by Sierra Rose
"You followed me?" I demanded to know, not quite worried enough about the physical abuse that was sure to be headed my way.
He looked the door and turned to face me, giving me a crazy smile. "Someone's gotta keep you outta harm's way."
"Who the fuck followed me?" I growled and walked toward him, not thinking at all about how ridiculous I must have looked with red splotches all over my face and blood running down from my lip and nose now. I was ready to kill someone. The fact that they knew about me and Lucky was horrifying, but to take pictures? To pass them around?
"Paz and Santino. They thought he was holding you against your will. But then we realized, you actually like being in that heathen's company. They’ve been talking about how good you take a dick all day. It’s a little disturbing, but whatever. I’ll find out myself pretty soon. I’m going to punish you ten ways to Sunday for all you’ve done. Your body was mine to have, and now you’ve dirtied it up. I’m going to fuck you until all you have on your skin is me.” He growled and met me in the middle of the room, clamping his large hand around my throat and lifting me off my feet.
I swatted at him and kicked before wrapping my legs around him and pushing up enough to catch my breath. "Get off of me!"
"Shut the fuck up. The time for talking is over, Selene. You messed up, bitch. You messed up really bad." He licked his lips and pressed me against the wall behind me as he shifted his hips and ground his erection against the center of me.
I tried to force my legs down, but he wouldn’t let me. His teeth pressed into the side of my neck, and I screamed out in pain as I beat at his back.
Moving back a little, he let me fall again, and I took full advantage to try to get my phone. Lucky knew that if I sent him a 911 text that I was up shits creek without a paddle. I was head first in the muck and someone was using the paddle to push me farther down.
Dante smacked the phone out of my grasp as I fumbled with it. His powerful motion sent the device falling to the hardwood floor, and shattering the face of the phone into a million pieces. He chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest as he watched me for a minute.
“What am I going to do with you? Such a pain in the ass, and yet by far the finest woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on.” He reached down and jerked me up.
“Let me go, Dante. We’ve been in this fight for three fucking years. You don’t want me to give in. You like me playing hard to get.” I was grasping at straws, but with no chance of getting a hold of Lucky… I was on my own. If Dane could hear what was going on, he was either a complete liar or a torrential pussy. I had to rely on the fact that the device wasn’t doing its job.
He pushed me and smiled. “Naw… obviously letting you play around leaves you naked and covered in the come of my enemies. I figured you for an adventurous girl in the bedroom, but a slut? Never. You were too classy for that.”
“Fuck you,” I growled and attacked him.
“Soon enough baby.” He gripped my face tightly, pressing his lips to him and forcing his thick, wet tongue deep into my mouth.
I didn’t hesitate to bite him – hard. Not the best of ideas.
He moved back and pushed me with extreme force, which sent me backward into the wall. I hit it and dropped to the floor, moving to all fours as I tried to get air back into my lungs. It took me a few minutes, but I finally got to my feet and kicked off my heels. I was ready to fight.
"Come on, mother fucker. I got something for you. You don't scare me."
Dante laughed. "You should be. You should've never crossed me, but I know you’ve seen me in action, little girl. I wasn’t interested in making those other bitches bleed, but you, Lena… oh baby, I want to taste your blood."
“Sick,” I mumbled and moved toward him.
He grabbed me and twisted me into a knot using my own damn arms. He moved us to the nearest corner and boxed me in with his hands pressed to my shoulders, and his forehead against mine. His handsome face was less than an inch from mine, and I hated how turned on he looked. I was panting loudly, but he was too.
Fear, anxiety and anger raged through me as his warm breath hit me in the face like a tire iron. I cast a disgusted look away from him, though the smell of lust and liquor mixed together had always been one of my favorite combinations. Had it been Lucky in front of me, I’d have crawled up his body and fucked him senseless. I considered telling Dante that, but even I didn’t have that much of a death wish.
“Look at me, bitch,” he growled against my lips as he spoke.
I couldn't bear to. He was too scary, too lost to some tainted sense of darkness inside of him. I swatted at him as he started to fumble with the bottom of my shirt. “No. Get the fuck off!”
“Hush.” He plucked one button at a time open on my blouse as I beat against him. There wasn’t any room to allow me to go anywhere, and he had moved his free hand up to press against my throat. Each time I jerked forward, I lost the ability to breathe. I dug my nails into his arm and scratched deeply.
He groaned as if in the throes of ecstasy and licked his lips. “I like pain in my pleasure, Selena. I’m going to teach you to appreciate it, too. First things first. You get to learn to deep throat a man much too big for you. Should be fun.”
My heart thundered in my chest as I continued to fight against him. We would never get to the sex, and he knew it. I would bite his cock off if he put it near my mouth. He was stupid, but not that stupid.
Dante smirked as he pushed hard against my chest, and use his grip on my neck to hit my head against the wall of the office hard. His hand moved up to the flat surface of my stomach, and bile rose in my chest. I needed to get him off of me or he’d find the damn wire and then I’d really be…
Stepping back, he yanked the rest of my shirt open and gritted his teeth. “Unfucking believable. You’re wearing a wire. I’ve covered up for you before. But not this time. You’re in too deep! How could you do this? This is your family, Selene. Your people.”
“You don’t understand. You want this life. I don’t!” I screamed in his face.
"Fucking rat," Dante said as he ripped the wire from my skin, causing me to wince in pain. I shouldn’t have been ashamed by it, but some part of me was. He was right. I was a fucking rat.
He grabbed me again, and I lost all my stamina to fight. The wire hadn’t even worked from what I could tell and now I was going to get punished for it, and rightly so.
"Stop!" I begged as Dante moved to hit me again.
He stopped mid swing, though and stared at me with anger consuming his dark eyes. "Stop?" Dante said as he forced my shirt from my shoulders. "No, baby. I’m just getting started. Get on your knees, or I’ll blacken your eye."
Chapter 12
Dane
A van parked outside of the Black Heart Motorcycle Club sat idle, but there was a flurry of activity inside due to me being completely frantic. I sat at the radio controls with a set of bulky headphones on my head, listening to the live feed carefully as I worked like crazy to scramble the message and get it off to my superiors. Selene was clearly in trouble, and we had to do something before yet another young woman turned up dead. This one meaning far more than the others had. Lucky would never forgive me. Hell, I’d never forgive me.
Shaking my phone out of frustration, no reply had come in from my superior yet. I was left with the judgment call. If it had been anyone but Selene, I would have been calmer about it, but there was no way I could let something happen to her.
Launching myself from the vehicle, I grabbed a black pistol out of a black backpack that sat in the back of the utility van. Popping the magazine into the gun, I sent four shots flying into the night. I needed attention, and more than that… I needed to draw the Delgados out of the fucking house. With all of them packed into the place, there was no possible way I could get in and get back out alive. Both Selene and I would die trying.
I moved back inside the van and pressed the headset back to my ears as my heart raced. I couldn’t sit there much longer. E
ven if death was part of the deal. Listening to Selene get attacked was too much. The sound of Dante and Selene’s fight was muted, but it must have meant that the bastard had ripped the wire off of her. I was grateful that the device was still operable, but fuck if I didn’t need them to be a little louder for the recording.
“C'mon Selene... C'mon...” I urged as I listened. She was such a tough girl. I knew she could get out of the shit she was in. If anyone could, it was her. I didn't want to completely blow her cover, seeing that the only one that knew she was involved besides himself was Lucky, and now Dante of course.
If the Black Hearts knew the truth about Selene and her connection to the DEA and its investigation into her father, Selene would be in even greater danger. Right now, the Black Hearts were just up in arms over her connection with Lucky Morrison. But now that Dante had found the wire, Selene was in even deeper shit.
It had been five minutes since the shots had rang out. I removed my headphones and let out a sigh of relief. There was an approaching train of motorcycles coming down the road.
“About damn time, Morrison,” I complained as I put my headphones back over my ears. Selene’s voice rose up sharply, and I flinched, feeling damn near helpless.
“No Dante! Stop! Don’t do this. We don’t have to start out our relationship like this. I’ll bite you. I swear I will, and then what?” Selene yelled as something crashed loudly.
“Selene, this is bullshit! Fuck our relationship. What's with the fucking wire? Did you think that I wouldn’t notice it?”
“Don't you get it?!” Selene yelled. “I was trying to frame Morrison! Not be with him!”
The noise in the microphone ceased for a moment. Clearly what Selene was saying held water for Dante. Maybe the bastard wanted to believe her. I could only hope.
“C'mon on, how stupid do I look?” Dante asked with a malevolent voice.
Does he really want her to answer that?
“You know, Selene, you think you're real slick,” Dante began, sounding as if he was getting closer to the microphone.
“I have no idea what you're talking about, Dante. No, Dante! Get away from me!”
More shouting ensued as the argument escalated. Now, instead of hearing words and distinct phrases, I could only hear the sound of panicked voices and the sound of objects falling to the floor. But then a triumphant voice rang out over all the noise.
“Stupid mother fucker!” Selene screamed out, sounding out of breath and vindictive. As the sounds of footsteps pounded against the floor, Selene screamed out, “Elec, no!!!!”
“Yes. I’ll put her in the back of my car in a minute. She can stay there until we figure this shit out.” Elec’s voice was biting as he barked his resolution to someone, most likely Dante.
They must have dragged her from the room, because everything went silent.
“Shit.” I got out of the van and ran toward the back of the flower shop. I was new to this shit, and though I’d been playing cop all my life, this wasn’t a game and there wasn’t a do-over button. I needed to talk with my superiors to find out what the fuck we were going to do.
Chapter 13
Selene
Elec stormed the room and pushed Dante off of me. I was almost grateful, except the look on his scary-ass face left me far more terrified than anything Dante would do.
“We gotta go. Shit’s going down.” He nodded to Dante. “I’ll get her.”
Dante held up the wire. “She’s working for the damn Feds.”
He gasped. “What the fuck?”
The hurt look in my father’s eyes about tore me up. “Butterfly. Is this true? Please tell me this is a huge misunderstanding.”
Dante held up the wire. “Misunderstanding? She was fucking wearing it!”
My father came over and slapped me hard. Pain exploded in my cheek.
“We’ve got trouble outside,” Elec said. “We’ll deal with her later!”
“Fine,” Dante barked and glared at me for a moment before storming out of the room.
I didn’t get a word out before my cousin had his hand tightly around my wrist, pulling me into the foyer. My father walked out with Mateo tucked in beside him, like a fucking lap dog.
“What the hell was that?!” Rafael Delgado demanded to know as he shot Mateo a look of antagonism.
“Sounded like shots from outside...”
“No shit... I mean, who the hell is shooting outside of our club?” My father beat a path to the front door with several of my cousins at his heels, and me and Elec in back of him.
We moved out into the chilly night air, but stayed on the porch. Elec moved behind me and wrapped me in a tight hug.
“Don’t think about going anywhere, meja. That would not end well for you.” He locked his strong, albeit skinny arms around me.
My father walked out into the middle of the yard, and stopped suddenly. Mateo almost ran into the back of him, and where I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, I was grateful for the momentary reprieve.
"Hello?" Raphael yelled in a furious tone of voice. "HELLO?" he repeated at the top of his lungs. "Who's out here?"
My father could demand as much as he'd like. No one answered his questions and everything on Poinsettia Drive looked peaceful from what I could tell.
“What the hell?” I glanced back at Elec.
“Gun shots. Four of them, a few minutes ago. Nothing to concern yourself with.” He snorted.
I started to shoot back with a nasty remark, but decided to leave it be. I wasn’t in a position to do anything but try and get free. That was my focus. The rest of the shit swirling around me could jump on the back burner.
Raphael’s head turned from side to side, as if he were trying to see if there was anything out of place... Anything unusual.
“See anything, boss?” Mateo asked.
“Just that fucking white Friedman Floral Truck parked outside of my damn clubhouse. I hate that son of a bitch.” He growled and moved down the path to the edge of our yard.
I let my eyes follow him, and knew that something was without a doubt about to go down. My father’s dress shoes hit hard against the cobblestone tile that lined the way and by the tightness of his shoulders, someone was in for a serious ass chewing.
Nervousness rose in the pit of my stomach. Dane was in that flower truck. Shit.
“Dad?” I called out, and pulled from Elec, only to be tugged back.
“Not now, pumpkin,” he called over his shoulder, his words a little slurred from his high.
I held my breath as he made a beeline for the van. At the last moment, he veered left, rushing across the dirt road to Friedman's Floral Shop which had the misfortune of being located directly across the street from Pleasant Valley's most notorious address.
It was sad to think that everyone in town knew the Black Hearts were the ones that you needed to watch out for, the bad guys. I’d been no exception to that taint, although I’d never do anything to hurt anyone. Guilty by association.
While the Stone Wolves weren't to be messed with, it was largely thought that the Wolves would at least look out for their own. They did what they could to protect the community. Pride welled up inside of me, knowing that Lucky was one of the good guys. It wouldn’t be too long, and I’d be joining him. His brothers would most likely never accept me as their own, but I knew Lucky good and well. We’d just pack up and leave. Start a new life somewhere.
Wonder if he’ll let me take Grandma with me. There was no way in hell I was leaving without her.
I focused on the scene in front of me, a little unnerved by the fact that my father would attack the florist over supposed gun shots, and why the hell hadn’t I heard them?
Raphael, dressed in a black suit and tie, handsome leather dress shoes and his hair neatly coifed, darted across Poinsettia Drive as he held the front door of the flower shop in his sights.
Tom Friedman must have seen my father coming because the open door to the shop slammed shut, and the blinds clos
ed as I watched.
"Open up, you coward!" Raphael screamed. When Tom didn't respond, Raphael held up his arm and waved twice, signaling for two of his men to circle the building. I half expected us to join them, but Elec murmured ‘no’ and kept me on the porch.
"What did I say about parking in front of my building?!" Raphael screamed. "Huh?! What did I say?! I don't want your shitty flower van corrupting my view! I didn't renovate my whole club house to have that lemon of a delivery van fuckin' up the view!" Suddenly, he shifted his words at me. “Selene, is this where the Feds are?”
Yell as he might, though, Friedman wasn't coming outside. Little did Raphael Delgado know, Tom Friedman wasn't even remotely scared of him. Tom was part of the sting operation from what Dane and Lucky had told me.
There might just be some justice somewhere in the events to come. Doubtful, but one can always hope.
Chapter 14
Dane
“Get in here,” Caroline Wren opened the door and tugged me in before giving me a ‘what the fuck’ look.
“We have to do something. Now.” I moved back and pulled out my phone, trying to get a hold of Lucky again. I glanced up at the sound of Raphael Delgado screaming just outside the building.
Good. The gunshots worked. Now to get Selene out.
"We've got activity," Dennis Leech said as he peered through the peep hole in the flower shop door. His voice almost held a touch of excitement, which I understood all too well. I’d been working on the case of the last year legally, but far longer than that. I’d lived in Pleasant Valley all my life. Any man with a sense of right in their bones wanted to rid the town of the darkness that was the Delgados. Well, almost all of them. Selene didn’t belong in the bunch. Shitty situation, but hopefully that was all about to change.
The man that Raphael Delgado knew as Tom Friedman was really Dennis Leach, Special Agent for the DEA - The Drug Enforcement Administration for the United States of America.
