Absolution (Heaven's Rejects MC Book 3)

by Avelyn Paige

  My heart begins to race at the sight of it. Could this be another gift from my father? What other evidence could he have on me to warrant this kind of display?

  “What is this?” the judge asks the officer, holding up a CD encased in plastic for the courtroom to see. “Is this a joke?”

  “Your honor, that disc was found alongside a written note of confession inside a vehicle of a burned home we found yesterday morning.”

  Burned house? Why would a burned down house have anything to do with my drug case?

  The answer suddenly flourishes within my mind and my stomach rolls. This can’t be happening. My father has faked his and Asher’s deaths to take off with him. That’s the only reasonable explanation for him to confess.

  The judge cocks an eyebrow at him, and waves for him to expand on that thought. Either this judge is a badass or this guy is a pussy for her to have to push him into speaking. Every fiber of my being is on edge and wants to scream out for him to spit it out already.

  “Have you listened to the disc, officer?”

  “Yes, your honor. The recording that it contains is that of a confession,” he stutters.

  “Bailiff,” she calls, considering his words carefully for a few seconds. “Please play this disc.”

  “Objection, your honor. This new evidence was not provided to us,” the state district attorney argues. “The State would like a chance to review it before it is presented as evidence in this case to prove authenticity of its origin. This could be a fake piece of evidence spearheaded by the defendant’s attorney for shock value.”

  “Overruled, counselor. Neither party has been given the opportunity to review this supposed confession, and it has been reviewed by the police department. I highly doubt that Chief Moulton would send this man here with fake evidence. He’s not that stupid to interrupt my court sessions with something trivial. My ruling stands. Bailiff, please proceed.”

  “Yes, your honor,” he scoffs, flopping down into his seat like a child about to start throwing a tantrum. He makes a show of shuffling and fidgeting in his seat, announcing his displeasure in the ruling.

  The bailiff retrieves the disc from the judge, and places it into the audio-visual equipment near the side of the room.

  A gruff voice begins to blare out of the speakers in the courtroom. I gasp as I listen to my father’s voice confess to planting the drugs in my car, and conspire to kill my brother. My body grows weak, and I nearly black out, but Leroy catches me.

  “I take it from Mrs. Azzo’s display of shock that this voice belongs to someone she knows. Do you have an identity, officer?”

  The recording concludes.

  “Yes, your honor,” he murmurs. “The note was signed by Ronald Boatman, and the name matches that of the homeowner.”

  “Do you have Mr. Boatman in custody, officer?” she questions him.

  “No, your honor. Mr. Boatman’s remains were found inside of the burning building.”

  Oh fuck. He didn’t. Please tell me that this wasn’t his form of a last goodbye to me. If my father was dead, why wasn’t Ratchet here?

  The judge looks to both of the attorneys and calls for a side bar. Leroy settles me in the chair, and heads for the judge’s bench. Each of the attorneys talk in muffled tones and animated waves of their hands with the judge, before stepping back toward their respective tables.

  “In light of this new information, I am dismissing all charges against Mrs. Azzo. Case dismissed.”

  The judge bangs her gavel onto the wooden platform, and my heart soars.

  I’m free.

  The only thing that could make this better would be for Ratchet to be here. As the thought crosses my mind, a prickle of tiny tingles roams my body. Pivoting to find the source, smile forms on my face. My husband stands at the bar behind me.

  “Hello, siren” he says to me. “Sorry, I’m late.”

  Without a word, I jump over the bar into his strong arms, wrapping my own around his neck. For the first time in a nearly a week, I feel at ease with him near. The fear and doubt that ruled me faded as soon as his lips descended on mine. I didn’t care that the judge, attorneys, or on lookers were viewing our display. Hiding away from the world was something that I was never going to do again. I would celebrate the little things, and the second chance at life that I was given by the grace of God. Maybe there was someone upstairs looking out for me after all.

  “I love you, Jude,” I tell him, before pulling him into another kiss.

  “I love you, Ricca.”

  He carries me out of the courtroom, still in his arms, never breaking the contact between us. It’s not until he sets be back onto my feet outside that I let all of the emotions from my incarnation out of me. I cry, I laugh, and I take my first real breath of freedom. Ratchet holds me, and lets me get it all out on the lawn of the courthouse. As the last bitter piece of darkness that has had a hold of my life flows out of me, an indescribable peace fills the void left behind.

  I am happy.

  I am loved.

  I am safe.

  When I settle, he takes my hands in his and pulls them against his heart. The rhythm of it beating beneath my outstretched fingers.

  “This heart is and always will be yours, Siren.”

  “As mine is for you,” I declare, repeating the same motion with his hand on my heart.

  “Your heart may be a little full for me to hold it all, Siren.”

  “What do you mean?” I question him, but he points behind me, and I see Asher leaning against a car with Raze and Slider flanking him.

  “How?” I ask, quickly looking back to my husband. “How is this even possible?”

  “I went to the judge this morning. That’s why I was late. I explained to him that your incarceration was false and that you’d be cleared of all charges today. Considering his legal guardian was no longer living, he granted our application to adopt him.”

  “Wait,” I croak out. “Are you saying what I think you are? Asher is ours?”

  “He’s ours.”

  I jump into my husband’s arms. Tears of the purest joy that could have been made on this Earth, fall from my cheeks as I hug him. My brother is ours. Never again having to be apart from me. I could give him the life that I never had, and maybe in doing that, find my own last bit of happiness.

  “I thought that we needed to have the home study back, and the DNA test? How did you get him to agree to all of this?”

  “The home study report came in this morning. The day you were arrested, the lab received the results. Nicole tried to call you, but it was after they picked you up. I also told him about your father’s plan.”

  “His plan?”

  Ratchet divulges to me his intentions and motives for wanting my brother still in his possession. My stomach heaves that the thought of my mother being involved in it too, and I am even more thankful she is dead because I would have killed her for it.

  “What if my father tries to come after him after the fact? What will we do?”

  “You don’t have to worry about him anymore, Siren. He’s not going to be a problem.”

  The words fall oddly off of his lips. I’m missing something buried underneath his words. I try to process everything that has happened today, and that’s when the realization hits me. My father wasn’t going to protest my adoption of Asher because he couldn’t. My husband did the only thing he knew what to do to protect our family. He killed my father, and the last piece of my past still walking the earth.

  “It was you that got him to confess on that CD, wasn’t it?”

  “There is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you, Siren. Believe me when I say that he will never bother you again,” Ratchet promises me.

  I could have asked more questions, but I didn’t need to do that. My husband had done something that no one else ever had. He protected me, and gave me the best gift of all, a family. A family that loves me. We may not be the most picturesque group, but not
all love looks like a Hallmark card. My family may have come at a cost to my own father, but that was his sin to bear for his plans and misdeeds. I hope that he and my mother enjoy their reunion in hell.

  Looking to him, I smile and take his hand in mine.

  “Let’s go home.”

  3 Months Later

  Being home with my family is a feeling that I don’t think will ever grow old. In all my years of living alone after my sister’s death, this felt right. Ginny was my home for so many years, and in her death, a piece of me died with her. The guilt that I felt had been washed away, and over time replaced with Ricca and Asher’s happiness.

  The transition here for Asher was tough at first. Much like my sister, he was reserved. He didn’t want to play with the other kids running around the club, and preferred to be alone. Until Wes and Colt, Darcy’s boys, finally found common ground with them. After that day, they were inseparable. And trouble all at the same time. Jagger’s personality ran wild in his boys, and adding in a bit of Ricca in Asher, and you had a volatile mix. The mischief was only yet to come for our families.

  Peering in on my sleeping wife in our bed, I smile. The dreams and nightmares that had haunted her for years drifted away, and she was finally sleeping through the night. Her panic attacks still happened from time to time, but they, too, were beginning to fade.

  I listen down the hallway, and find the house still quiet. Asher sleeps like the dead, but he’s an early riser. If I was going to make my move on my wife without interruption, it had to be now. I missed having her all to myself, and this may be my only chance today.

  I quietly pad to the dip, and try to get in without waking her, but I fail miserably. Her eyes snap open and lock onto mine as soon as my weight shifts the mattress.

  “Good morning, Siren,” I whisper to her placing a kiss on her lips.

  She returns the greeting, and stretches her muscles. Her smile beams in the early morning rays, peeking into the room through the blinds.

  My finger traces her exposed collarbone and travels down to her breast. Her nipples pebble as my thumb brushes against them lightly.

  “What are you doing?” she giggles, trying to pull the covers back over her naked body. One of the best things she adapted to in our marriage was the rule of no clothes in our bed with the doors securely locked. With Asher in the house, I need to take all the chances I could get to fuck my wife. This just eliminated one of the steps.

  “Can’t a man love his woman?” I tease back.

  “What about Asher?” she protests.

  “The kid is out cold in his room. And before you ask, yes, I locked the door. I need you, Siren.”

  She smiles at my candid request and rolls onto her side. Her tiny hand shifts underneath the blanket and wraps around my already hard cock.

  “Mmm,” she moans as she strokes me. “You’re so hard already.”

  “Siren, I am always hard when you’re around. The damn thing always salutes whenever you walk into a room. You’re like a homing beacon to my cock.”

  She giggles at my confession, and strokes me harder. My head falls back enjoying the sensation of her hand pumping me. The scent of her sex fills my nostrils, and I know that she’s already wet for me. My lips dip to her exposed neck, and she shudders as I lick and nip her collarbone. I can feel her pulse quicken underneath my mouth as I tease her favorite spot. Why kissing her collarbone turns her on so much, I will never know, but if that’s what gets her motor running, I’ll do it.

  She turns to look at me with my erect cock still in her hand, and bites her lip.

  “Touch me, please,” she asks sweetly.

  She adjusts her body, half rolling onto her back, and invites me to touch her. Not that I needed an invitation to touch my wife, but she likes to try to hold the power in the bedroom. And of course, I always let her.

  My hand slips underneath the sheet covering her lower half, and she shivers as I graze her cleanly shaven pussy. The soft skin glides with my touch, the wetness spilling out of her. She softly moans at my touch, and I slide a finger inside. Her clit is a hard, swollen nub of arousal, and I circle it once. Her soft moans turn louder, and her pelvis begins to move against my hand. I dip a finger lower and penetrate her. Her walls clench around me, and her hips increase their speed.

  She’s as worked up as I am. Living with Asher had come with unexpected challenges, and finding time for things like this were becoming fewer and farther in between. I had to make a point of sneaking off on my lunch hour from the security firm, when I could to catch her alone. Who needs food when I have her to feast on?

  “Just like that,” she moans. “Don’t move your fucking hand.”

  “So demanding, Siren.”

  She growls at me when I disobey her, but arguing isn’t on the menu right now. As much as I want to draw this out, I can hear Asher stirring in the room next door. If I don’t speed this up, my cock will be screaming at me for the rest of the day in protest.

  “Hey, I said not to move,” she protests as I pull her body across mine. Her perfect fucking pussy sits across my groin, and my aching dick can feel her wetness straddling him.

  “And?” I rebut. “You’d rather my hand make you cum over my dick. Siren, I am shocked,” I pretend to gasp.

  “Asshole,” she fires back, smacking me in the chest. “I was so close.”

  “I can do better than close, wife.”

  “Oh?” she challenges me. I shift beneath her, and press my dick into her wetness, reminding her of what she nearly missed out on. My hands grasp her hips and angle her apex at my cock. Her hands fall from the tops of her thighs, and helps guide me inside of her. I’m not sure what it is about watching her take control and putting my cock inside of her cunt, but it is the hottest fucking thing on this planet. It’s weird, but it’s my kind of weird.

  Her back aches as she adjusts to fit me in.

  “You feel so fucking good wrapped around my cock, siren.”

  She smiles and grinds her pelvis against me, trying to find her rhythm. It doesn’t take long before she leans forward, shoving her perfect tits in my face. The visual of her dominating me is fucking stunning. No strip club or sex club has anything on the woman who is riding me. Nothing compares to her.

  “Fuck my cock,” I moan to her. The sensation of my orgasm begins to vibrate. Ricca can sense I’m close and starts increasing her rhythm.

  “Just like that,” I demand her. My hands dig into her luscious hips, forcing her pussy down harder on my cock. Her body stiffens as she finds her release. Her beautiful face glows as she rides out her pleasure on top of me. So fucking beautiful. Watching her enjoy herself and the pleasure rippling through her brings my own orgasm. My cock twitches and spills my cum inside of her. Ricca smiles and leans in for a kiss, when the door handle begins to turn.

  “Ricca, are you okay? Did you fall out of bed?” Asher questions. “I heard yelling.”

  Ricca’s face flushes the instant that she hears Asher’s voice on the other side of the door.

  “I’m okay, buddy,” she reassures him, while stifling a laugh. “Jude was teaching me a new dance move,” she lies.

  “Can I come in?” he asks with a nervous tone to his voice.

  “NO!” we both yell in unison, and scramble off the bed looking for something to cover ourselves with.

  “Oh,” his voice drops.

  “We’ll be right out, Asher. Why don’t you go turn on the morning cartoons? I’ll be right out to watch them with you, while we make breakfast for your sister. What do you say?”

  “Okay,” he agrees, and we hear his feet pounding down the hallway in a trot.

  “Oh my god, that was too close,” she exclaims.

  “We’ve still got a few minutes, before he comes back you know,” I suggest, trying to incite a second round of fucking my beautiful wife.

  “Dream on,” she rebukes. “You made him a promise, and I am going to go take bath.”

 
I sigh in defeat, and smack my head against the frame of the doorway. Pulling a pair of plaid pajama pants over my hips, turning to her to offer one more time. She swats me away as she makes her way into the bathroom.

  “At least send me a sexy selfie,” I call out to her.

  “Maybe,” she teases, before I hear my phone ding on the counter in the kitchen. Asher’s feet trot to the kitchen, and I hear a gasp from his mouth.

  “What was that?” Ricca yells out from the bathroom.

  “Nothing!” I respond back.

  She didn’t need to know that her little brother may or may not have seen his sister in a compromising situation. I think our breakfast meal prep is going to come with a few life lessons. Don’t open someone else’s phone, and maybe the birds and the bees. Parenting is a bitch.

  A little while later, Ricca, Asher, and I head over to the clubhouse. It’s become our normal Sunday routine. Sleep in, breakfast, cartoons together, and then time at the club. With so many kids in our ranks, the brothers decided to make Sunday a permanent family day. The club girls would disappear, and our families would enjoy time together.

  Pulling up to the clubhouse, I see all the usual vehicles in the parking lot except one. A two- door green sedan sits near the back door with an out of state license plate.

  “Who’s that?” Ricca asks, noticing the same thing as I did.

  “Not sure,” I reply back to her, keeping an eye out on the place. It’s been a few months since our club had any visitors, after that Texas club pulled out of the place. Maybe it’s been a little too quiet.

  “Why don’t you and Asher go around the front?”

  “Everything okay?” my wife asks, with a touch of worry on her beautiful face.

  “It’s probably nothing, but I want to check it out first. You two go on, and I’ll meet up with you in a bit.”

  She agrees, and takes Asher along with her as I asked. I normally wouldn’t be so suspicious of an outsider here, but something doesn’t feel right to me. If there wasn’t anything happening, then why is the hair on the back of my neck standing up at attention?