed his fist hard into Bullet’s eyes, and the other guy groaned as he grabbed it. “He was, is, and always will be so shut the fuck up.”

  The probie snickered but stepped aside. “Welcome home then, Grinder. Spike’s in the back office doing some books.”

  “Gotcha,” Derek said, striding past them and making a bee line for the back office.

  It was harder than he wanted to admit to deal with the stares and judgment of everything around him. This was supposed to be his family and one set of highly suspicious circumstances, and he was some prodigal son, kicked out on his ass. Fuck them. Even if he understood the caution, even if he knew were it Bones or Bullet in his place, he’d be almost as tough on them, it all burned like the bitterest acid.

  Ron seemed to sense his dour mood and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get that damn blade, and then we’ll make it work, promise. Tomorrow night? You’ll be the damn conquering hero, brother.”

  “Thanks man,” he said as they entered into Spike’s office.

  The other man looked up at them from his desk. His eyes, the color of glaciers, regarded them through a mass of stringy, black hair. “Do you have it?”

  Derek bowed his head a bit in deference to his president. He’d been promoted to lead enforcer three years ago and had literally bled for Spike, still would give anything to keep him safe or make sure his word was law. While he regretted the way Tess looked at him, now that she knew what he did, he would never regret what he’d done. He did what he had to in order to keep his club and his leader safe.

  Loyalty above all else.

  It was a damn shame that someone in their club didn’t feel the same way.

  “I don’t. Going back to the nurse’s in a few to get her to confess where she stashed it. I don’t need to beat her like fucking Smitty.”

  Spike’s eyes widened. “I ordered them to search her place. We don’t need the extra cop pressure from a beaten nurse. Johnson is good, but he can’t make everything disappear.”

  “Agreed, and I can level with her. I tried persuading and stealing and even bedding her,” he forced his tone to remain hard, even if it was difficult. He didn’t think of Tess at all like just another fuck, but he couldn’t sell that to Spike if he didn’t put everything he had into it. “I’ll get that knife in time.”

  “Good because you know I like you, but it looks terrible, Grinder. I can’t change the rules for you or show favoritism. In twenty-four hours, they’ll march you out back, you won’t return, and Ron will be the head enforcer.”

  Derek swallowed hard. “Rules are rules, boss, and that’s why we set them up, agreed to the charter.”

  Ron grimaced. “But if we could get a couple extra days, boss. We found something huge.”

  Spike shook his head. “Favoritism makes people get itchy, and I just can’t. Sorry.”

  Derek sighed and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder to restrain him. “It’s okay. I respect that, but we do have a huge problem. We went by the Death’s Head main deal spot and roughed up one of their low level club members.”

  “For some blow?”

  “No,” Ron said, fielding the question. “We actually found out something. Confirms that someone in the club is betraying us. He said the bulk of the DHC knew it was a board member or inner circle. Frankly, boss, my gut says Smitty. Why else is he so eager to short circuit things and get his paws on the switchblade first?”

  Spike narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t bring that lowlife here for a real workover?”

  “Weird thing. The Death’s Head must have known we were coming. They iced him right in front of us,” Derek said.

  “So no proof again,” Spike said, cracking his knuckles.

  “No, but it’s enough to add in with the clear set up. I am afraid that one of the board---not me---is fucking with us, and you need to start assessing that quietly. Once the blade’s back, I’ll be able to help too,” Derek added.

  Spike gave a brisk nod. “I knew we had a traitor, but I was hoping it wasn’t board, that’s a hell of a blow if it’s true.”

  Ron shifted from foot to foot before nodding. “Hell yes it is. So why shiv Derek now?”

  “Because I know he can get the damn blade, and he lost it, so he needs to man up and fucking get it,” Spike finished. “Don’t question me, Ron, that’s not how this works. We ain’t a fucking democracy, and everyone knows that.”

  “Ron, let’s go,” Derek said, feeling that Spike’s good mood, so to speak, was over. “I need a drink, and then I’ll go see Tess.”

  Spike glanced up at him, blue eyes glittering dangerously. “See that you do and that it works. I’d hate to lose an enforcer like you.”

  ***

  “Two Coronas,” he said, slumping into his stool. Derek tried to ignore how everyone moved away from him and the heated whispers. Maybe he could just focus on enjoying the extra leg room and the lack of the rancid stink of sweat through leather. “You can still do that for me, right Trixie?”

  The bleach blonde glared at him. “Sure, and I can add the arsenic or the cyanide. You pick, asshole. More than Spike would have done if he weren’t quick on his feet.”

  Ron slammed his fist on the bar. “Drinks now. Just cause you’re an old lady around here doesn’t mean that you get the right to act like more than you are. Sweet butt comes and goes, but we’re something better than that.”

  She sneered. “Let me not forget my place. But you better be getting that blade. My man isn’t going up river. I am not allowed that,” she finished as she slammed two suspiciously warm bottles in front of them.

  Damn, their fucking cooling system must be going south again.

  “I’m working on it,” he said. “Life’s a beach, ain’t it, Ron?”

  “Had worse.”

  “Not usually quite as imminent death threats.”

  “Eh, we made it through everything before, got out of wicked beatings at juvie or that time we were at the foster family where it was cloves and vinegar and not much else in the kitchen,” Ron said.

  “That’s the year I learned to shop lift pro
duce like a pro.”

  “Definitely, so this,” Ron said, gesturing to the see of scowling faces. “Is temporary. Drink your piss beer and get your game face on. That bitch Tess is gonna crack and she’s gonna crack today.”

  Derek shrugged and, he couldn’t explain it, just had this feeling to check the door way. Maybe something deep in his gut had sensed it or was just calling to him. As he watched, Tess entered through the door, but she wasn’t done up in any way he’d ever seen her before. She was in high black heels, jeans so tight you’d have to cut them off her and they hugged her ass like crazy, and a tight red t-shirt that stretched invitingly over her cleavage. Her make-up was exaggerated with super red lips and smoky eyes that actually achieved the sensual look that so much sweet butt around her tried and failed to replicate.

  Whistling, he felt his dick harden even as every man in the club eyed her. Heat flared through him, and his protective instincts were roaring. Standing up, he walked over to her and grabbed her arm. The other men in the club were leering, and he shook his head.

  This woman is mine.

  He was sure the rest of them could get that with the way he was looming, something easy to achieve when he was 6’6” and towered anyway.

  Without speaking, he pulled her to the corner of the club with the sofas (with questionable stains) and the stripper pole complete with stage. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

  “We need to talk because this shit stops now.”

  Chapter Twenty Three

  “We have to talk,” Tess said, sitting down on her brother’s bed. The comforter was curled in a ball on the floor and Dorito crumbs scattered over his sheets. God, you’d think at nineteen, he’d be more responsible. Of course, with Mom around to be the live-in maid, Jason was never going to learn responsibility. “I saw that monster parked out in the front of the driveway. The hell?”

  “The ‘monster,’” he said, his tone clipped as he turned away from his desk and the small dig-a-fossil toy she’d given him. “Is called Bertha.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “She’s large and in charge,” he quipped, hazel eyes twinkling back at her. She knew that look. It was his DefCon 1 of plotting. It was how he’d convinced her to shave the dog back in middle school. “Besides, why are you going to lecture me? Just because you’re in a nursing program…”

  “I’ve volunteered at clinics by now. I’ve seen people come in after an accident and end up as donors because they didn’t come back. I’ve gone to rehab centers and watched men and women both relearn to feed themselves or button their shirts. You don’t want that.”

  He stood up and slammed his chair into his desk. Then he started to pace. “You assume I’m that bad at shit.”

  “I don’t. It doesn’t matter how good you are at riding that hunk of garbage. If it’s a slick pavement or a car doesn’t see you in the blind spot, then you’re in pieces.”

  “I’m telling you that I can handle it.”

  “You shouldn’t be taking risks like this.”

  He glared back at her, eyes blazing like sapphires. “You’re not Mom.”

  She blinked. “I didn’t say I was.”

  “But you always treat me like some dumb kid. I’m tired of it. I know we’ve been through everything, but can’t you just be a normal big sister like Sarah? She said it was awesome and would be a chick magnet.”

  “I am a normal big sister, and Sarah’s nuts for encouraging this.”

  “You don’t have to guard me like a little kid. I’m not and just be happy for me for once.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “Please, you have to explain to me why this is okay, why you have to do this so much.”

  “Because she’s mine. I saved up for three years for her, bought her, and I love the way it makes me feel. Don’t you ever want to just be able to be anywhere?”

  “That’s what cars are for.”

  “It’s not the same. I love it here, and I love our fam, but I love having something that’s mine after so much bad shit too. Just can’t you try and see it my way, just once?”

  “I’m not that stubborn.”

  “You’re always stubborn, sis, and you never bend. I wish you would.”

  ***

  Tess swiped at her eyes and forced the threatening tears back. She’d cried too much yesterday over Derek and now she needed to figure out what everything meant, who next to turn to. The memory of her brother had come up unbidden, and she pushed that back too because she needed to focus. Chief Johnson would be watching her and was working for the Sinners, that Smitty creep would be back soon, and even Derek might track down her family in Asheville and figure out where she’d hidden the switchblade.

  But that conversation haunted her, almost as much as the amazing night under the stars where she thought she and Derek had shared something deep and moving. And that’s where she was, all of it circling around in her head. She was at odds with his violence and his real identity, but the tender man she’d felt and shared so much with was real. Everything in her soul and in her bones told her that part of him was far from an act. She should have kept her foot down long ago with Jason, but he wasn’t wrong.

  He was no more wrong than her mother now or Lizzy.

  She’d always been too uptight, too unwilling to bend or extend herself. She’d always judged first and then never changed her mind. She’d been right once upon a time about motorcycles, but she’d still underestimated her brother. It was a stupid decision, but he’d had the right at nineteen to make it. The more that memory raced through her mind, as well, the more she realized she hadn’t changed after the accident. No. A large part of her had always just existed, followed the rules. The accident made her close off even harder, but she’d always isolated herself, played the role she thought others needed her to play.

  Made up her mind and never changed it as if it were etched in granite.

  Maybe she needed to be more flexible about Derek. He was how she’d gotten into this mess, and he might be the only way she could get out of it. He’d saved her from Smitty, and he’d tried to explain. Maybe she owed him the chance to finish. Hell, she needed to try something different because her back was against the wall, and she was beyond terrified. But if she were going to the roadhouse to seek him out, she needed a serious makeover. Rushing to her closet, Tess was sure there were old Halloween costumes and gag gifts (thank you, Lizzy) that she could reuse.

  After all, she was a woman on a mission.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Every eye was on her.

  Women with even less on than she had---and where the hell had they found skirts that tiny---were staring daggers at her. Their hair was teased, and it looked like the lot of them were groupies from a hair band concert in the heyday of the 1980s. The guys were all huge, not quite as tall or as imposing as Derek. Her former lover was like a tree. Still, they loomed over her in a mix of imposing denim and scuffed leathers. The air reeked of sex, stale beer, and cigar smoke, and she coughed a bit; it was such a contrast to the more antiseptic setting of the hospital.

  She swallowed and stood up taller. It was something she could do marginally better in her four inch heels. Jutting out her chin, she was about to demand that they show her where Derek was when he showed up. Instantly, and despite everything, her body reacted. Her stomach flared with warmth and already she could feel herself grow wet, her panties more damp. It didn’t matter that he was a killer or that he ran with the toughest gang in town to her traitorous senses. He felt like home pressed up against her, and his scent, a mix of his own musk and cheap aftershave and leather, paradoxically made her feel safe and cared for.

  “Let’s go to a private corner,” he said, his voice gruff and husky. “Hell, it won’t be hard since I seem to be quite the pariah around here.”

  She glared up at him as he led her to a couch that looked like it needed to be scotch guarded STAT. No, cancel that. Based on the stains and white blotches, it probably just needed to be fire bombed. He sa
t, and she shook her head. She was in healthcare, no need for her to get extra exposure to bacteria.

  “We need to talk.”

  He arched an eyebrow at her, his demeanor cool and collected. “You say that now, but I tried to talk to you yesterday, and you blew me off. I don’t think you’re here to make demands.”

  “I know where the switchblade is,” she said, whispering it in his ear. Part of the streetwalker look was to make people think she was a new groupie hopeful. If they knew she was the nurse, recognized her, she’d be sliced and diced by men this ruthless. Of course, with the looks most of the club was giving her ass, maybe the women would do the honor first. “So you’ll want to talk to me.”

  “Maybe, but maybe I want something else first.”