A Good Girl's BIKER Baby_A Forbidden Baby Romance

by Cherise West

  “Your parents gave you something that a man like him never got,” I whimper. “A soul.”

  “There’s boys in the Wardogs I call brother. They’re my brothers, but they’re men I don’t trust. I’ll watch out for them, but I know their minds lurk elsewhere. Boys like Butcher - Lefty Pete. Men like Billy. Men who fell to Jersey City, the way I almost did. When my parents died…”

  “Your parents died?” I squeak, before realizing how painful the question might be. He closes his eyes, breathing deep.

  “Dad got cancer - probably something in all the paint he breathed in and out every day, as a part of his job. Hard working man, just like your dad. The job took him. I only saw him once before he passed - withered away, like a dying flower. Not the man I remembered, but he wouldn’t even look at me. Not with a Wardogs patch on my jacket. I should’ve listened to him, but I didn’t. Mom went after him. Kidneys failed, and she was too miserable, too weak to bother to do anything about it, until it killed her. I put away my colors when I went to her funeral. I felt ashamed. And I resolved to turn the patch into something different,” he breathes in with resolve. “Something they could’ve been proud of. Street warriors protecting the hard workers. Standing up for people who need it.”

  “I know… I know life growing up, must’ve been hard for you,” I whisper, consoling. “Billy Boy, he told me…”

  “Billy? What’d he tell you?” Tony looks at me skeptically, brow furrowing darkly. “…When did he tell you, whatever he told you?”

  “He-he,” my words quake in confusion, “he told— he told me about your parents, how they took him in, how— how you went to live with him, and… he told me, when he came to threaten me, rode in my ca— did you not know about… this?” I blink. “I thought you had sent him, to silence me, to scare me. After weeks of trying to get in touch with you, I figured you got sick of it, and sent him to solve your problem—”

  “Mara, I never sent Billy Boy after you, for anything,” he grimaces. “You think I’d send Billy Boy to intimidate you? What did he say?”

  “He— I mean, he said a lot, about you, your past, coming back from the west, about how— how Quentin liked you, and how he’d… how you’d told him, not to hurt me, but he’d do it anyway if I kept getting too close to you.”

  “I never put him up to that. That son of a bitch,” Billy growls, glancing out the window at the dying sunset. “I should have known.”

  “How could you have known?” I query.

  “Quentin never trusted Billy, Mara,” he says, “and if there’s one thing I learned from Quentin Hill, it’s that I shouldn’t trust him, either. Ever. And I have, maybe too much,” he scowls.

  “Trusted him with what?” I squeeze at his neck, holding him close, fearing that whatever revelation awaits may tear him away from me.

  “Billy Boy’s still second in command of the gang. I hold the loyalty of most of my brothers,” he ruminates on thoughts collected so suddenly in his mind, “but I know he’s been gathering up people disgruntled over the direction I want to take the gang - in secret. Trying to keep secret, anyway. He’s not very subtle. I figured I’d keep him in check, always on a short leash - and I’d have my loyal brothers to protect me when he tried something stupid. But he wasn’t as stupid as I thought. I went to that meet spot ready to deal with a crew of bikers or second-hand assassins,” he flexes his knuckles in anger, “but instead I found sirens and cops. He knew I’d bluster and bristle at them, but that I wouldn’t do anything drastic to cops.”

  “What are you trying to say?” I stammer. “I… I can believe, that you’re trying to reform the Wardogs, Tony, but are you trying to say whatever… whatever you were brought in for, is false?” my gaze twists skeptical, and fear fills me - am I being used, again? “Greg Valence may not like the Wardogs either, Tony, but I don’t think he’d falsify evidence against you to get you arrested. What did you do, when they brought you in?” I ask, my tone judgmental.

  “Do you believe me? At all?” he balks. “Or are the misconceptions coming back?”

  “Tony, I just… please,” I murmur, remembering what Greg had tried to mention to me at our last meeting - whatever plan he had, to drag Tony in. “Just tell me.”

  “I don’t know! I didn’t do anything,” he exclaims angrily, pushing away from me and pacing. “Billy told me about an impromptu meet. I didn’t think anything of it - we do it regularly, but I always have backup, in case he tries to get a gang to string me up. This time, he told me a location, and cops—”

  “Cops,” I point out, “not bikers. And Billy led you to it. Have you talked to any law enforcement recently?” I ask him, trying to lead him to the appropriate conclusion.

  “Billy set me up,” he snarls. “I’m not surprised, but— how? How did he work cops in to it?”

  “Valence told me they had you—” I flip furiously through my texts, as messages between Greg and I. “He mentioned a sting… set up… online. Those Facebook messages I sent you—”

  “You sent messages to my Facebook?” he eyes me skeptically.

  “Anthony St. James?” I query, a little embarrassed. “I mean… I just looked you up, I wasn’t— I just really wanted to talk to you, Tony—”

  “Mara, please,” he sighs playfully, “that’s not what this is about. That profile - I haven’t used it since I left. When I went out west, I… god damnit,” he hisses.

  “You what?” I exclaim.

  “I gave the account information to Billy, for club purposes. I trusted him,” he states grimly. “My mistake.”

  “So all those messages I sent… Billy got them,” I connect the dots. “That’s why he knew. He knows about us, and worse, he must have—”

  “Used it to frame me in this sting operation your detective friend set up, by posing as me online, probably from our computers at the club,” Tony finishes my statement for me. “Sly bastard. Quentin was right. He wants me out of the picture, but he knows he doesn’t have the support to stage an uprising in the gang against me. So he tries to nail me to the wall in court instead.”

  “Okay, that makes our job really easy then,” I respond with tempered excitement. “If we know the computers at the club can be used by anyone, and that you haven’t used that profile in a long while, and that you gave Billy the information for the profile to keep it updated for club purposes, that makes it incredibly simple to get the case dismissed outright— what are you doing?” Working out the legal details of the case against Tony, I notice he has no interest in my appraisal and is instead pulling his leather jacket tight and lacing up his boots.

  “Handling this,” he grunts.

  “Tony, please,” my heart sinks with the deep, angry exclamation made. “Don’t… this is a simple case, with a simple solution. You won’t see the inside of a jail cell. Best case scenario, the prosecutor’s office has to drop charges for lack of realistic probable cause once this evidence comes to light. Worst, we have to go to trial and no jury is going to believe—”

  “Listen, Mara,” he bristles, “you have your way of dealing with these problems - and I have mine. Billy Boy set me up - him, Butcher, Lefty, have been trying to get me killed for weeks, and now they stoop to calling in Johnny Law by framing me. They betrayed a brother. The clubhouse won’t have it. I won’t have it.”

  “No, c’mon, please, Tony,” I beg him, “don’t do anything you’re going to regret. Don’t give the state an opportunity to arrest you again. Don’t give—”

  “Don’t give what?” he roars. “You are the state. You’re the reason we’re trapped in this swampy mess to begin with. If you can do something, do it.”

  “Tony, you have to understand. I know you can, you said so yourself, it’s… ethics, I can’t take part in the case against you. I love you,” I whisper, “and that clouds my professional judgment. I can’t dismiss the charges myself. I’ll have to recuse—”

  “If you can’t solve it, one of us has to,” he shouts, footsteps slamming towards the door. “You s
houldn’t stay here. If Billy Boy knows about us, he’ll come looking for us here.”

  “He knows where I live, too,” I mewl quietly. He looks into my eyes with a rage burning in his hazel gaze.

  “That’s why I’m handling the situation my way, Mara,” he states calmly, a human tempest roaring through the door and slamming it shut behind him.

  “Tony, please—” the echoing rumble of the door crashing silences me. I stand, a quivering leaf blown by the winds of chaos around her, fear gripping my stomach. I gather my things and dash to the door, rushing out after him. When I reach ground level, he’s already gone. Fearing eyes everywhere, watching - waiting for the two of us - I follow his advice. I get into my car, I rev it alive, and I slowly, cautiously start back towards my house.

  Hoping they aren’t waiting there, too.

  Chapter 18

  I should be comfortably focused on the steady purr of the bike between my legs; I should be enjoying the wide expanse of pavement, open and empty, along the highway ahead of me, racing steadily from lane to lane towards a sky freshly robbed of the glow of a setting sun, clouds painted soft blue while night encroaches. I should be savoring wind whipping through my hair, cresting along the cut of my leather jacket, the only true sound of freedom from society’s shackles.

  Instead, all I can think about is what I’m going to do to Billy Boy when I get to that clubhouse. Wind shearing through my black mane and cresting over my broad shoulders, I twist on the gas harder, my right hand ratcheting hard on the rubber grip, my Harley’s rumble thickening like the hungry groan of a bear. It seems an appropriate metaphor - the bear returning to its den to find those under its charge.

  Except in this case, the bear isn’t coming back to the cave to protect its kind. It’s coming back to stare down its partner, face the betrayal, and do something about it.

  I never should’ve trusted Billy Boy. Shifting lanes, watching the exits zoom past my chrome, I remember Quentin’s words. I remember Mara’s words. Her face. A face I first met buried in papers; a face I admired when she buried it in liquor. I never would’ve admitted it afterwards - I knew the look in her eye, and I had no interest in a prosecutor. She could never be with me. I could never be with her.

  Now I’m going to throw my life, my brotherhood on the line, all for her. Do I love her? I don’t know. My first reaction is a resounding no, but with so much hanging in the balance, and a very real possibility I’ll step into the Wardogs clubhouse whole and stagger out with a few new holes in my chest, I give the thought of loving her a long, hard ponder.

  I pass the smokestacks, the alleyways; a neighborhood that used to be middle class but now half the houses are covered in hastily-nailed plywood, and the graffiti coats the other half. I pass into the neighborhoods my brothers come from - numbered streets, screened-in front porches; a dealer on every block, a sickness down every driveway. Guys like Butcher resent me for coming from a house like I did. We were always broke, but mom worked and dad worked and they both gave me what they could. Butcher didn’t know his dad, and his mom tried her hardest for him, but some hood blew her away when he was twelve. To him, having both parents live into my adulthood had been a blessing, and the idea of a guy like me trying to tell him he needed to straighten up felt as appealing as a bath in hot oil. He’d rather flip the world the bird and watch it crumble, like the endless steam-puking factories and dying neighborhoods in Jersey City have.

  I pull down the exit, entering my town; the west side. I don’t know how many tracks Jersey City’s got, but when I take a breath of the cigarette-thick air and hear the whirr of a dozen hogs, I know we’re on the wrong side of all of them. Two streets over I got into my first fight; I pass by an empty field, grass growing haphazardly up through cracked pavement, marking the spot where once stood the smelting factory my grandfather worked in, decades ago. Another handful of twisting turns brings me out of the dead thoroughfares and pothole-littered pathways and into the one block of pulsing, gleaming life still burning like a candleflame twisting in the last exhaled breaths of a toothless, stinking corpse. The Roarin’ Wardogs MC clubhouse, a crumbling brick facade like all the others, weeds sprung up through a sidewalk littered with discarded cigarette butts and scattered motorcycles, tied up with chains to any makeshift hitch the drivers could find.

  I turn mine off. Don’t lock it up; no need. Nobody’d dare touch Tony St. James’s bike; not in this town. My town. Keys thrown into my jacket pocket, I approach the door, jeering laughs and a faint sort of celebration greeting me before I even pull it open. The murky yellow luminscence and cigar-whiskey stink don’t faze me. My brothers crowd around a couch at the center of the clubhouse, lifting beers together in joy on seeing my face. At the center, grinning that disgusting grin he always shows, Billy Boy cheers the loudest and proudest of the entire bunch. Flanked by his two most loyal stooges, Butcher and Lefty Pete, he doesn’t appear surprised at my freedom. Knowing what he knows of Mara and I, he must have expected I.

  I can only hope in those messages Mara sent, she didn’t mention she’s carrying a child. Our child.

  “Our golden boy returns!” Billy exclaims, his voice like the chastising bellows of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, leading a round of cheers. Butcher and Lefty Pete don’t participate, spearing me with stony gazes. They know, and they know I know. Billy must, too, but he pretends he doesn’t. Always like him to play the role of the good leader. “Gettin’ nabbed ain’t very fun, is it, brother?” he asks.

  “A round for the boss!” Scare exclaims, holding a mug of swill high above his head, lanky arms hefting it higher than anyone in the club could match. The boys join in, but I stand unmoved and unamused.

  “How’d you get out so fast anyway, boss?” Wingman grins, downing two beers at a time. No surprise that he carries all that extra weight on his frame. “Billy said he tried t’meet you at the court after he heard about the arraignment to get you bailed out. Said you already had an out.”

  “Yeah,” I answer, flat, “I did.” When it becomes clear to my brother that my non-answer is the only answer I’m going to give, they resume drinking, the cheers and amusement more muted, though Billy tries to keep spirits light.

  “Yer out now, brother. No worries about anybody grabbin’ yer ass here, yer not in jail anymore,” he laughs, bringing another round of cheers up from the Wardogs. “Congrats, though. Good to see yer free.”

  “Yeah!” Donnie Z shouts from the back of the crew, lifting his glass. “Good ta see you boss.” Donnie. Always a good guy. One of the few I hoped would be spared any sort of club drama. He only ever wanted to drive motorcycles. Inherited his from his dad. He’s the side of Jersey City I’m trying to save. I take a deep breath, thinking long on what next I’ll say. I consider what Mara told me. It’ll be easy to get you off, she seemed convinced. Maybe she’s right, but do we have time? My mind wraps back to the nine millimeter stuffed into the back of my waist, begging for me to fix all of this the way I should have when I came back to town. The way Quentin should have, decades ago. Just one bullet, right in Billy’s head, and all of this would be over.

  “Well, ain’t ya gonna have a drink, boy?” Billy Boy asks, offering me a mug. I take a deep breath. Maybe Mara’s right. The temptation burns in my wrist, to answer with a dose of hot lead.

  “I’m not really in the drinking mood,” I answer obstinately. The celebration fades slowly, joy-stricken faces now vexed in mild confusion. I stare Billy down. His grin remains. Always that grin.

  “What’s going on, boss?” Rough-House blubbers through a drink of beer. Safe between his enforcers, sprawled comfortably across the couch, Billy shifts, still offering me the drink.

  “The boys and I tried to do somethin’ nice for you, Little Tony,” Billy grunts. “Yer kind of ruining the mood, boss.”

  “Think you already ruined it, Billy Boy,” I respond without a missed beat. Lefty smirks; it’s clear he wants war, if only so he and Butcher can bask in the bloodshed.

  “Boss, you wan
t to tell us what the hell is going on?” Wingman blurts, half-wasted.

  “Sure,” I answer icily. The gun begs to be used. I listen to Mara’s voice in my head. I don’t want to throw all my chances away with one stupid move. I don’t want to throw her or our baby away. “Why don’t you ask Billy why I wound up in handcuffs in the first place?”

  “What the hell is this, brother?” Roadrat hisses, setting his glass onto a table with a loud clatter. “We set up a party for you, Tony, and you’re killing the mood. We just wanted to do something nice, and now you’re saying— what are you saying?”

  “Maybe, instead, they ought to ask you who bailed you out so quick,” Billy responds, smiling.

  “You first,” I insist.

  “Boss, c’mon, just take a drink,” Scare tries to defuse the situation, sensing bad blood running hot.

  “Wingman, brother, you had a good question. You should ask again,” Billy directs in his commanding preacher voice.

  “Boss, who bailed you out?” Wingman repeats, his cheeks rosy, but his liquor set on a table, his eyes skewering me.

  “The prosecutor,” I flippantly respond. “Mara Lewis.” Defiant chatter whispers into the air. The Wardogs grow restless. My hate-filled eyes locked on Billy, I follow up quickly. “She bailed me out because the only reason I was there in the first place, is Billy Boy setting me up. Setting me up, like he’s been trying to set me up since the day I came back from the west coast. Since the day he killed Quentin.” Gasps and grunts issue outwards from the gallery.