by Tia Siren
“Where is she?” Java yelled.
A sudden worry crept into Anton. Tasia?
“Hey, I’m talking to you. Answer me!”
A horse’s riding crop whipped against his face, head, neck, chest – anywhere it hit. It was painful like his father’s beating when he was just a kid. His most feared nightmare came to life. He hated pain. He’d had his fair of it since he was a boy. But, would he give in?
“I-I don’t know,” He replied weakly.
“Liar!” Another whip struck his face.
Flesh split in half, his wound kept oozing blood. He was determined to keep his family safe. Although he never wished to leave his unborn child fatherless, he could not afford to lose them either. One way or the other, someone had to make a sacrifice.
He already made a decision. And he was adamant to stick with it. Death’s grip had no power over him.
“Tell me, or else I’m gonna tear you and your slut girl into pieces.”
Slut? How dare you! Fury boiled in Anton’s blood. “Be careful with your mouth, you fat cunt!”
Java stepped back slightly, frightened to see him turned red in wrath.
“What would you do now? You’re bound and helpless. No one can help you. She’s not here, and she’ll be gone forever when I find the cave she’s hiding in.”
“Don’t you dare lay your hands on her. I have many tentacles, Java. I could easily kill you in this instance.”
“Oh, really? What about if I cut one off?”
He whipped his left leg repeatedly to the point where Anton could no longer bear the pain in silence. He screamed in an agonizing cry, calling Tasia’s name for help. He kept on struggling, and at one point the rusty plumbing pipe broke where he was tied on.
Java fell over by the pipe’s impact. It hit his right thigh, pushing him away.
Realizing luck was on his side for the first time, he stood up in relief. A shadow in the drainage caught his attention. Papa? He thought as he saw his father’s reflection in the dirty water.
It must have been his own hallucination created by his initial insensibility during the time he was unconscious.
It as it gave him the strength to face Java.
“I told you I have many tentacles. Bad grass is hard to die. Say your last prayer.”
No one was left in the underground, except Anton alone.
It was now Java’s turn to taste the dose of his own medicine.
Chapter Nine
Sitting by the window, Tasia’s mother, Tonya, was thinking about her daughter. She was regretful of gambling their house for the sake of her entertainment. Tasia had not come back home for over a year now. She spent Christmas alone. No gifts. No Christmas trees. Just a simple meal.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Someone was outside the entrance door.
“Who’s that?” Tonya yelled.
No one answered. Instead, the knock kept on going, louder and louder.
For goodness’ sake. Who’s that? “I’ll be right there. Hang on minute….”
As she opened the door, a slim black woman stood before her with a baby girl clutched in her arm. She did not recognize her. She had changed so much. That little girl she had once taken care of was now a full grown woman.
“Tasia? Is that you?” Tears welled up in Tonya’s eyes. Disbelief clouded her mind.
“Mama?” Tasia began to cry.
“It’s you. Thank goodness, you’re alive. Oh, my daughter…”
Lifting her arms up, Tonya let them rest on her daughter’s shoulders as she pulled her in closer, savoring the moment. Every second of it was more precious than diamonds. It was a gold that can never be purchased, its value beyond a price one could afford.
The baby smiled at her grandmother sweetly, entertained by her reaction.
“Is that my granddaughter, Tasia?”
“Yes, Mama. Her name is Alexis.”
“Oh, sweet heaven. She’s beautiful!”
“Like mother, like daughter.” She laughed.
“Where’s your husband?”
“Ummm… Let’s talk about that inside Mama. I don’t think this is a good place for that topic.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry, darling. Come on in.” Tonya shut the door.
****
It had been days since Tasia had arrived back in Chicago. Since then, she had been praying that her mother would not ask about Alexis’ father. She thought Anton was already dead, and she did not want to keep her hope up, afraid to be hurt again.
Since he was gone, Alexis had been her source of strength. She was the reason she found the courage to visit her mother again. Without her child, she would have gone insane by now.
“Alright, Alexis, mommy and grandma will take you to the park. You like that, don’t yah?”
Alexis giggled, exposing her toothless gums.
“Mama…”
“Yes, Tasia?”
“Are you ready? I’m gonna take Alexis to the car, alright?”
“Yes, darling. Just make sure you put her in the car-seat. She’s not allowed in the front passenger seat.”
“Cool. Thanks!” Tasia made her way down the stairs to the carport where the car was parked.
Driving to the park, Anton came to her remembrance as she noticed Alexis was sleeping. She really looks like her dad when she’s asleep.
As they came to stop at the intersection, Tonya noticed her agitated face. “Is there something bothering you?”
“Ha? Ah, no… I’m alright, Mama. I’m just thinking of what we should feed Alexis when she wakes up.” She lied.
Truth be told. She was thinking of Anton.
Sitting on a red picnic mantle, she watched her baby crawl around. How she wished Anton was there to see their daughter’s growth. But he was not. He was dead. As least that was what she thought.
Not far off, Anton stood under a tree, trying to find the courage to approach his family. Papa, if you ever hear me, please help me be a father that I should be to my daughter.
Since the time Anton saw his father’s reflection during the fight with Java, he was convinced his father had long desired his forgiveness. As Anton allowed himself to forgive, a sense of relief followed him all the time. It was the power of forgiveness that had taught him healing.
A cold breeze hissed at him. Goosebumps stood up on his skin. Was it his father’s spirit who was helping him out?
“Alexis, don’t go that far,” Tasia told her daughter.
Oblivious to who was behind her, a hand grabbed Tasia’s shoulder. She recognized his smell and the texture of his palm. Don’t tell me his ghost is haunting me?
Every doubt was abolished when she heard him speak.
“Tasia?”
She could not get it wrong. His strong, but soft Russian accent was remarkable.
“Anton?” She excitedly turned.
Gems of precious tears began to roll down involuntarily from their eyes. They were both speechless – tamed with surprise and gladness that miracles really do happen. And a happy ending was possible.
“How did you find us?” She asked with thankfulness in her voice.
“I’d do everything to find you and our daughter.”
He shifted his gaze at Alexis while she was crawling around, exploring her skills. She got her golden brown hair from her father. Her eyes were Hazel, a little bit lighter than her mother’s eyes. But her skin tone was mixed. A little lighter than Tasia’s. And a little darker than Anton’s.
“She’s beautiful. She looks just like you, Tasia. Can I hold her?”
“Yes, of course. She’s your daughter, you know. Our child.” Tasia blushed.
Taking her up from the ground, she wiggled her hands as she played with her father’s nose and eyes. Her smile was priceless. Suddenly Anton felt that same sensation of love that his father must have felt when he had held Anton for the first time.
Watching, Tasia was crying. The tears of pain and sorrow were replaced with tears of joy and thanksgiving. Finally, they could now live
in peace and harmony without worrying about tomorrow.
She stood up, and then approached them. As she did, Anton wrapped his arm around her while the other was holding Alexis – the chain that interlocked them together.
****
THE END
MC Biker Romance Collection
MOTORCYCLE CLUB Romance – Bad Boy Biker’s Baby
1
Sherry Loveland hated her new job, but at least it was paying the bills. And it was a good starting point, with a lot of opportunities to move up within the company. She lived in Texas, near the border, in a small town called Happy. Happy, Texas, was anything but, with dusty roads and small squat homes and shops along Main Street.
Sherry had always been good with numbers, and she had found a job as an accountant for a small company that sold plastic to larger companies who then molded the plastic into something. Water bottles mostly. It was boring work in a boring building with boring people. But, maybe, boring was exactly what Sherry needed.
Growing up most of her friends had called her Love, a play on her name and the fact that she burned through men the way other people burned through underwear. Sherry was short with round hips and big breasts, and she had long blond hair that men loved to take hold of while they were in bed.
Sherry had grown up in Oklahoma, and it was right after high school that she met Randy, a tall, athletic man a few years older who played minor league baseball. He had swept her off her feet and then revealed his true colors. He was, to put it quite frankly, the way Sherry had said to her best friend, Sue, an asshole. The relationship had lasted two years; the whole time Sherry had been telling herself to leave. Finally, she did. And when she did something, she did it right. She didn’t just leave Randy; she left Oklahoma.
And she ended up in Happy and got her boring job. She had been there a little over three months, and the only thing in Happy, Texas, that she found made her happy was Earl’s, a shady biker bar on the outskirts of town. It was filled with rough men, loose women, and a blaring jukebox that hadn’t been updated since the eighties. It was exactly the kind of place Sherry had always loved.
It was Friday night when Sherry met him, the man who would change her life. She left work and headed straight for Earl’s. She had worked late, trying to win favor from her boss, an old man named Michael who was stingy with money. She could use a raise; the small apartment she rented near the center of town had a bug problem and an obnoxious neighbor problem as well. There were a number of nice little homes in town, empty and waiting for her. On her salary, though, she couldn’t afford one.
One step at a time; that was what Sherry kept telling herself. She was young still, just twenty-one, and she had just left a horrible man who didn’t deserve her. She had left everything behind in Oklahoma—her friends, her family, the stupid nickname. She wasn’t Love anymore; she was herself. Sherry. She just needed her job, and Earl’s, and she would make it.
Earl’s was a wooden building that seemed as though it might fall over in a stiff breeze. The parking lot was gravel, and there were always a few cars in it, and a long line of Harley’s at the entrance. Sherry pulled into a spot near the door and headed for the bar.
She was a bit overdressed, she knew; most of the women in the bar would be dressed like the men: blue jeans, T-shirts, leather vests. Biker chicks. Sherry was attracted to bad boys, but she would never call herself a biker chick. She was dressed for work, with a short skirt and heels and a tight-fitting blouse. She knew her boss, Michael, had hired her for her big tits more than her way with numbers, though her way with numbers was just as impressive as her bust, so she played up her good looks in hopes that the man would want to keep her around. Sherry was smart, and she had no problem playing to any strengths she had, including the looks she had been blessed with.
She had worked late enough that, as she stepped into the bar, the sky outside was rather dark, the sun just a bright line on the western horizon. Heads turned as she made for the bar, sitting on a stool there and folding one hosed leg over the other.
She had come to recognize some of the faces, older men and women who came every day, or at least every Friday and Saturday like Sherry.
But there was a new group now, in the corner, seven or so men and a few women. One man seemed to be holding court, sitting at the head of the long table and downing beer from a massive glass stein. He was relatively young. Sherry wouldn’t put him past thirty, while a lot of the men in Earl’s had thick gray beards that put them near fifty or even sixty. This man was clean shaven, or at least for a biker, which he clearly was; stubble grew on his chin and upper lip, dark like his hair. He wore a black vest with nothing underneath, and as Sherry sipped at a beer and watched him, he turned, and she saw a coiled snake sitting atop a skull on the back of his vest. Other men at the table wore the same symbol, as well as one of the women, a thick girl with red hair.
The man saw Sherry and kept glancing in her direction, and Sherry was sure he was going to come up to her. But before he ever could, the night wore on and a fight broke out.
There had been scuffles at Earl’s almost every night Sherry had been there, but this one was something more. A man in a vest with a different insignia came up to speak with the young man with the stubble. Their voices grew louder, and then fists were flying. Other men came to join them, and then the whole place was nothing but yelling and fighting and punching.
A switchblade came out and one man was stabbed. He fell back on wild feet, knocking into the bar, shaking it so violently that Sherry had to reach forward and steady her beer. Earl himself was behind the bar most nights, and he was a big man with a beard that fell almost to his belly button.
“Enough!” he roared. “No stabbing in here, you idiots.”
The fight stopped for a moment, and then one man yelled for everyone to go outside, and they did. Sherry had always been drawn to excitement, so she followed the brawl outside and stood near the front door with the other women. Almost every man in the bar had chosen a side and was fighting, and Sherry saw that even the man who had been stabbed was fighting once more, a hand clamped determinedly over his bleeding gut. The bikers were all careful to keep away from the row of motorcycles; that much was plain. But they paid no such respect to the cars in the parking lot. And as Sherry watched on in horror, the handsome man with the chin stubble lifted a fat guy into the air and slammed him onto her car. Her car. The windshield shattered.
Without thought, Sherry marched into the midst of the fighting and tapped the man with the stubble on the shoulder. He spun around, his fist raised as if to strike her. But when he saw it was a woman, he put his hand down.
“What do you want?” he snarled. “I’m busy here.”
Sherry saw that his name was sewn onto the lapel of his leather vest, or at least a nickname: Colt.
“That’s my damned car!” Sherry shouted. She had been with an abusive man for too long to be afraid of Colt.
“Get out of here. You’re going to get hurt,” Colt said, and he took her by the arm and led her back to the entrance of Earl’s.
“What about my car?”
“Why don’t you go order us a couple of beers, sweet thing, and when I’m done kicking ass out here, we can talk it over.”
And with that, he turned and dove back into the ruckus. Sherry fumed, but she did as the man had asked. She went in and claimed a small table after ordering two beers, and twenty minutes later the cops had been called, the fight had broken up, and a few men had been carted off to jail. Colt wasn’t one of them—even though the fight had started with him and the other man—and he came in and sat across from Sherry. She waited for him to speak, but first he took his beer and downed the whole thing.
“You only got me one?” he asked, smiling across the table.
“You broke my windshield. I can’t drive like that. I can’t afford to fix it.”
“Well shit, if it’s all just money,” Colt said, and he pulled out a thick wallet and tossed a couple of hundred dollar
bills in front of her. “That should cover it. And I can give you a ride tonight.”
Sherry didn’t know what to say. Colt grinned and held out his hand. “I’m Colt,” he said. Sherry shook it.
“That’s a stupid name,” she said, and Colt laughed.
“It’s not my real name. It’s like the gun. Big, powerful.”
“You aren’t that big,” Sherry said. She was annoyed by the man’s bravado, and she was even more annoyed that she felt a strong attraction to him.
Colt just laughed, but Sherry was pretty sure he flexed his muscles a bit as he did so. She couldn’t help but smile.
“You new here?” he asked her then. “I ain’t never seen you before.”
“Moved her a couple of months ago. I’ve been here every weekend. Where you been?”
“I like to ride,” he said, and he didn’t elaborate.
“That’s a fancy vest,” Sherry said.
Colt frowned as he looked at her, trying to decide if she was making fun of him or not. “You heard of the Vipers?”
“No. Is that your club?”
“Yeah. My daddy started it. I run it now.”
“I don’t know much about motorcycles,” Sherry said truthfully.
“Then why you hanging out in a biker bar?”
“Cheapest beer,” the she said with a grin, and Colt couldn’t help but return it.
“You want another one?” Colt asked as he stood, and in answer, Sherry slammed her head back and downed her beer.
They had a few more drinks. Time passed and soon it was after midnight. When Sherry and Colt stepped out of the bar, the sky was as black as pitch, except for the millions of stars shining among thick gray clouds.
Colt led the way to his bike, a monstrous thing made of chrome and metal, and offered her a helmet he had sitting on the back of the bike. He didn’t put one on himself. Sherry slid the helmet over her head and then climbed on behind him, having to forgo modesty in her short skirt.
The handsome, muscular man backed the bike out of its spot and then kicked the engine on. The thing roared like an animal, and they were off.
