“You’re actin’ like a daft cunt ‘cause you knew I would have told you about my decision!” I shouted louder than I intended to.
“When? After the paperwork was signed and you handed in your badge to Eve?” Talia questioned in a cold, frightened voice. “How could you be so blind to think she would have the power to protect us if you were no longer in her employment? An informant doesn’t get that kind of protection, and you know it, Dex. So what would you have done? How could you have possibly protected what we have here? You can’t lie to my face and tell me everything would have been okay because you can’t make a promise like that at all!”
“I would have protected our family any way that was necessary, Tal, and you know that. Don’t you think I thought this through long and hard? This wasn’t a rash decision—”
“That’s exactly what it was, Dex! You shouldn’t have even mentioned it to Ronan first—I should have been your first point of contact, goddamn it, even if you had to drag my ass outta the studio to discuss it. We both knew what we were getting involved in, and now that you’re not so comfortable in your new job, you think you can just quit any goddamn time you want? Life doesn’t work that way and you damn well know it.” She glanced into my eyes and sighed. “What would have happened if you had done that as MI:6? I mean, before you transferred to the FBI?”
“They would have had me assassinated,” I murmured softly as I looked at the Persian rug I stood on.
Talia strode toward me and pushed against my chest. I was a strong man and though she barely moved me a couple feet with her actions, her words chilled my veins. “That’s exactly what they’ll do to you if you leave Eve’s unit, Dex. You know too much and until whatever investigation the Unit is doing on the White Knights MC is resolved, they can’t trust anyone. For all they know, you were a mole for the WKs and they won’t take that chance—they’d rather blow your head off instead. So you think long and hard about that while you’re sleeping alone in that big bed of ours, you selfish prick!”
“Don’t be a stupid cunt about this, Tal!”
“Oh fuck off and just die you deluded son of a whore! That’s what you plan to do anyway if you throw that badge in Eve’s face!” she exclaimed before she left our room and slammed the doors behind her.
Eden woke up and began to cry but I didn’t bother to move as I flexed my fists. I wanted to hit something—hard. I needed to release all the anger and frustration inside of me but my first thought was about the rift I’d caused between my wife and how we could repair the damage before it was too late.
I hadn’t allowed myself to express a tumult of strong emotions in a long time but that night I sobbed until there were no more tears to cry. It was easy enough to do, especially since I was holding a colicky baby who had just as many tears coming down her face as her mother did.
As I rocked her in the comfy and outrageously expensive velvet rocker with a matching ottoman, I couldn’t help but stare into her blue eyes—crystal and as clear as her father’s. In fact, Eden didn’t look much like me at all. She was practically bald with the softest of white blonde fuzz on her head; her skin was porcelain white like my sister’s. There wasn’t an ounce of my olive complexion in her at all. She had my pouty lips, and we shared some of the same facial features but she might as well have been a feminized version of her father.
Although Hardy had dark hair, I knew he and Desmond’s father had been blond-haired and blue-eyed. Though their mother was considered black Irish with her dark hair, porcelain white skin and blue-gray eyes, they’d inherited her hair color but their father’s crystal blue eyes. It was only a matter of time their grandfather would decide to make his presence known in the gene pool and it happened not only with Eden but Cillian and Gisela’s twins as well. Although they’d been born with dark hair, it’d fallen out and both their son and daughter were towheads. In their case, it made even more sense than mine because despite Gisela being half-black, her mother was a blue-eyed blonde, and her father wasn’t a dark man at all—in fact, it was obvious he had tons of European and Native American ancestry.
In fact, one of their twins ended up with their maternal grandmother’s blue eyes while the other inherited their father’s crystal blue eyes.
I knew why I was suddenly thinking about genetics and history because there was no way in hell I would ever leave Hardy. It was an empty threat though I did want him to consider our children and I was pissed off he’d discussed such an important decision with Ronan first. If the situation had been reversed, Ronan would have informed Naomi before he’d approached Hardy. But then again, Naomi knew the ins and outs of what went on in the club and I never wanted to be like her. I’d rather pretend what they did had no bearing on my life what so ever.
I was a rock star and enjoyed my celebrity status. I surely didn’t need to know the goings on of a one percent club to feel important when I was the lead singer of Winter’s Regret. I had fame, fortune, a beautiful elaborate home in Lake Las Vegas, two beautiful children and a mysterious husband who was my “former bodyguard,” or at least that’s the story both Introspect and the FBI concocted together. There were no photos of my husband on any search media though there were photos of me to be found walking around in various places, sometimes with a band mate or two, other times with Trista or with my children.
Whether the public found it strange or not that not a single photo of my husband could be located on the World Wide Web wasn’t really a concern of mine. I did my job, kept up all my public appearances at the Billboard Awards, the Grammys, and the American Music Awards, performed at various rock events each year and even participated in radio interviews including one we had coming up in a few months with Kelly Riley on Octane. It wasn’t our first appearance on the XM rock radio channel and it wouldn’t be our last.
Of course TMZ had taken a fact-finding mission on trying to find out everything they could about my marriage. They oftentimes threw more exciting stories aside like who Taylor Swift was dating or what the Jenner girls were up to speculating that I was married to a mysterious crime figure who most likely belonged to the Russian Bratva. Where they got their strange ideas from were beyond me but I found them hilarious—as did the rest of the band. In fact, we had articles taped up in the studio where TMZ claimed that I was introduced to this mysterious man by Kris Nieminen, although Kris was Finnish. He had a paternal great grandfather who happened to be Russian therefore that was where Bratva angle came in. My supposed husband was a member of one of the famed oligarchy families and because he was so powerful, he’d eluded the press up until this time due to his fierce need for privacy and the fact that he was rarely ever in the country. He was, according to sources, too busy playing puppeteer and deciding all of Vladimir Putin’s moves in the motherland.
It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t true . . . except it wasn’t me who was married to the powerful Russian businessman but Hardy’s niece and Gisela’s first cousin. There was a powerful Bratva in both the Cox and Jackson families; his name was Erik Kitaev, and he was now an informant for the FBI along with being a crime figure who was quiet, adored his privacy and operated under the strictest of discretionary terms. He even had business with the Lucifer’s Saints but the extent of that business wasn’t important to me so I didn’t ask nor did Hardy volunteer any information either.
I sighed with indignation because as much I had that sanctimonious attitude that I didn’t know shit about what went down in the club—a club that was part of my children’s legacy and heritage whether I wanted to admit it or not—I knew way too much. Here I was condemning Hardy for the same sins I also was guilty of. It was time to apologize, to say I was sorry.
Eden had fallen asleep in my arms while I’d held her. I unlatched her from my right breast and realized I’d probably sent her off with a touch of booze and a feeling of guilt immediately hit me. In my state of trying to coddle her and help her, I’d stuck my nipple right in her mouth and hadn’t thought twice about the drinks I’d had earlier at
the pussy party.
Talk about mom of the year material, I thought with anger, before I stood and set her back down in her seventy-five hundred Nursery Works Gradient crib that Jerrica had bought for my baby shower. One from Ikea would have probably been a fraction of the cost and just as effective but it’s not like I could turn down a gift from one of my best friends since we’d gone to Vassar College. It just didn’t seem appropriate. So I’d smiled and accepted the opulent crib knowing that it would be donated to charity as soon as Eden was able to sleep in a child’s bed.
I stood, walked out of her suite and walked to the guest bedroom where I claimed I would be. It didn’t take me long to go through the walk in closet, find the safe and pull out a present from Hardy. For Christmas, one of his presents was a Kahr CW9, a nine-millimeter Luger with a seven round single stack magazine. I didn’t think I needed a weapon but he’d even took me to the gun range and trained me in its use, how to load it, clean it and where to hide it.
With the kids in the house, there were plenty of guns and ammo everywhere but they were all locked up in built-in safes throughout the estate that even housekeeping wasn’t aware of. I had decided to sleep in one of the suites with a safe until I realized how silly I was acting and decided to apologize.
I didn’t know how he would take it, and I didn’t plan to shoot him but I grabbed the gun anyway, checked the magazine, turned the safety off and trudged from the suite downstairs to the kitchen. I didn’t realize how dehydrated I was until I grabbed a bottle of San Pellegrino out of the fridge and chucked down two thirds of it. Setting the glass bottle down on the counter, I could have sworn I felt a presence near me.
Yes, the estate was ostentatious and too fucking big for a family of four with a live-in nanny, and the three maids we employed—though they didn’t live on the premises but in a guest house we had on the other side of the back yard.
The dietician/cook and my personal trainer came by since they both resided not too far in Seven Hills so it wasn’t much of a trek for them to drive every day to our house.
There was so much security around the gated community of Lake Las Vegas, most residents had security systems but we, like many of our neighbors, often failed to use them. They were cumbersome and a pain in the ass, especially when getting into the house and realizing if one didn’t turn off that goddamn beeping sound in ten seconds, half of the Henderson police department would be at our door within five minutes. Plus Lake Las Vegas had their own safety patrol guys making rounds around the clock every day due to the high amount of celebrities, which resided in the community. I was one of many who lived here so I truly didn’t have anything to fear.
However, the feeling of fight or flight mode had taken over and innately told me I was not alone downstairs and the other person was not Hardy or the nanny. Beatriz, a sweet young woman who couldn’t be more than twenty, came from France and took online courses at UNLV once she became our live-in nanny. She was attractive, athletic and kept me motivated to stay in shape by running with me in the estate’s gym when my trainer wasn’t around. I should have been jealous of her and worry about Hardy wanting a piece of prime French pussy but since he wasn’t the type to stray—and even if he was, it wasn’t like there was a shortage of pussy being thrown at him on a regular basis—I couldn’t turn the young woman down for being attractive.
I made sure she had an active social life by giving her the weekends off—in that case, we had a standby nanny—Kassandra—who was American and attended UNLV full time but still came over on the weekends to look after the children in between getting her class assignments finished. Also extremely attractive, she’d worked at Hooters Hotel and Casino before we hired her. She made more in a weekend working for us than she’d made busting her ass six days a week at Hooters.
I grabbed the gun off the counter and walked boldly from the kitchen and stepped lightly, placing most of my body weight on the balls of my feet. My heart thundered in my chest but since I was breathing through my nose—a trick I learned practicing yoga—I could move about my home pretty much undetected.
Someone was rifling through our family room, collecting photos and it seemed like a couple of our paintings, stuffing them in a duffle bag. I had a couple of small Van Goghs’ and Picasso paintings along with a few Andy Warhol abstract pieces in the room. They would sell well but not once I reported them stolen.
“Stop what the fuck you’re doing and put my shit down.” My voice sounded commanding and hid the actual fear I truly had coursing through my body. “What the hell are you doing in my home?”
The figure turned and revealed himself.
I should have been shocked that Brad Decker had the cheek to sneak into my neighborhood and help himself to my property but why wasn’t I surprised? He probably never had any intention of turning state’s evidence, and even if he did, he wanted to raise enough loot to get his brother out of the country before the Feds could officially go after him.
In the end, it didn’t matter what I did or didn’t want to know about Hardy’s business dealings when it came to the club because the shit had shown up at my front door, in my house, literally.
“You can report this shit as stolen, and you know it but if you think I’m gonna let that son of a bitch get my brother and have him live out the rest of his days in SuperMax, you’re mistaken—”
“Actually, Nel was slated to go Pelican Bay.” I adjusted my stance and held out both arms with my gun in my hands, my finger lightly on the trigger. “Put my shit down and get the fuck out of here.”
“Or what? You gonna shoot me, bitch? You probably don’t even know how to use that thing.”
“You won’t be walking outta here if I have to,” I replied in a cool voice.
“Well, just so you know,” he began as he set down the duffle bag and kicked it to the side where it slid across the marble floors, “mine is bigger than yours—”
I didn’t give him a chance to speak, just aimed for his thigh and shot him. I’d purposely missed the carotid artery because I didn’t want him bleeding out all over my floor or the blood reaching an expensive Alpaca rug I’d ordered to celebrate Winter’s Regret first platinum single with me at the helm. I was sentimental like that.
“Fuck!” he screamed as his gun, a lousy .45 that had seen better days skittered across the floor near the booty he’d intended to walk out of my home with.
I hoped Beatriz hadn’t heard the noise but Hardy had because he walked up like a panther behind me.
“What the bloody hell is he doin’ in our home?”
“Tryin’ to rob us so he can raise some money and get his brother a flight to Mexico or some other country where they won’t extradite his ass. How the fuck should I know?” My voice could have been warmer but I was still a bit pissed off at him.
Hardy walked past me and directly to Brad. “That was the wrong fuckin’ thing to do, mate. You come to my house and threaten my family?” He picked up the .45 and aimed it at Brad’s head. “If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll blow your head clean off you filthy piece of white trash scum.”
Brad stopped his yelping though he continued to growl low, like a pit bull ready to strike.
I shrugged my shoulders apathetically as I watched Hardy kneel over Brad with the man’s gun in his hand. “What should we do?”
“You piece of shit. You pond scum, son of a cunt thought you could walk into my home—the place where I raise my children and where my ol’ lady resides—and fuckin’ steal from me when I’m tryin’ to help your dumb ass? Wrong move, you daft fuckin’ prick.”
I wasn’t ready for what Hardy did next but I should have been as he began to pistol whip the fucker with his own gun. He broke his nose and fucked up his face but not enough to cause permanent damage as I looked on casually. He threw the gun down, wiping the fucker’s blood against his black jeans as he stood to his full height. He started kicking him several times in the ribs and gut much to Brad’s chagrin.
The guy tried to form a fet
al position to protect his vital organs but that just made Hardy angrier as he shoved his foot forcefully into Brad’s exposed shoulder and back. He didn’t stop until the man blissfully passed out from his injuries and that’s when he finally stared at me.
I could see the rage in his eyes from where I was standing and we were at least twenty feet apart. Hardy barely breathed hard though I know his lung he’d been shot in must have been hurting him something fierce. The shoulder that had also received a gun shot wound looked sore and kind of hung in defeat as he glanced directly at me.
“You wanna do me a favor, love, and switch the safety back on your firearm?”
I did as I was told before I dropped the gun on the leather sofa. “What else do you want me to do?”
Hardy stalked toward me and grabbed me in his arms with such intensity, I could feel the violence and anger radiating off of him. “I thought about what you said and you’re right. I can’t quit because we’ll lose everything—scratch that, I’ll lose everythin’ and that just ain’t gonna happen.”
“Why?” I whispered, my green eyes locked with his blues.
“Because I would fuckin’ take a gun and shoot you in the head before I killed myself. I am fuckin’ crazy you know—a goddamn psychopath but if you lived through what I have you’d understand why. I’m not goin’ to lose you—I refuse to lose you so if I have to stay with that shitty fucking agency then I will but you—you’re not goin’ any fuckin’ where. Not alone and certainly not with my kids.”
I smiled at him before I bit my lip. “Okay.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Well, what exactly were you expecting, Dex?”
Hardy grabbed my body roughly and wrapped my legs around his waist as he devoured me in a soul-sucking kiss that took my breath away. Our tongues danced and played Russian Roulette with each other, daring one another to go further than we ever had just to see who would win.
Ride To The Edge (Lucifer's Saints MC) (Rough Riders MC Series Book 4) Page 12
