by London Casey
I’m a fighter at heart. And I just found something worth fighting for
But it’s going to…
HURT
is the author of the bestselling rockstar romance series
Karolyn is the author of the bestselling rockstar romance series BROTHERS OF ROCK. Under the pen name London Casey, she has written the chart topping motorcycle romance series BACK DOWN DEVIL MC.
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Ana is the author of the bestselling motorcycle romance serial series, DEVIL CALL MC. Other projects have included BY HIS COMMAND, FULL MOON MERCY, & RAW RIVER WILD.
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HURT
I’m a fighter at heart. And I just found something worth fighting for – the baby I never knew I had.
After spending months behind bars, I’m a free man and I’m on the move to make a name for myself. I’m sent to collect on a big debt, only to learn the woman I have to collect from is a curvy beauty that I hooked up with one night. What’s bigger than that is she has an infant son… my infant son.
The role of father hits me hard, especially since I didn’t know Ashlynn was pregnant. I’m used to breaking heads and hands, no changing diapers. The moment Ashlynn and I are alone, the ferocious attraction is back, but it’s a dangerous attraction to have. The more I learn about Ashlynn, the more I realize she’s not the one in debt to my boss. But my boss wants nothing to do with old romance or a secret baby. He wants to collect, by any means necessary. Suddenly, I’m facing off against the mob.
For the first time in my life I have something to lose besides my life. I have a family… and nobody is going to take that away from me.
1.
THREE MONTHS AGO
(Ashlynn)
It was everything I read and was warned about, but at the same time, it was completely different. In the middle of the night I woke up to an intense pain, enough to steal my breath. Somehow, someway, between that exact second of the first shot of pain and ten hours later, I had brought a child into the world.
Me. Myself.
My body had done everything it was meant to do, including a natural birth.
The pressure eased almost instantly and a crying baby was placed on my chest. His little arms flailed with fists and stiff joints. His little mouth opened wide, his little tongue shivering as he screamed. I saw all of it through my tears of pain, joy, and complete and total fear.
Some women would have been able to turn their heads and see their significant other standing there. Maybe that person would be too tough to cry, so they’d smile. But they’d be there. They would absorb some of the intense emotion. They’d go with the baby when it was taken off my chest for… what?
I was alone.
All alone.
One of the nurses wept as though she had just given birth. She had been my support system through the birthing process. I said to myself I’d send her flowers and a picture of the baby, but I never did.
I was alone.
All alone.
The chair placed next to the bed was like some kind of symbol.
Everyone I knew believed it was some kind of whoops. I had drank too much, fooled around foolishly, and here was my reward for that.
I loved the baby from the moment he was a black dot on a piece of paper. That would never change.
But I had my own dirty secret… something I could never tell anyone.
I knew exactly who the father was.
2.
PRESENT DAY
(Noah)
Sometimes they gave us baby wipes to clean ourselves with. Most of the time, we took showers. It had been a long goddamn year. The longest of my life. I spent all day and all night thinking. Thinking about life on the outside. Thinking about the taste of a woman’s body - a real woman, someone I cared about. Thinking about the night my life changed. How it had started so normal, so real, so damn good.
A few drinks before the fight some woman was giving me the eyes. But then she got all shy and started to hide from me. A little game of cat and mouse, which I was totally fine with. Sometimes they were the best women to fuck.
And she was.
So wild and fun, right in the bathroom, leaving me finished and ready for my fight, but leaving me with a feeling that I wanted more. We even agreed to meet up after the fight. Hell, I wanted to buy her dinner and then fuck her again. Ten more times. No, twenty.
Two hard punches into the fight and the cops busted up the place. Everyone scattered like ants did when you were a kid and kicked an ant hill. We had a plan in place in case something like that happened. I would stay calm, collected, definitely not run. I’d try to escape, and if I couldn’t, it didn’t matter. I was connected. I worked for Benito Corlandio. He was higher on the food chain than any of the cops rushing around the floor, guns out, shouting orders.
I met my match along the back wall of the place. I was truthfully looking for her. I knew she didn’t belong at the fight. She was so far out of her element, her face had been flushed, red, her eyes nervous, the entire damn time. She couldn’t calm down and proof in that was the way she peeled the label off her beer bottles over and over. Yeah, little shit like that stuck with me for some reason.
I couldn’t find her though.
Instead, I took a billy club to the back of the head and woke up in jail.
After a whirlwind of lawyers, charges, a twenty second trial (or so it felt like), they gave me eighteen to twenty four months in jail. I’d get out earlier with good behavior, but I really thought I’d be out in days because of Benito. But his business took a hit. Not only with the bust leaving people nervous about trusting Benito, I was his best damn fighter. I was also his best damn tracker. He’d pay me to find anyone he needed. I’d track them, give Benito the info, and he’d do whatever he wanted.
All of that just pissed me off even more. I should have been out of jail, helping Benito find whoever set him up.
“Yo, motherfucker, clean up a little.”
My cellmate, Bo, tossed me a pack of wipes. The package was light blue with green and pink elephants on it. I opened the top and the wipes smelled fresh. I took one out and wiped my armpits. I had a few luxuries inside, but deodorant wasn’t one of them. Benito flexed his muscle to make sure I was protected, had good food, and enjoyed a little entertainment now and then.
But for every good thing in life, there came something very opposite.
“You smell horrible, bro,” Bo said. “For a fucking white Irishman, goddamn…”
I balled up the wipe and threw it at Bo. He was serving twenty-five for vehicular homicide. Running favors for another crew, he took the heat and the charge to keep protection on the outside for his girl and her two sons. One of those boys was Bo’s, the other wasn’t. He loved them both the same. I met them a couple times. Little Bo was a spitting image of his father. Dark skin, big smile, like a mini-twin of Bo. His other son, Benny, had a lighter color skin with bright eyes. That didn’t matter to Bo though. He hugged both his kids the same.
&n
bsp; Bo once told me that family was the only thing that ever mattered in life. And while he was inside, he was still working to provide on the outside. A lot of our conversations stuck. Not to mention Benito was paying a hearty fee to keep Bo near me to protect me. He was six-foot-eight and had fists the size of basketballs. If someone looked at me wrong, Bo knocked them out.
“I’m getting hungry,” Bo said. “When the fuck they gonna let us eat?”
“Your body hasn’t adjusted to the feeding schedule?” I asked with a grin.
Bo patted his thick belly. “Look at me, Noah. I ain’t got no schedule. When I’m hungry, I gotta fucking eat, man.”
A second later, a guard appeared outside the cell and shot Bo.
3.
(Ashlynn)
The babysitter hadn’t put her phone down yet.
This isn’t going to work.
She chomped on a piece of light green gum as her thumbs moved across the screen of her phone. Her nostrils flared a little and her eyes looked big and ready to pop.
“Are you going to put that down?” I asked.
Leah looked up from her screen and curled her lip. “You ain’t gone yet.”
“I’d like to know my baby is safe.”
“Your mother is here.”
“I’m paying you, Leah.”
“You don’t need me here. I ain’t no doctor. I’ll change diapers… for the baby.”
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t wait much longer. I couldn’t be late for work. Bad enough I had to work like I did, but leaving behind a sick mother and a three month old baby was torture to my heart and soul.
“Just please humor me and put the phone down until I leave,” I said. “Please, Leah. I don’t want to have to fire you. I know you need the money for your family. I’m trying to do you a favor.”
“Please,” Leah said. “I don’t need no fucking favors.”
“Language.”
“What?”
“You’re sixteen.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t curse.”
“Fuck that,” Leah said and pouted her lips.
“And who could be so important to text like that?” I asked.
“My boyfriend. Jeremy.”
“Boyfriend. You’re too young for that too.”
“When did you have your first boyfriend?” Leah asked.
I smiled. “Yeah, point taken. Just be careful. You need time apart, okay? These phones keep people too close. Just be safe.”
“I am safe.”
“Leah… don’t let him…”
“What? You worried if we’re screwing?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No offense, but why would I take advice from you about that?” Leah asked. She then nodded down the hallway toward Jude’s bedroom. “Didn’t you get knocked up by someone you don’t know? You don’t even remember, right? Plus, I’m on the pill. I’m okay.”
“There still can be accidents, Leah. If you’re not careful…”
“I have a mother at home,” Leah said. She put her cellphone on the coffee table and then put her feet up. “Okay? My phone is down now. I’ll sit here and wait for Jude to wake up. Is that what you want?”
I felt like a fool. Trying to give sex advice to someone? Really? With everything that happened to me. The one night I decided to go out and cut loose. All I wanted was one night of something wild. A sense of freedom.
Yeah, you got that, Ashlynn.
“I’m going,” I said. “Please keep the door locked. If anything happens with my mother, call me. If I don’t answer, call the restaurant.”
“Is that what it is? A restaurant?” Leah used air quotes and grinned. “I heard it’s an establishment. Plus, where do you put your cell phone when you’re working?”
“It’s a paycheck, Leah. And if you’re not careful, you’ll end up working right next to me.”
I stormed out of the apartment. I took a deep breath and willed myself not to cry. If I did, I’d have to reapply my goddamn mascara.
I was good at hiding things.
My feelings.
The father of my baby.
You know, nothing important.
I drove to the establishment and parked around back. Two of the girls were on a smoke break. Danielle and Willow. They offered me a smoke and I declined. They always offered me a cigarette, but I had never touched one. In my entire life. Think about that. The good girl who got good grades, never drank or smoke, and always did the right thing. I waited until I was eighteen to get into bed with someone - a guy who promptly dumped me the next day because college was around the corner and he wanted to live free.
And I ended up like this. A baby at home, sleeping, a teenage babysitter trying to help me out because my mother was suffering from stage four cancer.
I walked through the backdoor and went to the lockers. I shut my eyes and braced myself, like I always when it came time for this. I grabbed my hoodie and ripped it up over my head. I had nothing on under it except a skimpy top. My breasts were still extra full because of the milk, something my boss really loved. I hated the way my stomach looked, even though everyone told me I looked amazing for just having a baby. At least the establishment was dark enough… and the clientele was usually drunk enough… they didn’t see the stretch marks I saw.
I dropped my pants and kicked out of them.
There I was, mostly naked, ready to try and make ends meet.
All the while, in the back of my mind, I thought the same thing: Where the fuck was Noah?
4.
(Noah)
“Jesus Christ!” I yelled.
Bo dropped to his knees, shaking. His hands were up, his joints locked. His face looked paralyzed, mouth open, drool dripping from the corner.
“Can’t take no chances,” a second guard said as he stuck a key into the lock and opened it. “Big Bo likes to fight.”
Bo collapsed to the floor, on his face, still shaking.
“You’re going to fucking kill him,” I said.
“No,” the guard said. “It’s just… shocking…” The guard smiled. “Then again, if we keep pulling the trigger and juicing him, he might die.”
“Then fucking stop!” I yelled.
“You, Noah, come out here,” the guard said. He stepped back and put a hand to his gun. “Right now.”
I had no choice but to step forward and step over Bo. He was still shaking. There were pins or something stuck in his back with a curled wire that lead to the other guard. His eyes were focused on Bo, his finger on the trigger.
“Bo wouldn’t hurt a guard,” I said. “He’s kept himself clean for years. Trying to make sure his family is cared for.”
“I don’t know that,” the guard said. “Now, Noah, put your fucking hands out.”
I stepped out of the cell and offered my wrists. The guard cuffed me and then nodded to the other guard. He stopped zapping the hell out of Bo.
“Clean him up,” the guard said. “He probably shit himself.” The guard looked at me. “It happens.” He looked to the other guard again. “Call it in that Bo was aggressive when we took Noah for questioning.”
“Questioning on what?” I asked.
“Someone killed an inmate,” the guard said. “I want to ask you questions about it.”
“I’ve been in my cage all fucking day.”
“Yeah, I know,” the guard said and grinned. “Walk.”
The guard shoved me and I started to walk.
Man, I wanted to throw an elbow at him. Send him hard into a wall. I knew I could have killed him. Easily. This guy was only tough and powerful because of his badge and his gun. Even with that I could still take him.
When you’re inside you have to look at the end game. The light at the end of the tunnel. For some guys, that light is death. For other guys - like me - it’s freedom. So you take your bad days, your hits, punishments, and beat downs with a frail sense of pride, knowing that one day you’ll walk away from the place.
“My
name is Jack, by the way,” the guard said. “We’re going downstairs for a chat.”
“Downstairs?” I asked. “Jesus Christ, that’s…”
“You’re not going solitary, I promise.” Jack led the way a little more and then asked, “You ever have a family?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s expensive. Wife, kids, house. Cars. Can’t have too old of a car. Has to be somewhere in between, you know? Competing with the neighbor to the right but definitely nicer than the neighbor on the left. That’s my fucking life, Noah. Reading online messages to my daughter, trying to figure out what kind of fucking language teenagers use these days. Looking at my son and wondering if he’ll man up and play a sport or just end up sketching trees in a notebook, worried about his fucking feelings.”
“Sounds like the dream life,” I said.
Jack turned and put me against a wall.
We were downstairs, the pit of the jail. It stunk like water, piss, and rust. He put a club to my neck and held it there. He had a small and uneven mustache. His front teeth were yellowish and a little crooked. The bags under his eyes were big enough to carry Bo.
“I’m going to lose the house,” Jack said. “Unless you do what you do best.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked.
“Fight. I got a bet on you.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“No,” Jack said. “I need five grand to get out from under a few things.”
“And I’m fighting someone?”
“Convicted rapist,” Jack said. “Real scum piece of shit. We all want him dead. So if you get things in motion, the paperwork gets easier.”
“Holy fuck.”
“Yeah. You’ll get something out of it. I promise.”
“And if I lose?” I asked.
“One way or another, we’re filing paperwork for a dead inmate,” Jack said. “The information is all filled out… except the name.”
Jack started to walk forward again. He tucked his club away, hooked his thumbs into his belt, and started to whistle. It echoed and carried down the narrow hallway.
And just like that, I was back to square one.
Fighting for my life.
