STARSTRUCK: A Dark Bad Boy Romance (The Destroyers MC)

by Zoey Parker

  “Not a chance,” I told him. “My fiancé is already going to adopt him.”

  “Oh, that biker? Blade,” he said, spitting his name out. “I’m willing to fight you in court if need be, Lucy, and you know I’ll win. No one is going to side with a single woman living with a thug who has a history of gang violence and drugs. Oh, and he’s in jail again, from what I hear. I can’t wait to see what it’s for this time. The suspense is killing me.”

  While I watched him, I wondered what I’d ever seen in him. And, honestly, watching his mannerisms, it was a miracle he’d even had sex with me to begin with. I was starting to wonder if I had even been his type or if he’d just been faking it for so long he didn’t know how to stop at the time.

  “Did you think you were going to be able to raise this child in a motorcycle gang, Lucy? Did you really? You had to have known that going to your dad was the worst decision you could have made for yourself. You had to have known that he was going to call me and tell me what you were doing. You had to know he wasn’t going to let your new little boyfriend walk around a free man with so much going on around his little strip club. It’s a shame I never got to see that sweet little ass of yours onstage, though. I would have given you more than just a few dollars in your G-string.” He rubbed my thigh and slid his hand up a little too high for comfort.

  “Look, there are guys from the MC here right now. If they catch you in here, you’re not going to be able to claim custody of our child when it’s born, so I suggest you leave,” I told him.

  “Fine, but think about it. I want what’s mine.” He got up and walked out of the room, leaving me in there alone.

  He was right. He had a good, respectable job. Chances were, even going through a divorce, he was still doing well for himself. He had so much more to offer than I did. I was in a bad situation to try to keep my baby. If I wanted to keep it, I was probably going to have to leave Blade and the MC behind, especially with Blade going back to jail.

  I had to wonder what else he’d been in for. It was time to air everything out. I needed to know what was going on, what had gone on before. My whole world was crumbling again. I didn’t know what to do.

  The beeping increased, and something else started beeping loudly. I was alone and no one was coming in.

  A moment later, a couple of nurses came in to check on me. Robby followed them, and I looked to him for help.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  The nurses, thinking he was talking to them, told him I was just excited and needed to relax. They hit me with another dose of whatever was keeping the pain at bay, and I felt myself starting to mellow out almost immediately.

  “Is that safe for the baby?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we’re giving her small doses of a very light sedative so we don’t harm the baby,” one of the nurses said.

  I ignored her. I didn’t want to think about any drugs that could have been harmful to my baby. My baby. Mine and Blade’s baby, not Dylan’s.

  After the nurses left, Robby came to my side. “Look, is everything all right?” he asked in a very serious tone. His voice was that of someone who would have hurt anyone who tried to hurt me. I could hear it in there.

  “Dylan, the baby’s father,” I said.

  “Was he here?”

  I nodded.

  “When?”

  “Right before the beeping.” I was so tired I could barely talk.

  “You rest,” Robby told me. “I’ll get some guys up here so you’re not alone. We’ll take care of you.”

  He patted me on my shoulder and walked away across the room. I closed my eyes and listened as his voice drifted off. He was on the phone. The beeping had come back in, but it was the light, rhythmic beeping of my heart. It matched my breathing. I didn’t think they would have given me much for pain with a baby, but I trusted they knew what they were doing. If there had been any real emergency, the doctor would have already been in to see me.

  Chapter 23

  Blade

  “Your attorney is here,” the guard said as he opened the door to the holding cell.

  “That was fast,” I told him as I got up.

  “Just come with me,” he said. He didn’t seem amused to be escorting me to see my lawyer.

  “Cuffs?” I asked. “I mean, have you read my history?”

  That shocked him and stirred some reaction in his eyes. He pulled out the cuffs and secured my wrists.

  “Thanks. I feel safer now,” I told him. I was being a total smartass and keeping myself entertained. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was out of there.

  All my hopes were shattered when I walked into the room where my attorney was waiting for me and saw one of my brothers from the MC. It was Shade, the guy we usually sent to handle sketchy shit, but I didn’t know what kind of sketchy business we were going to be able to get into at the police station. I sat down with him, and the guard left the room.

  “Okay, what’s the story?” I asked him.

  “Robby sent me. Carothers isn’t coming. That’s all he would say,” Shade told him.

  “Has anyone told Brick? We need to make sure he’s no longer being funded if he’s going to let Bryan Smithfield get to him. I’m assuming that’s why he’s not coming. Bryan gets his hands into everything,” I said.

  “Pretty much. That’s what it looks like. I’ll check when I get back. I don’t know if anyone has talked to Brick since you went in,” Shade told me.

  “Impossible.”

  “Man, it’s all happened pretty quickly. You know, this isn’t the only thing we’re dealing with right now. Lucy’s in the hospital.”

  “What?! Is she okay?” I asked, trying to remain calm so I didn’t upset anyone in the jail.

  “Yeah, it looks like she was just having some pain. Stress, probably upset the baby or something. They’ve got her on fluids and they’re keeping her for observation,” he assured me.

  “Okay. Whatever it is, tell Robby and my brothers that I’ll cover whatever the insurance doesn’t, but make sure Hammer and Sketch are up there, okay?”

  “Got it. I think Robby’s already called them.”

  “Good.” I took a deep breath. What else could go wrong? “Any other news?” I asked.

  “Bail has been denied,” he told me.

  “No way. Why?” I asked.

  “Judge’s orders.”

  “Let me guess. The judge is friends with Bryan Smithfield,” I said. “We’ve got to do something about this guy.”

  “Just say when. We’ve got people ready. I’m sure Brick will be on board once we let him know everything,” Shade said.

  “Unfortunately, we’re going to have play it right if we want to get him. Nothing yet, just wait.”

  “Do you want me to let them know to get you a public defender?” he asked.

  “No, not at all. Have Robby call some of the other organizations. Call some of the other MCs especially. Someone has to have a lawyer beyond Bryan’s reach,” I explained. “I’m not giving up yet.”

  “Will do.”

  “Are you taking notes, Shade?” I asked. “I don’t expect you to remember all of this.”

  “Right, right,” he said, pulling a notepad out of his briefcase.

  I laughed. “Where’d you get the get-up, man?” He was dressed in a nice, conservative gray suit with a white shirt and red tie, not his normal attire. Shade was almost always dressed like any other street thug. He wore baggy jeans, black shirts, and often hid his face in hoodies. He was really just a street rat who handled business that didn’t need to be seen.

  “One of the guys hooked me up. You like? I feel ridiculous,” he said.

  “You look ridiculous, honestly, but that’s only because it’s you.” I went to pat him on the shoulder but my cuffs kept my hands together. I laughed when I realized I was still cuffed.

  “All right. So, get Hammer and Sketch at the hospital to keep an eye on Lucy. Talk to Brick about everything that’s going on. Cancel Carothers�
�s money. Get Robby on finding you another attorney through other MCs,” he said as he wrote everything down on paper to remind himself.

  “And don’t forget, now. Also, talk to Brick about Bryan Smithfield. We need to do something about him,” I reminded him.

  “Right, but tell him to wait.”

  “Exactly.”

  I watched him write everything down in his fast, sloppy handwriting.

  “Did they tell you why they brought me in?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, drugs,” he said nonchalantly.

  “Drugs? What the hell?” I asked, trying to keep my voice down.

  “Yeah, they said they found some at the club.” What really amazed me was that, for Shade, this wasn’t a big deal. Shade dealt with drugs all day every day. He didn’t have a legitimate job or service he performed outside the MC. He worked the streets for us. That was all he did, so if someone said drugs, it didn’t affect him at all.

  For me, that was a serious charge. The club was a front. It was squeaky damn clean, too. It had to be. I didn’t want to draw any attention to the money we laundered through it for the MC. Since so much of what we did in the club depended on money the patrons threw at the girls, it was easy to inflate those numbers a little, especially if I could show that I skimmed some off the top every night.

  “Man, I haven’t ever had drugs in that place,” I told Shade.

  “They’re saying they found a pretty good stash. What about those girls a while back, the ones you had to fire?” he asked.

  “No, we had the place searched, remember? I had a couple of guys come in and scour the club. If the girls had left anything behind, we would have found it. Man, that place was clean,” I insisted.

  “Then, I don’t know,” Shade said.

  “Bryan Smithfield,” I said. “He framed me. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That’s Lucy’s dad. Lucy told him we’re seeing each other. Then, right after that everything went to shit. Man, I’m telling you, we have to watch our asses with this guy. He’s serious business,” I told him.

  “I’ll make sure I talk to Brick about that for you, as well,” he assured me.

  “Do that. And tell Robby he better get me a real lawyer. Nothing good is going to happen if I go with a public defender.”

  About that time, the door opened and the cop came back in. “Time’s up,” he said.

  “What do you mean? Since when?” I protested.

  “Since now. That’s not your attorney.”

  Another cop came in and picked Shade up by his arm. He snatched away from the officer and started to walk out on his own, followed by the police. We shared a look as he walked past me. Everything was going to be handled. I just needed to be patient, as always.

  “You’re lucky we don’t lock his ass up, too, but you’re in bad enough shape already,” my officer said.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I always am. Besides, I’m being framed.”

  “So is everyone else in here, man. Save it for the judge,” he said, laughing.

  “I love how none of you flunkies take me seriously down here. That’s good,” I said, chuckling. The state pen, however, was a different story. The local cats looked at me like just another essentially harmless street thug. Those state guards knew why they called me Blade. That was no joke.

  “Well, we see your type all the time, man. You think you’re big and bad, and then you end up in custody, and you’re nothing but hot air,” he said, pushing me back into the cell.

  “Hey, when are you guys going to move me to a real cell? And what about these damn cuffs?” I called after him as he walked off.

  “You’re so big and bad, Blade, you get out of them,” he yelled back.

  I looked down at them. I probably could have if I tried. They weren’t on very tight, but the last thing I needed to do was slide my hands through a pair of handcuffs and get myself in real trouble. I could get out from under framing, easily. That wasn’t a big deal, but trying to escape, or whatever they would have billed getting out of the cuffs as, wasn’t worth it.

  I sat back down on the bench and realized that my “attorney” had shown up the same day and got all the information he had just a few hours after I’d been locked up. That had to be record time for me. They loved to make me wait for anything. It was just the way they treated us because we were in a motorcycle club. They tried to keep us in as long as they could for any minor thing, to try to break up the gang or discourage us from going back.

  Part of being in an MC like the Vicious Thrills was having access to legal networks and not-so-legal networks that worked in our favor. Having an organization meant we had access to resources other, more common street thugs didn’t have. Locking us up was like locking up successful businessmen.

  Bryan Smithfield, however, was turning into a royal pain in my ass. Carothers had been with us for a long time. He was supposed to be untouchable, but Bryan had touched him. That told me the kind of power that bastard had. He’d also had a substantial amount of drugs found at my club not even an hour after I had left his house with his daughter. He didn’t realize what kind of mess he was stepping in.

  Sure, he had put me behind bars, and he had sent my girls home. Hopefully, Molly had called Robby so they could still get paid through the MC while they were out of work. Sure, he probably had some of the doctors on his payroll, which was why I wanted men down there all the time with Lucy in the hospital. But, his problem was going to be that he couldn’t get to all of us at the same time.

  Shade wasn’t the only sketchy member we had. There were lots of street cats who didn’t wear their colors because they didn’t want to be recognized. Shade was sort of their king, but there were plenty of them, and if Smithfield wanted to pick a fight with us, he was going to have some serious trouble.

  Lucky for him – and lucky for me, I supposed – there wasn’t much I was able to do behind bars, not until Brick knew what was going on and I had talked with a real lawyer. Of course, by having them lock me up alone, he obviously didn’t realize he was giving me time to stew in it.

  People like me didn’t need to sit and think about what we could do to people like him. It never ended well for those people. I couldn’t wait to get out or at least get the word out. Bryan Smithfield was going to suffer. He’d picked a fight with the wrong one.

  He was going to pay for the way he’d treated his daughter. And, then, he was going to pay for what he was doing to me. He underestimated how dangerous we were. He probably thought he was safe in his little white, boxed off neighborhood. He probably had a top-of-the-ling security system in his home, too.

  Clueless.

  He probably had no idea I had been sitting in his driveway just that morning. That meant any member of the MC knew how to get back to his place. All I had to do was let the information slip about which house, which neighborhood.

  Before I knew it, I was sitting on the bench with the handcuffs in my hand. I had slipped out of cuffs so many times I didn’t even feel it anymore when I squeezed my hands through them, and the idiot who had put them on me didn’t make them nearly tight enough. It wasn’t like I had small hands to begin with.

  I sat there and played with them, taking my mind off Bryan Smithfield. I waited.

  Chapter 24

  Lucy

  They kept me overnight for observation. They said everything was fine, that the stress I’d been putting myself under was too much for my pregnant body. I was lectured on not going to the doctor to check up on my progress. They performed a couple of ultrasounds to check on the baby and make sure it was healthy— He was healthy.

  I was going to have a baby boy. I hadn’t even realized I was far enough along for them to tell the sex of the child. When they told me, my first thought was to tell Blade we were going to have a son, but I had to stop myself. The child wasn’t his. And I reminded myself of Dylan’s visit. No one could know that I was having a boy. I didn’t want it getting back to either one of them. If Dylan knew I was having a boy, he’d probably try
harder to get the child from me. If Blade knew, it would just break his heart that much more.

  I couldn’t stay. I had to leave. I had to get away from everyone. I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t go back to Blade. And I wasn’t about to pursue Dylan again. It was time for me to break free of everyone else’s expectations, wants, and desires. It was time to do what was best for me, and what was going to be best for my son.

  “Well, Lucy, everything looks great,” the doctor said, coming into my room for the last time. “I’ll have the nurse come around with your discharge papers in a few minutes, and I guess you’re good to go after that. Do you have any questions?”