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

by Zoey Parker

  The trail took another curve, and the vista narrowed again. It was beautiful, but also somewhat suffocating. I stopped for a moment in some shade to dig out a trail bar and sip some water, when I heard something rustle ahead.

  Finally. Brian appeared, complete with camo paint on his face. What a fucking freak.

  But then again, I thought, the saying was true. Just because a person might be paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get him. There was a whole pack of people out to get Brian today.

  Before he got very close, I pretended to jostle myself awkwardly, adjusting my backpack, in order to dump some of the cheese puffs on the ground, to mark the meeting spot.

  Brian noticed, but didn’t realize the significance. He smirked.

  “Where’s my baby?” I wasn’t going to waste time. He knew I was here for one purpose, so there was no point in making small talk.

  “Safe enough. God, but you are a sight for sore eyes, Ellie. You look beautiful.” He was really cracked.

  “Bring me to my baby, you psychopath.” I was not going to play nice. I saw no benefit in playing games with this man.

  “Just let me hold you for a minute, Ellie. We’ve been waiting for so long.”

  Whaaat? Um, no.

  “Brian, please. I really need to feed him. Just get me to my baby, let me feed him, then we can catch up.” I hoped that would put him off, and get me what I needed, without more delay. Clearly, he was delusional. I’d have to play his game, from the looks of it. But I would play it my way.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. That kid cries so much, Elsabeth.”—I flinched at the made-up nickname.—“ I don’t know how you stand it. I almost went out of my mind last night, couldn’t sleep, he was crying so hard, all night long, felt like.”

  I felt the blood flood my head, and my vision nearly went red. My ears pounded with my heartbeat. I hated this man with every fiber of my being.

  “Let’s go, Brian.”

  He tried to take my hand, but I pulled it away, and indicated he needed to go ahead of me, to lead the way. He looked dejected for a moment, furrowed his brow, and muttered, “So difficult. Why do you have to be so difficult?” But he did as I bade, and we finally began moving.

  It was easy, with him in front, for me to leave the trail of cheese puffs. So that part of the plan was working out well. I hadn’t heard so much as a rustle of dead bush or leaf or the pop of dried twigs coming from behind me. Either Jack and the guys were way far behind us, or they were stealth-maneuver masters.

  After a few minutes on the trail, Brian took us off-trail at a sharp angle around a short but deadly-looking cactus. I dumped the whole rest of my bag there in an arc; Brian didn’t turn around to notice. I couldn’t believe my luck. The guy was way less with it than I had imagined—and I hadn’t been giving him much credit for greatness, before.

  I quickly plucked another bag of puffs out of my pack and opened it, popping one in my mouth when Brian turned to check that I had followed his curve.

  “Mm. I love cheese puffs.” And he back-tracked to me and opened his mouth, like a baby bird for me to feed. Ew.

  “Here, take the bag if you want some, Brian. I want my own bag.” I was not going to hand-feed this psycho.

  “Thanks, darlin’. You do know how to take care of me, don’t you? It’s part of why I love you so much. You’re the best.” And he smiled at me.

  I did my best to smile back, but it was so extremely fake that I felt it must more resemble a grimace than a smile. He failed to notice the difference, took the bag, and raised my extended hand to his mouth to kiss. I pulled it away before he got there, and pretended like I had an itch on my arm. He watched me for a moment, and seemed to get lost in thought.

  “Brian! Come on. Let’s go. I really need to get to Peter. Like, now. How much farther do we need to go?”

  “Not much, darlin’. Just a few minutes away.”

  Well. A few turned into probably twenty-five, but who was counting?

  All the while, I was thinking about what I might do, myself, to get Peter and myself away from Brian without the help of the MC guys. After all, I had heard nothing the whole way along, and was beginning to wonder if they were really out there behind me or not. Better that I sort out a plan for myself, just in case. If they did happen to show up and do something, great. But I was not going to be up shit creek without a paddle. I had brains, and I would use them.

  Even so, I kept it up with the cheese puffs—no point in not using a tool when one is given. Even if the MC guys gave up and turned around, I would need the trail to get Peter and myself out of here.

  Eventually, we finally got close. I knew it when I heard the very unhappy, weak wails of my son from somewhere in a close vicinity, hidden from my sight by an outcropping of those damned rocks.

  I started running toward the sound, having to trail around the formations as I went, and making several wrong choices along the way. This I knew from the deranged laughter of the psychopath behind me, but I didn’t let it slow me down. I knew I was close—I just kept moving toward the soft wails as best I could, trailing those freaking cheese puffs the whole way along in a steady stream from the now-down-tipped bag.

  But finally—finally—I saw the site. Brian had a grey camo tent set up, a firepit built, and two camping recliner chairs set up. He had a cooler outside, a blanket spread out, and a dry-line hung for laundry. How long had he been here?

  …Never mind. The thought had occurred, but I didn’t care about the answer. All that mattered was Peter, who I still did not see. I figured he had to be inside the tent, and as I approached it, I found this to be true.

  Without looking behind me, I dove in without grace, but carefully enough so I wouldn’t trip over my baby if he was right there at the entrance flap.

  He wasn’t. He was tucked up in a bunch of blankets, on his back, wedged in so he couldn’t go anywhere.

  Well. At least Brian had had enough sense to secure him in one place, so he couldn’t roll around and hurt himself. That was something.

  Peter’s color looked okay, but he had sweated through his onesie. This might be a bad sign, with regard to his heart. Or it could just be a natural outcome of more than a day spent in terrible conditions in a tent in southern Arizona. Hard to tell.

  The smell in the tent was horrible, and I figured his diaper hadn’t been changed the whole time he had been away from me. My poor baby. I mentally cursed Brian in as many ways as my mind could come up with.

  When Peter first saw me, I think I shocked him. He stopped crying for a minute, and just watched me with his big beautiful eyes. Then, assured that it was indeed his momma, he really let loose with the wails, as if to let me know how unhappy he was about my neglect. It made me want to cry, too. But I had a priorities list now, and crying was not on it.

  First things first. I plucked a diaper, some wipes, and a fresh onesie from my bag—the ladies had packed it for me yesterday, and made sure I had it when I left the house in such a rush and without all my brain neurons firing. Thank God for the ladies!

  Once Peter was clean, I took him outside with me and settled us on one of the camping chairs. Brian had waited outside—surely avoiding the odiferousness of the tent interior—and now watched me with greedy eyes. I did my best to ignore him.

  With a blanket over my shoulder to shield his view, I settled Peter down and felt him latch on to a swollen nipple. My overly-swollen breasts were painfully ready to unload, and it was a great relief when Petey began to suckle. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. No more wailing, no more nasty diaper smell, and the promise of total relief of the mammaries to come. Peace, of a kind.

  “Why are you covering yourself? I want to watch. I want to see.”

  He was whining like a child. Seriously, dude?

  “Brian, I don’t know if you are aware, but we are in the middle of the desert in southern Arizona. The sun is brutal, and Peter’s skin—not to mention my own—is not prepared for it. I need to cover us both up
for safety.”

  It was the first excuse that popped into my head, but it was also true, and it worked. Score one, for me.

  “It’s okay. I’ll get to watch later. I can wait. We can make an occasion of it. Baby’s last meal! Ha ha ha!”

  Fuck. I had to think of something, fast. No way would we be hanging around long enough for him to hurt my baby. This had just turned into a deadly stand-off.

  I decided that the MC guys only had as long as it took me to finish feeding Peter to intervene. If they took any longer than that, I wasn’t going to wait. I was going to shoot Brian myself, with that gun Jack had hooked me up with. And I would do it without any hesitation.

  Thank God for Jack, and that beautiful handgun.

  Chapter 23

  Jack

  The whole time I’d been following Ellie on the trail, I had plenty of time to do some thinking.

  I loved her. I wanted her—not just for the sex, which was obviously excellent. But more, everything about her blew me away. She was beautiful, smart, strong, funny, kind—an amazing woman and mother. I knew I would never meet another like her, not in this life. And I knew, in my heart, that she was mine.

  Just like Peter was mine. He may have been born of my brother’s seed, but the way things had played out, there was no other man alive who could ever feel for that boy what I did. So he was mine, too.

  It drove me crazy that Ellie was up there, ahead of me by only minutes, with that fucking psycho. I willed her to be smart—I really didn’t have to worry much about that, she was smart—so that we could end this awful day on a high note. A ton of scenarios flitted through my mind, and to each I conjured take-downs that ended with McAfee a bloody mess, and Ellie and Peter in my arms.

  Then, I would turn this disaster of a sham marriage into the real thing. Since they were both mine already, there was no reason for us not to—unless, of course, Ellie really wanted out of it. But I couldn’t see that. I figured we were both miserable not being together, so the obvious solution to all our problems was to just be together.

  And that’s what drove me. That idea filled me with anticipatory gladness. That was my light at the end of this fucking tunnel from Hell.

  When I finally made the final turn around a rock column outcrop, I let out a breath in relief and repositioned myself a step back. I could see Ellie just settling down to nurse Peter in a low camping seat near the tent. The lowness of the seat put her at a distinct disadvantage, as far as movement went. With the baby in her arms, she’d have a difficult time getting up, should she need to in a rush. McAfee was talking to her, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  I indicated to the guys behind me to fan out, to encircle the area so we could close in like a noose. No way in fuck was this cretin going to get out of here freely. It would take several minutes for everyone to make it around, so I watched the camp while I waited.

  The difficulty for us, of course, was in the outcroppings and general terrain, which was packed with various cacti and spine-laden growths. The desert was no place for the weak. And Brian appeared well-settled in here—he even had a clothesline hanging. Seriously.

  Still, we were more than thirty strong in number—that only counted the men who had made it here in time to be part of this take-down. And several in our ranks were military-trained, practiced, licensed, and tested. Not to mention, we had some true native blood—including one guy, Patch, who boasted his Apache lineage to all and sundry. Since we were on his own home territory, the very site of Geronimo’s decades-long stand-off with the U.S. and Mexican militias, Patch was in prime mode for one hell of a fight today. The guy was pumped up. If things hadn’t been so serious, I would have laughed. As it was, I was goddamned thankful to have him on our side.

  Because of the massive proportions of the rock columns surrounding McAfee’s camp, our sightlines were severely limited. So the idea was to form the circle, then close ranks. We’d have to tighten the noose in order to act. So be it.

  When enough minutes had passed that I figured everyone had to have either gotten into place or close enough, I looked one more time to see what Brian was doing. He was standing over Ellie and Peter, with her backpack in one hand, hefting it, testing its weight. Shit. Looked like it was go-time now, before he discovered the gun I’d put in there for her.

  But wait—what was she doing? Damn, my woman was smart. She had him handing the pack to her, and she started to dig through it with her free arm, looking—or pretending to look—for…

  What the fuck was she doing?—She had Peter nursing in one arm, and her little gun trained on the psycho with the other.

  Jeezus! “GO!” I yelled, and we all ran in, closing the circle, guns drawn, all beaded on McAfee, who was also looking in surprise at Ellie, from just a few feet away.

  We weren’t quiet anymore. We used our own version of a rebel yell, which echoed strongly in the rocks and must have shocked the hell out of McAfee, who immediately moved to close behind Ellie’s seat, between her and the tent, and he whipped out a switchblade and held it at her neck while watching us all close in. His other arm had knocked the gun right out of her hand and it flew several feet away from them. Then he wrapped that arm around her shoulders to keep her in place.

  Fuck. The guy was strong and fast.

  “You want her dead? Keep coming,” McAfee yelled out.

  Almost as one, we stopped in our tracks.

  I called out, “We got you, you fuckface. You’re trapped in here, no way out. You want to add murder to the kidnapping charges?” I thought about Keith, and how murder should already by on his rap sheet, but we didn’t have proof of that. Not yet, anyway.

  “Back off, biker. She’s mine. She’s just been waiting for me to get everything ready for her. Now she’s here—by choice, I’ll point out—and you need to accept reality and leave. All of you. Just go. You have no right to be here. Ellie came to me, just like I dreamed. Just like I knew she would. It was perfect. You shouldn’t be here. Go away!”

  Jesus. This guy was seriously cracked.

  Ellie was carefully not moving her head—that knife had her chin lifted, and it was close to her jugular. But she spoke up, anyway. “Brian, please put that knife away. Nobody wants anybody here to get hurt. You don’t need it. Just put it away.”

  I can’t say I thought that was going to be a successful attempt at decelerating the crazy, but I’d give her points for imagination.

  “Ellie, make them go away. It’s supposed to be just you and me. I told you. I told you, on the phone, just you and me. Or…or now, now I have to take that noisy baby away. Why did you lie to me, Ellie? Huh? You promised you’d come alone. Bitch!”

  He wasn’t in the best position to do anything other than a fatal slash to her throat, which he obviously didn’t want to do, because instead, he used his free hand to tug away the small blanket she had draped over Peter and her shoulder, to shield them from the sun and prying eyes while she fed him.

  She gasped at the movement, but it freed her just enough—and in that exact moment when McAfee’s attention was not on his knife hand—she used her free arm to push his knife-wielding wrist away from her neck as she hefted her body to angle away from him. Brian was caught off-guard, and almost tipped over onto the ground.

  If that damned camping chair hadn’t been so low to the ground, Ellie might have had a shot at getting away then. But as it was, it was too deep-set, too awkward—especially with the baby in her arms—and she ended up tipping herself over, almost squashing Peter on the ground.

  She caught herself before her weight crushed him, but he started squalling, and she was panicking that she had hurt him and also trying to watch Brian at the same time.

  Brian self-corrected from his awkward tip and grabbed the chair-back again—like that was going to protect him—before he realized he really needed Ellie’s body to be his shield, not the chair.

  He was clearly about to dive onto her and Peter, probably with the intention of rolling them on top of himself
, but our secret weapon—in the form of Target, who was a veteran sniper, served duty in Afghanistan and Iraq—got him first. Thank God for Target.

  McAfee was hit in the shoulder before he’d even had a chance to fly on top of Ellie, and the impact of the bullet had his body whip back a bit. Target took another shot, and McAfee was down on his back, too shocked even to make a sound.

  We all came running forward at that point. Most of the guys went to secure McAfee, while me and Grath and a couple other guys headed for Ellie and the baby.

  She was crying, Peter was wailing—but they were both unharmed. I was so relieved, I couldn’t do anything but put myself on the ground beside her, pick her up—while she clasped Peter—and hug the both of them in my arms, feeling their heat, and hearing their breaths. I buried my face in her hair for a minute, before I lifted my head.