In Too Deep (The Lovers Duet)

by Chardou, Selene

  I glared at Linx as he slipped into an easy grin and said, “Sure.”

  We continued to follow Quinn but just to make it clear to these whores who Linx belonged to, I grabbed him by the waist and squeezed his ass. By the looks I received, they’d gotten the message.

  “Are you sure you’re not the kid of some rogue biker your mother forgot to tell you about?” Linx whispered in a joking manner.

  “Positive. If we should be questioning anyone’s paternity, it’s Trey’s. Why the fuck does Dizzy give a rat’s ass about him? He couldn’t stand my father even though my parents worked for him and yeah, he had a bit of a sweet spot for my mother but…none of this is making any sense.”

  Quinn opened two double doors and a large room greeted us with an ornate Lucifer’s Saint insignia carved into it along with at least twelve comfortable office style chairs surrounding the dark oak wood.

  Dizzy sat at the head of the table. Cillian and Quinn’s fraternal brother, Ronan, were already seated. Dizzy motioned towards two chairs, the backs which faced Linx and me.

  “Quinn, close the fucking doors,” Dizzy remarked in a thick Northern Irish brogue he’d never managed to lose. “Please, you two, sit.”

  Linx and I walked over but I sat at the chair cater-corner to Dizzy while he took the seat next to me. Quinn poured us each a generous serving of Macallan and the ashtray was pushed more toward the center of the table. Both Cillian and Ronan were smoking so Linx reached into his pants pocket and lit a Camel.

  I swigged from my Macallan and stared at the man who’d demanded I meet with him or else. Up close, he wasn’t all that scary at all. He puffed on a Havana cigar but his clear blue eyes were determined. He was still handsome and sexy for man of his age and he had to be in his mid-fifties if a day. He didn’t look it with his youthful, lightly tanned skin, a nose that was slightly crooked and sensual lips that matched the most perfect cheek bones I’d ever seen on a man. He had a strong rugged jaw and wore a trimmed beard.

  Dizzy, like Jonesy, had an old lady, Bronaugh. She was from Northern Ireland, like Dizzy, but she was a hard as nails bitch even though she had the face of an angel. No one would guess she was in her late forties because her skin was still beautiful, porcelain white and she had the most arresting amber-brown eyes and soft Irish features. Ironically, only one of her children had come out with her eye color: Jaden or Kaelan, which was his real name. All the others, including the twins, Misty—real name, Maeve—and Cillian had all come out with blue eyes. Cillian, Misty, and Quinn had their father’s eyes while Ronan had arresting blue eyes that looked to be on the verge of being violet; Bronaugh’s mother’s eye coloring.

  She was a true old lady, quiet but commanding; she didn’t say much but then again, she didn’t have to. She knew about her husband’s illegitimate children and although it should have been a concern for her, she ignored it and them. The women were never a threat to her and Dizzy would never leave her. It was an unspeakable code that went way back.

  Personally, I always thought she held something over his head to prevent him from leaving her but I had no proof. They’d been together since young teenagers while growing up in Northern Ireland and while I was sure Dizzy had never been in love with her, he did respect her and she was the mother of five of his children. The other two kids he had out there had different mothers and both had been pretty much club whores—or in Kaz’s case, a club mistress who’d served Dizzy only and eventually went back to her high society life once the true reality of club life had knocked her up and against the side of her head.

  Bronaugh was perfect because she was strong-willed, held her own and everyone respected her. She had a no-bullshit attitude, a heavy Northern Irish accent and wouldn’t take shit from anyone, including club members and her children alike.

  “So, are you the one who wears the pants in the family?” Dizzy inquired, breaking my concentration when I’d least expected him too. His blue eyes blazed into mine and I was the first to look away.

  “No, I don’t. Linx is all man and he definitely runs the show.”

  I knew where I was and what my place in this male-dominated life happened to be. I wasn’t in charge of anything and the only thing I could run was my mouth and that would dig a deeper hole for me. I needed to stay quiet, pay attention and listen.

  “Then I politely ask for you to switch places with your husband,” Dizzy told me in a no-nonsense manner. “It isn’t that I don’t respect you but this is club business and usually women aren’t involved in any way, shape or form. I know what you have been through and that is the only reason why I am allowing you to sit with us in this meeting. Otherwise, I would have made you wait outside and Lennon could have informed you what happened after we finished.”

  I changed seats with Linx and he flicked the ash from his cigarette in the ashtray. “I’m not a member either—”

  “Not yet.” Dizzy put out his cigar in his own personal ashtray and glared at both of us. “Listen, I know the Carter family quite well. I have already spoken to your father. You two want to search for Trey…it’s understandable but this is club business. Although I cannot ask you to do my dirty work, you will become an honorary member of the Lucifer’s Saints if you want to help with the search.”

  My heart beat so fast in my chest, it literally hurt. “Dizzy, you can’t do that. Linx is a member of a rock n’ roll band. He can’t be club member too—”

  “Why not? Kaelan, aka Jaden, and Kasper are members. Besides, with the street cred your husband brings, I won’t even make him a prospect. He’s one hundred percent Irish and his father has gone above and beyond the duty for the cause of a United Ireland. Plus, he’s not as clean cut as you think, my dear.

  “I know about your days as a street fighter in Boston. You were one of the best and remained undefeated when you decided to join a band and live out your rock n’ roll fantasy. I can see why you did it because you provided for your family and then pursued your own dreams. I respect that in a man.”

  My mouth gaped open.

  Linx’s father had “fought for the cause of a United Ireland?” Key words the man had been a heavy supporter for the IRA, a terrorist organization no different than Al-Qaeda. No wonder he’d been so skittish about his past and his family. He wouldn’t have wanted me to know that kind of shit about him and the picture became so clear.

  “Mr. Cox—”

  “Call me Dizzy…everyone else does.”

  “Dizzy, my wife was not privy to my background. I purposely didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to scare her away. However, now that she does know, I’m no longer involved with any criminal activities and I will do whatever it takes to help her brother be found.” Linx’s eyes stayed glued to the man in charge and refused to look at me.

  “You see, Trista, that is true love and the man who finds it is worthy enough indeed.” Dizzy’s bright blue eyes locked with mine and held my gaze firmly this time. “Although I am not crazy about Cillian’s choice in women, he and Gisela are truly in love as are you and Linx. Your husband will become a club member and will sit for a Saint tattoo because he is overwhelmingly in love with you, Trista. He’d do anything, even sell his soul for you. You were lucky to find him but then again, like mother, like daughter.”

  I didn’t understand where this conversation was going but I was sure I wasn’t going to like it, not that I was all that enamored with what I’d heard so far. It was like the blows kept coming and they wouldn’t fucking stop. When would I dig out the truth from underneath a stack of lies so high, no one knew if it even existed any longer?

  I swallowed my Macallan and poured myself another drink. What I wouldn’t give for a joint right now; I seriously needed to get high and fucked up just to forget this clusterfuck called my life.

  “What about my mother?” I questioned as evenly as possible.

  As a woman, I wasn’t allowed to raise my voice or talk to Dizzy in any kind of way. He could order something very distasteful to happen, like all his sons,
fucking me one after the other while Linx watched and there wouldn’t be a damn thing he could do about it. I was the lone vagina in the room and this situation made me feel uncomfortable instead of empowered.

  They all surveyed me like another piece of meat. I might as well have been club ass but what did I expect with my skinny jeans riding the curves I was quickly beginning to lose and the full breasts that had once been my pride and joy but were now the bane of my existence?

  Dizzy glared at me with what I could only describe as cold, desolate eyes. “Your father—that two-timing, no good son of a bitch bastard—died at the right time because if he hadn’t been murdered by persons unknown, I would have killed ‘im meself…personally. Not only was I going to personally shoot his dirty, good for nothing Federal agent ass in the head but I was going to leave Bronaugh for Antoinette. God knows I have been in love with that woman from the first time I met her in Boston. I was just a small time thug at the time with a motorcycle club but she was beauty personified. How she ended up with that no good son of a bitch is beyond me. They were never a good match but her parents liked him so she did what she had to do.”

  I couldn’t listen to the rest. I bolted from my seat and ran to the bathroom. It was surprisingly clean but after my loud spatter of vomit straight into the toilet, it was a little less so.

  My mother and Desmond Cox? He had to be mistaken.

  Unfortunately, something in the bottom of my gut told me he wasn’t.

  Chapter Six

  LINX WANTED TO check on Trista but the gazes of the four men who studied him were disconcerting to say the least. “What happens now? Do I get beaten into a pulp or something similar?”

  “We’re a motorcycle club not a motherfuckin’ gang.” Ronan stared him down with brooding violet-blue eyes. “No, we’re not gonna fuckin’ beat you in, motherfucker. But you better learn to control that woman of yours if you want everything to stay cool. She’s a firecracker and old ladies in the Saints know their place. S’all I’m gonna say.”

  Quinn glared at him with ruthless blue eyes. “Why does this motherfucker get to jump the line when we got prospects who are waitin’ to get voted in? Hell, I sponsored Connor and he’s been very fuckin’ patient if you ask me. He’s loyal and most of all, he can be trusted, Dad. We don’t know shit about this cunt-bag here.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Cillian murmured to himself. “Will both you eejits shut the fuck up for five fuckin’ minutes. Has the Prez ever had a stupid plan?”

  Dizzy laughed out loud. “Forgive my sons’ rudeness, Lennon. They don’t realize your father and Bronaugh are cousins and you’re family.”

  The twins stared at one another before they glared at their father.

  “Yeah, and Trista doesn’t know either so can we keep that quiet for the time being?” Linx lit another cigarette out of nervousness. He usually didn’t smoke that much.

  “You didn’t knock up your little piece of jail bait, didja? She’s been in the bathroom for a mighty long time unless she’s layin’ a deuce.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Ronan, will you shut the fuck up?” Cillian lit a Marlboro and blew the smoke out of his nose before he finished his Macallan.

  “I’m fixed…Trista can’t get pregnant…not right now at least.” Linx didn’t think he owed the fuckwad an explanation but he provided one anyway, even if it was a lie.

  “Well, that’s good to know.” Quinn shut his mouth as Trista walked out of the bathroom and sat down beside Linx again. She looked pale beneath her naturally healthy skin and her blue eyes shined with a faded dullness to them.

  “I’m sorry about that. I…I lost it when you mentioned my mother. I have never known her to be anything other than a decent woman and…to think…I don’t know what to think about her now because I keep asking myself how the hell she was ever involved with you?” Her blue eyes were daggers and she seemed quite upset.

  Dizzy shook his head. “Your mother was a decent woman and she didn’t cheat on your father if that’s what you’re thinkin’. Me and her…that was never gonna happen. She didn’t deserve this life and I wasn’t ever going to saddle her with it either. I’m so very sorry I’m doing to her daughter what I could not—in good conscience—do to her.”

  She braced her hands on the table and Linx turned to her and knew she was beyond pissed off. “How the hell did you get my brother out of the Demon’s Bastards. Club affiliation is for life unless you’re kicked out. What will he think when he gets back to find out he’s no longer Sergeant-at-Arms or a Bastard but a Saint?”

  Dizzy glared at Linx and he got the message loud and clear: Control your bitch or I will do it for you.

  “Baby, calm down. I’m sure the Prez has a very good explanation.”

  “I didn’t sign up for this shit, Linx. That’s the reason I married you because you weren’t involved in the life and as soon as I think I am free from all the shit, I get pulled right back in it. I don’t want you to hate me and I know why you’re doing this but since we don’t know whether Trey is alive or not…maybe it isn’t worth it.”

  “Trey isn’t dead—that I can assure you,” Dizzy explained calmly and with a quiet defiance. “He is also my son and there is no way in hell I would even risk trying to get him back and putting the club on lockdown if I wasn’t so sure he was very much alive and breathin’.”

  Trista’s face paled and he could see the conflict in her gorgeous blue eyes. “What the fuck does that mean—how the hell is he your son?”

  Ronan glared at Linx with a warning look, which easily read, Back your bitch off and shut her the fuck up.

  “It’s quite simple, really. Before Toni was viciously taken away from me by that asshole father of yours, me an’ her had a thing goin’ on. I loved her and would have sent Bronaugh packin’ but she couldn’t handle bein’ an old lady. She didn’t want anything to do with the club life. Not that I could blame her. She came from money and expected certain things out of life and didn’t want to live one where she could lose the man she loved at any given moment.

  “Violence in our world is a reality,” Dizzy continued with a solemn expression on his face. “She’s the only woman I ever really truly loved and when she chose your father over me, I was heartbroken, devastated to the core of my being. I just knew Tim wouldn’t want her after he found out she was knocked up with our kid but I underestimated that prick. Turned out he’d do things I wouldn’t have done because if the situation had been reversed and she’d chosen me but been pregnant with his kid, I would have made her have an abortion.

  “Tim didn’t think that way and he reared Trey as his own…same way my own son here is raisin’ Trey’s kid as his own—”

  Cillian slammed his fists on the table. “Na, Pops, Caitlin is my daughter. Trey was the sperm donor for the whore I married and divorced but she will never call any motherfucker ‘Daddy’ but me—you feelin’ me, old man? Your son is nothing to me and the moment that son of a bitch steps near me and tries to take Caitlin will be the day I put a bullet in his head without thinkin’ twice…if someone hasn’t done that already.”

  “Enough!” Trista cried out, shocking the shit out of everyone at the table. “I get it. Trey is your son and that is how you got him into the LS fold and made Jonesy give him up but…how do we go about lookin’ for him? I miss him and I want him back here in the States, safe and sound. How do we do that without getting ourselves shot and killed?”

  “Well, first your hubby here needs to get patched in and then we’ll talk about a game plan but remember your place, woman.” Dizzy’s bright smile was uncomfortable, mirthless, and infuriating. “You will officially be an old lady and you only have so much power. You don’t get to waltz in here like you own the joint and order me or any of the club members around.

  “I need to get specifics from the club in Belfast before you leave to go get Trey and when you do go, Ronan and Quinn will accompany you and Lennon. There will be no theatrics or heroics on your part and you will do as you’re t
old or you won’t accompany the boys at all. First off, how’s your aim?”

  “Mine is fine. I practice twice a week at an exclusive gun club in Beverly Hills,” Linx spoke up. “I prefer a nine millimeter but I am comfortable with a variety of weapons. I have practiced with both an AK-47 and the Steyr AUG. Personally, I prefer the Steyr to the Avtomat Kalashnikova because you have more control and it is an all-around better assault rifle if you ask me. Plus it has a scope and I don’t get off on shooting the wrong people.”

  Quinn whistled smoothly. “Looks like our newest members knows his guns. Since you’re such an expert, we’ll put you on weapons detail. You will be the Sergeant-at-Arms as a stand-in until we’re able to get Trey home. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were born for the club life.”

  “I was.” Linx’s muscles twitched in his jaw as his cornflower blue eyes hardened. “I chose to be a rock star instead. I have been running from violence my whole life and this isn’t how I imagined I would be at the age of twenty-six…well, my birthday is in a few weeks, just days before Trista’s…so I will soon be twenty-seven. However, given the recent events, looks like I don’t have a choice.”