Indebted: 'Til Death Do Us Part (Teal & Trent Book 3)

by Inger Iversen

  Teal was extremely excited to see Katie, and she popped up out of the chair.

  Markus’ head lifted from the book he was reading. “And then can we take Teal to her surprise?” His eyes shimmered with elation, fueling Teal’s interest. “I’ve never kept a secret this long in my entire life!”

  Teal laughed, and Trent sighed. “Son, all you have to do is keep it an hour or so longer.” He bounced Emma on his hip.

  Markus’ eyes widened in shock. “Another hour?”

  Teal moved to him. “Come on.” She reached out her hand. “We want you to meet Emma’s Godparents, and if Harper allows it, your Godparents.” Though Markus wasn’t a child anymore, Trent and Teal had discussed trying to do the things for him that they’d missed out on as father and son. To Teal, choosing Godparents was one of those important things. While Trent and Markus both rolled their eyes at the concept, they’d indulged her.

  Markus placed down the book and took her hand. “Fine, but it’s gonna be ‘hello and let’s go’ as soon as I meet them. I can’t hold onto this secret for much longer.”

  She squeezed his fingers and led him to the door.

  Outside, Katie and Logan were heading up the driveway, alongside their daughters, who walked hand in hand in pink and white lace dresses. Trent made his way to the girls and knelt to their height. Rose’s eyes shimmered with anticipation as Trent stood Emma up beside the older girl.

  Teal’s heart expanded as Lily placed chubby little arms around Emma and yanked her close. Lily had grown fond of calling Emma “Mema” and it was too cute.

  Arms wrapped around Teal and she was soon enveloped in Katie’s light floral perfume. Too busy watching the girls, she hadn’t noticed her best friend diving in for a hug. Teal squeezed her tight.

  Katie pulled back. “Okay, dish!” she said pointing to Markus, who had knelt with his dad. “Tell me all about that young little hunk over there.”

  Teal pursed her lips. “Hunk?” She hadn’t thought of him in that light, seeing as she was grappling with being the stepmother to an adult. She took Markus in and finally looked at him as if he were a stranger and not her stepson.

  Katie chuckled. “Girl, he is too adorable. Peanut-colored skin, big sleepy hazel eyes, muscles for days, and all that long, curly hair!” She dreamily fanned herself. “Some poor college student is crying herself to sleep at night until he comes back.”

  Teal heard the jovial lilt in her voice and started laughing right along with her. “If he is anything like his father, I bet that’s true. Hell, he sure does look like him, doesn’t he? Same nose, strong jaw and chin. That annoying smirk tattooed on his lips all the time. Just like his damned daddy.”

  They watched on as their girls giggled, and Logan, Trent, and Markus fawned over them. Teal still wondered what surprise Trent could offer her that would trump the life she had right now. Sure, she wanted to go back to work, and that was something she and Trent would discuss soon; but at the moment, Teal had everything she could ever dream of.

  Not taking her eyes off her family, she asked, “You want to tell me what this surprise is?”

  Katie cursed. “Damn!” Teal looked over to her a cocked brow. “Logan, baby,” she reached into her pocket and pulled out a dollar bill, “you win.” Her feigned crestfallen expression made Teal playfully punch her best friend.

  “You made a bet about me and you had the nerve to lose?”

  Logan stood and made his way over to his wife. He snatched the dollar from her hand and leaned over to give Teal a hug. “Yeah,” he said. “She thought you’d ask the second we pulled up. While I disagreed, and said you’d have a little more finesse than that and wait until only she was around.” Logan hooked an arm around Katie and pulled her close.

  “Well, seems like you know me after all, Logan.” She rolled her eyes at Katie.

  He smirked. “We heard the news on the way over here. Looks like they can’t find the guy who killed Congressman Alexander Tonwlyn-Havers.” Logan’s dark eyes betrayed his innocuous tone. Katie tensed, Logan’s arm wrapped tight around her, pulling her close to his side.

  Teal had called Katie and explained everything that had happened, only to realize Logan had beat her to it. She’d been shocked, but also amazed at the fact that Trent would not only take a bullet for her, but also kill to keep his family safe.

  Teal was ashamed of herself for not seeing it in that light from the beginning. “Yes, but a bad man is dead and children are now safe. The rest is in the hands of the FBI and police.”

  Logan gave a light nod, and just like that, the conversation about Congressman Alexander Tonwlyn-Havers’ death was put to rest.

  “Come on, old man,” Logan called. “Your lady is over here trying to get secrets out of my woman.”

  Trent stood and ushered all three girls over with the help of Markus. “Okay, damn. You are worse than my son. He texted me all last week about this.”

  Teal rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows but me!” She leaned down and picked up Emma. “Let’s go.” Reaching her hand down, she held out her free hand for the nearest twin and hustled to the SUV.

  This was the second time Teal had pulled up to this condemned house with Trent. The first time, she and Trent had starred in their own little porno in the front drive, and she was positive that was not about to happen again. At least, not while the whole gang was with them.

  The only difference about today was the fact there were men outside working on the house, and it didn’t look doomed at all. In fact, the house had been taken down to the studs.

  Trent took Teal’s hand and helped her out of the SUV. He led her to a sign in front of the house. Teal glanced down at the sold sign. She looked back up to Trent and then again at the house. It was huge, and included a barn for horses. Teal’s breath caught in her throat as she realized what was happening.

  “Is this . . .” She couldn’t finish. Her eyes took in the huge home, barn, and the area marked up for what she believed to be a pool. Her hand flew to her chest and she couldn’t breathe.

  Trent’s arms wrapped around her keeping her upright. He dipped down and spoke in her ear. “I used the money from the settlement that I finally received, and bought you this home. Our name is on the deed, and when we are gone, it’ll belong to Emma Mae and the other children we’ll have.”

  He kissed her neck, her cheek, and then her trembling lips. “Baby, you are my life, and I want you to have this. I want you happy. But don’t get too comfortable, there’s more.” He leaned back and motioned over to someone behind them.

  Teal turned to see Summer walking up, her briefcase in hand, along with an iPad.

  “Good morning, Teal.” Summer made her way to them, then handed Teal the iPad.

  With numb fingers, Teal took it. On the screen was a picture of her and Trent’s house—the one they currently lived in. “Not that it isn’t great to see you, Summer, but what are you doing here?” she asked.

  Her family had moved forward, everyone surrounding her in a cloud of love and support. She noticed that Markus couldn’t keep his eyes off Summer, and Teal realized Summer was much closer to Markus’ age than she was.

  “Trent called me to let me know you weren’t going to be able to take the job I emailed you about at Safe Haven.”

  Teal looked to Trent, her heart dropping just a little at the thought of him still not wanting her to work.

  Then Summer continued, “Because . . . you are starting an endeavor of your own.” She motioned to the iPad. “Touch the screen.”

  Teal did as she was told. “Okay, what—” Words froze in her mouth as the picture morphed from Trent’s home to a remodeled version of it.

  “Keep swiping,” Summer aided.

  Teal swiped again and an animation began to play. She read the title, SafeWay: A Transition Home for Battered Women. Presented by Trent Reed, owned and operated by Teal Reed.

  Holy shit. Her mind raced, and ideas burst into her brain.

  Teal wanted to work, it was what she lo
ved to do. After learning about Shayla’s past and saving Emma from the same path, she’d wondered what she could do to help more women. Mia’s face popped into her head and Teal knew in that moment her place on this Earth was meant for more than just slaving away behind a desk in an admin building.

  She loved her man for this, for his every sacrifice and compromise, for every ounce of love he poured into her daily. The maelstrom of emotions in Teal rushed to the surface in the form of happy tears. There was only one thing wrong with this. She turned to Trent, fixing him with a glare that he read perfectly. He grinned the naughtiest grin she’d ever seen.

  “You asshole. I told you it was Teal Lofton-Reed!” Everyone burst into laughter.

  “Ha! I told you so,” Katie hollered and pushed a hand out to Logan, who promptly placed the dollar he’d won earlier back into her hand.

  Trent leaned down and pressed his lips to her neck, and then to the shell of her ear, before he whispered, “It’s Teal-mother-fuckin’-Reed, and don’t you forget it.”

  The End

  FOR NOW

  Blackwater Rising - Ace Book 1

  Blackwater Rising - Ace

  Blackwater Renegades MC, Book 1

  By: Inger Iversen

  Synopsis

  Ace, the First Son’s MC’s ace in the hole had one damned job. Too bad he didn’t do rape and murder. Ten years back, the then leader of the First Son’s tasked Ace with a job he trusted no one else to do—the rape and murder of sixteen-year-old Elena Davenport. The message? Don’t fuck with the FSMC. Ace, no stranger to death and destruction, took on the job with no info other than a last name and a way of death. The second the paper was slipped under his door with the assignment and a picture of the enigmatic teen, Blackwater Renegades MC was born.

  18+ due to mature themes and adult situations

  Chapter 1

  “Fuck you, you pussy motherfucker!” Ace bellowed the words over and over, as he pulled the trigger repeatedly. “You cum guzzling whore of a son of a bitch.” He knew the words came out in a colorful array of nonsense, but he had to admit, it felt amazing.

  The sounds of his gun exploding into the still night brought on a rush of something akin to when he was fucking. Rain pelted down on his head, as he liberated bullet after bullet into the son of a bitch’s head. His trigger finger squeezed and released until he’d bled the gun dry.

  Glancing up to the sky, the torrential rain cascaded in cool rivulets down his face. He opened his mouth and took in the drops that landed on his tongue. The last drink he’d had was a shitload of whiskey, and Ace was positive the ache in his side was his kidney begging for water. The sound of booted feet on marsh soil had him straightening and turning to the sound.

  “One down, two to go.” Mutt muttered under his breath as he strode up to the now bullet-ridden corpse.

  Ace eyed him as Gator sidled up to them.

  “Rock, paper, scissors?” he grunted at Mutt, and they both ambled away, arguing over whose turn it was to bury the body.

  Ace knew just as well as Mutt that it was Gator’s turn, but with as much as Gator loved killing, his ass abhorred clean up. He turned his head toward the sound of running water. The man-made lake was by far the worst place to dump a body when a rainstorm rolled through, and at the moment, Ace was not of sound mind. He struggled with the compulsion to kick the fucking corpse into the shallow spit hole of a lake and keep moving. Instead, he called over his shoulder to the men before they moved too far away.

  “One of you lazy motherfuckers bring me the damned shovel!” He took a knee and checked the corpse’s pockets. Pulling a wallet from his pants, Ace cracked the thing open and checked the man’s ID. Heavy footsteps of one of his men sounded beside him and a shovel thunked onto the wet grass next to his knee.

  “You planning on putting him to ground yourself?” Mutt’s tone pulled Ace’s eyes to his disinterested gaze. The man had been acting odd as fuck over the last couple of weeks, and if Ace didn’t know the man better than he knew himself, he’d think the fucker had started ghosting.

  Hell, the idea of Mutt leaving or betraying the MC was a fool’s thought, since that bastard didn’t have a soul to turn to, and a warrant out on his head. Even so, Mutt’s closed countenance revealed more than words, as he blankly stared off into the distance.

  “I reckon so,” Ace finally answered, turning his attention back to the thin plastic card between his fingers. “Since you two sorry sons of bitches can’t seem to decide whose gonna clean up this mess—”

  “Your mess.” Mutt’s calm words were followed by the flick of a lighter. “But I ain’t complaining. Fucker deserved it,” he added, then walked four paces to the right and shoved a shovel into the wet earth.

  Mutt was right, this was Ace’s mess, but more so the entire First Son’s MC’s mess. Prez and his drug-fueled binges were becoming unpleasant at best and bringing the heat down on them in the form of the FBI at their front door.

  Not that the FBI busting down doors to the compound was anything new, but finding actual evidence and making indictments stick? Well, that shit was not going to fucking fly. Ace was in the red when it came to the MC. The blood he’d spilled for them would fill oceans, and he was not the type to enjoy a life sentence. Hell, who was he kidding? His ass would face death row and he knew it.

  But was he really running from death, or was this life of killing and looking over his shoulder wearing him down? He assumed it wasn’t the latter because Ace didn’t fear shit.

  “Adam Branson,” he read the name aloud.

  The sounds of Mutt’s shovel slamming into the wet earth stopped. An inhale of his cigarette came before he spoke. “Sounds like a fed’s name.”

  Ace agreed, but a name didn’t denote one’s job. Hell, Ace’s given name was Tennessee, and he’d never even seen the damned state. However, hacking the fed’s database and compiling a list of undercover agents had done just the trick.

  Shit, if the FBI knew there was a sixteen-year-old girl out there, hacking their system for favors, they’d piss themselves after staging her death. This wasn’t an episode of Criminal Minds, and Poppy wouldn’t become the next fucking Penelope Garcia. Her ass would end up dead.

  Poppy had been the cause of some major shit, now including the death of a federal agent. Pretty in Pink wasn’t ever walking away from this shit free and clear.

  Ace inwardly groaned at the fact he’d put two bullets in the head of an undercover FBI agent, but what was done was done. He may have been an agent, but he was a dirty one who liked fucking little girls.

  “Glad we got him, but how’d you know he carried a badge?” Mutt asked as he continued to shovel.

  It hadn’t escaped Ace’s notice that Gator wasn’t in sight. He was pulling watch duty as they dug the hole he’d been charged with digging. Mutt never trusted Poppy’s intel, but Ace hadn’t thought he would. Poppy wasn’t a trustworthy kid, and had fed Ace intel in the past that had blown up in his face. What Mutt hadn’t known was that Ace had an ace up his sleeve—as always.

  “Poppy has never given me the wrong information,” he revealed as he stood, pocketing the contents of the man’s personal effects.

  Mutt grunted his disagreement and continued to shovel. Ace grabbed the other shovel and headed over to the hole. Mutt wore his cut over a red T-shirt soaked in rain water, giving it the look of wet blood cascading down his chest.

  Ace shoved the shovel into the wet ground. “She sends me information I need, not necessarily information I want.” He continued working in silence as he let his words sink in.

  Mutt, either oblivious to the hint or uncaring, continued to work.

  Ace had known Mutt for ten years—long enough to call the man brother—all while knowing his deepest secrets. While Mutt hated Poppy, Poppy spent her time keeping his naïve ass alive. But Ace wouldn’t get into that shit now. He didn’t have time to explain the facts, and Mutt would probably deny everything Poppy had discovered about him anyway.

  They continu
ed digging until both men were eye level with the forest ground. Mutt pulled himself out of the hole after Ace, and helped push the body inside.

  “He fucked Dee,” Mutt muttered, as if they needed a reminder as to why the man needed to die.

  Ace was silent as he threw dirt over the corpse. The wet earth made a smacking noise as it landed on the body. He had known Dee. She was just a twelve-year-old kid, and had been found in the agent’s bed at the compound. The fact that no one had batted an eye at the blood between her legs, or the black and blue bruises dotting the kid’s slight body, had Mutt with his muzzle to the sky one night, popping off rounds.

  Mutt, normally the calm, rational, yet trigger-happy one, had changed that night, and Ace hadn’t been the only one to notice. “She’s twelve-fucking-years old,” he added, as if Ace needed reminding.

  Ace didn’t speak a word, and Mutt didn’t need him to. There was only one reason the men were out here tonight, and it wasn’t the fact that Adam Branson a.k.a. “Russ” was an FBI agent. Hell, they’d uncovered that two months in, but allowed him to stay, in order to feed the FBI info they wanted them to know.

  No, they were out in the fucking rain, soaked beyond comfort, for the simple fact that Russ was dead the second he dipped his dick into twelve-year-old Dee—he just hadn’t known it.

  A shrill bird-like whistle sounded from the mouth of the woods. The call was from Gator, and the signal was letting everyone know they were wanted back at the clubhouse, now. Prez was getting to the point where he called meetings every other hour. His suspicion and paranoia had caused a wave of unease to ripple throughout the club.

  Gator had been the first of the four men to notice his change, and it had made sense, seeing as Ace didn’t live on the compound. Gator, however, lived balls deep in a different club banger every night, so he stayed at the clubhouse and was privy to shit the others weren’t.