Lessons In Corruption (The Fallen Men Series Book 1)

by Giana Darling

  “I’m going there now. I just thought, I don’t know, that I should tell someone where I was going and since King is, um, indisposed, I thought I should call you.”

  The silence slackened just enough for me to breath again.

  “Good. I’m the one you call second every time, yeah?” he affirmed gruffly.

  I smiled. “Yeah.”

  “You go down there and I’ll have that fancy lawyer waiting. Name’s Gerald White. I’ll be down there too but not inside, yeah? We’ll talk when you get out.”

  “Okay, Zeus,” I agreed, astonished by the sense of relief.

  Then again, it wasn’t that surprising. Anyone would feel safe and protected with a man as fierce, cruel and strong as Zeus at their back.

  When I entered the station, an older man with what looked like only three strands of hair on his head came forward immediately to introduce himself as Mr. White. A few minutes later, after I was briefed on how act even though I told him I’d been interviewed by the police before (after Lysander killed Marcus), Officer Danner descended the stairs to the reception area to retrieve me.

  It was inappropriate, but I noticed as I did every time I saw him, that he was absurdly handsome. However, unlike the Garro men, Lionel Danner was stern, controlled in a way that spoke of regimented schedules and military education, and he gave off a vibe that told you he would protect you at all costs, he just wouldn’t love you while he did it. The contradiction was alluring and I was certain that many women had fallen for the hero in him and ended up in love with a bastard.

  It was the hero that approached me, the handsome creases in his tanned face flexed into a smile as he took first Mr. White’s and then my hand in his own.

  “Miss Irons, it’s unfortunate that we keep meeting under less than exemplary circumstances.”

  “Stop involving me in them, then?” I asked with sarcastic hope.

  His lips twitched then flat lined. “I just have a few questions for you, if you’ll follow me this way.” He looked with mild distaste at Mr. White. “You don’t need The Fallen’s lawyer, Miss Irons, this is a friendly chat.”

  “Forgive me for thinking that no chat with a police officer is ‘friendly’,” I said as I followed him down a hallway and into a small interrogation room. “I have enough experience to know better.”

  “You don’t like the police,” Danner noted grimly.

  I smiled contemptibly, channeling my inner biker. “Maybe a long time ago I thought you all were heroes in blue armor, maybe before you arrested my brother for killing the man who tried to rape me, before you arrested King Kyle Garro in the middle of my classroom after illegally searching his belongings, but now, no, I don’t like the police.”

  “Miss Irons, I urge you to let me speak on your behalf,” Mr. White murmured to me.

  He didn’t seem annoyed though, only exhausted, and it occurred to me then that being the MC’s lawyer would be a relatively difficult job just given the nature of bikers.

  “Sorry,” I told him sincerely, “I’m a biker babe in training.”

  He blinked at me but Danner had to cough to hide his startled laugh.

  “Now, Officer Danner, if we could get to the point here? I want to be home when King gets out of jail.”

  “You’re close with Garro’s kids?” he asked, and I could tell it was more than professional curiosity that had him asking.

  I filed that interesting tidbit away for another time.

  “I’m close with King’s family,” I corrected even though I was terrified to do so.

  There was no point in hiding it anymore though. I was no longer a teacher at EBA and people would know soon enough, because they would see us, that we were together in a very biblical sense.

  Danner raised his eyebrows. “No kidding.”

  “Nope, not kidding,” I replied firmly.

  I tried to affect a good biker babe pose, my arms crossed under my breasts and my eyes narrowed. I couldn’t be sure how well it worked when my hair was pulled back into a high curled ponytail tied with a red scrunchy and my 1984 book tee was tucked into a flippy red and white checked skirt, but I hoped it would be at least a little intimidating.

  “You sure you want to be telling me this as a teacher at EBA?” he asked, leaning in slightly, his stern face suddenly soft with sincerity. “I’d be honor bound to tell the school board about something like that.”

  Another surprise, Officer Danner liked me. It was the only explanation for why he was giving me an out and it made me wonder, if he hadn’t called me in to talk about King, why I was there at all.

  “I’m sure. Now, tell me what you want.”

  He stared at me for another moment before leaning back and rapping his knuckles against the metal desk. “I need to ask you a few questions about your husband, William Trent Irons.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your husband. Mr. Irons is being tried for fraud and embezzlement,” Danner clarified.

  “Um, what?” I asked, my eyes and mouth wide open with shock. “You’ve got to be kidding me. William is the most upstanding citizen in the province. He works hard, volunteers and goes fishing or golfing at Capilano Golf and Country Club at least twice a week. That is not the kind of man who commits so much as a minor infraction, let alone something like fraud.”

  Danner stared at me then flipped open a folder that had been waiting on the table. He turned to the right page then twisted it to face me.

  “Do you recognize these charges?” he asked.

  I studied the list but I already knew that I wouldn’t. Even while we were living together, I’d known nothing about our finances, not really. I had a credit and debit card for our joint account and I’d known we had a fairly astronomical limit on our credit, but William had handled the money. It was the husband’s job, he’d always told me and because I’d grown up hearing the same thing from my father, I’d never questioned it.

  Even then, I thought it was strange to see so many small transactions. William never kept cash on hand, because he said it was gauche.

  “Did you know he was placed on a 90-day suspension four years ago for failure to preserve clients’ funds in a trust account? It appears that after that, he turned to less savory clients and began to embezzle funds for them instead of from them. The reason these statements may look strange to you, is because of the small but frequent cash deposits made over those four years,” Danner explained to me.

  “I can’t believe this,” I said, because truly, I couldn’t.

  The universe was playing some kind of cosmic joke. The man I’d married, who I had thought was too good for me, too boring and straight-laced and moral, had committed felonies while the man I’d fallen in love with, a man I’d thought was too much a boy, too wild and reckless and free to tame, was currently incarcerated for something he hadn’t done.

  It was too much to take in.

  “What does this even mean?” I asked.

  “He’s being held on bail for $250,000 and he’s looking at up to five years in a provincial correction centre. The Vancouver PD asked me to talk to you, see if you could shed any light on the matter but it’s obvious you were kept in the dark. Got to tell you, they might want to get more involved in looking at your part in this if they knew you were dating a Garro.”

  I blinked at him and guessed, “But you won’t tell them that.”

  He blinked at me, too, then shot a look at my attorney. “Listen, Miss Irons, the whole town knows your story. Sad little woman moves to town after leaving her negligent husband, poor and alone in that crumbling wreck of a cottage out on Back Bay Road. People here like you, they think you’re a damn fine teacher and a good woman. I’m inclined to agree with the good citizens of Entrance. Despite your obviously poor choice in men, you seem like a good woman. No reason to drag this out for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, so surprised that my voice was hoarse with it. “You’re the kind of man who could make anyone rethink hating men in blue.”

  His face d
idn’t move but his eyes, which were an extraordinary jade color, twinkled at me. “Appreciate it. You should also know that most of the evidence against Mr. Irons came from two spectacularly terrified informants, his secretary and one of his small fry criminal clients. The latter was badly beaten but both claimed that a crisis of conscience was their only reason for rolling on Mr. Irons after so many years. Funny that, isn’t it?”

  Oh my God.

  My mind flashed back to Nova telling me casually that King and Zeus were ‘fixin’’ my problem with William.

  My instinct was to ignore my intuition and chalk it up to the ‘crisis of conscience’ bullshit that they’d told the police. That was what the naïve Cressida B.K. (before King) would have done.

  I was not she.

  I knew that my new biker family had taken care of the problem for me and instead of fear or horror, I felt giddy with vengeful glee and darkly proud of my men. William had been haunting me since I was a girl, waiting in the wings, grooming me into his perfect doll. He deserved whatever the hell was coming to him, especially if he’d done what the police were saying he had done.

  It said more about me, I knew, that I could understand more of the poetic justice of illegally threatening and assaulting someone the way The Fallen had to protect a loved one, than I could why William would use people just to get more money when he already had more than most people ever would.

  I smiled politely at Officer Danner and agreed, “Funny indeed. Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways.”

  “More often, they are not so mysterious.” But he dropped it. “Due to the circumstances, you should be able to push through the divorce without his participation. But I would be careful, because your husband is a desperate man involved with dangerous people.”

  “I think I’ll be safe,” I said, totally unconcerned.

  No one would dare to fuck with The Fallen.

  Something ominous turned in my gut as I remembered that someone had dared, and that the Nightstalkers MC were still afoot.

  I zoned out thinking about this as Danner finished up talking to Mr. White and only tuned back into real life when we walked out into the parking lot. Zeus was there, leaning against his bike the way King would have been. Of course, the biggest difference between the two was that men and women both would have approached King, drawn by his bike and good looks maybe, but more by his charisma, which emanated from him like a halo. No one approached Zeus. He stood in a deep circle of solitude; his rough cut face cast in shadows from the waving mass of hair that fell to his shoulders. With his massive, tattooed arms crossed over the impossible expanse of his chest and his big, booted feet crossed at the ankles, but he didn’t look like the poster child of a modern day bad boy the way King might have.

  No, if Zeus belonged on a poster, it was as a Wanted man.

  I broke into an enormous smile when I saw him and skipped directly to him. He watched me with narrowed eyes as I jumped up to press a kiss on his cheek.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly, aware that Danner was watching from the doorway and Mr. White was following closely behind to deliver his update.

  A spark of surprise, quickly followed by tenderness, lit his silver gaze. “Got your back, Queenie.”

  It was the first time he’d called me by the nickname the other biker’s had bestowed upon me.

  I beamed at him. “You totally like me.

  His surprised laugh erupted from him like a bark. “Sure, teach.”

  “Not a teacher anymore,” I reminded him.

  “It’s stuck,” he told me with dancing eyes. “King should be back at the clubhouse in an hour. Follow me back in your cage, yeah?”

  I rolled my eyes because I thought it was stupid that bikers thought all cars were ‘cages’, but I was too excited to see King again to give him any sass.

  “Race you,” I called as I ran towards my car.

  “King’s right, you really are a dork!” he called at my back.

  I laughed as I slid into Betty Sue and peeled out of the police station in a move that was not very smart (given my proximity to police) but also was totally badass biker.

  I was determined to beat Zeus back to the compound but I noticed that poor Betty Sue was basically out of gas, so I made a quick stop at Evergreen Gas Station on the way there. William’s name lit the screen of my cell phone in the passenger seat as I swung out of the car. Pumping my own gas was one of the bizarre things that I loved to do now that I was no longer with William, who had always insisted on the full service stations. It was kind of ironic that he was calling just as I was doing it.

  I was humming along to “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked” by Cage the Elephant ringtone as it blasted through my epic new car speakers but stopped when my voicemail connected to the Bluetooth and William’s voice came through.

  “Cressida, call me immediately. You don’t understand what you’ve done and I’m willing to forgive you. That biker has clearly brainwashed you or something because you keep ignoring me. I’m sorry, my darling, but I need to get you to me soon. My lawyer says it isn’t looking good, so I’ve decided that you and I are going to go away. You were always badgering me about Costa Rica and it has a no extradition treaty. Trust me, you’ll love it there. Forgive me, but this was the only way I could think of to get you away from those biker bastards.”

  I was frowning at my cell phone through the open window when I was suddenly pushed up against the side of my car.

  I froze, reminded of Marcus pushing me up against the wall in the back alley.

  And just like then, lips descended to my ear, but this time they whispered, “William says he’s sorry.”

  Then a crippling pain exploded in my head and I didn’t remember anything anymore.

  The pain woke me up.

  It seared through the center of my palms like concentrated wildfire. Before I was even fully conscious, I tried to move my hands away from the heat but they were stuck deep in the flames. My eyes flew open and even though my vision was blurry, I could make out the sight of one of my hands affixed to the wooden arms of the chair I sat in. It was nailed there with a thick metal spike that you’d find on a construction site. My mind dissociated from the pain enough to note that it was at least three inches thick and quite long. And it went right through the middle of my hand. Same thing with my other hand.

  Someone had knocked me out, dragged me to some kind of warehouse and nailed me to a wooden chair.

  A sob rose in my throat but I swallowed it down, focusing on the hellacious burn to keep my mind sharp. I took stock of my body, noting the drumbeat of pain at the back of my skull from where the man had clocked me with something hard, the soreness at my wrists and ankles from where they were wrapped tightly in damp rope. There was dirt across my entire left side, which made me think they’d dragged me across the ground before placing me in the chair. Worst of all, my jeans were undone and my underwear was pulled uncomfortably tight over my sex. Someone had checked me out down there while I was passed out.

  Another sob crawled up my throat. I thought I might throw up all over myself.

  “Comfortable?”

  My head snapped back, hitting the exact same place that I’d been struck, and stars exploded in front of my eyes. Through the black spots and colorful flurries, I made out a short, stocky Hispanic man. He stood in front of me, swathed in shadows like a grim reaper.

  “No,” I croaked, noticing that my mouth tasted like ash and blood.

  His pockmarked face creased in a bland smile. “What a shame.”

  Something made a noise behind me. Fear saturated me, yellow and acrid like being doused in urine. I couldn’t turn my head enough because my torso was tied to the chair, but I knew someone lingered at my back.

  “Aren’t you going to ask who I am?” the man in front of me asked, taking a step closer. “Yell ‘why me’ or start crying? I have to admit, it’s my favorite part of this whole thing.”

  “The whole abducting innocent women thing?” I asked, d
redging up the sass that lay deep inside me, under the fear and the pain, lower even than my sense of self-preservation.

  I refused to allow this man to scare me. It was the only thing I could focus on through the haze of pain that threatened to take me under again.

  My captor laughed his hyena laugh. “Look at her, boys, look how she talks back!” Suddenly, his laughter died and he lunged towards me with bared teeth. “You’re nailed to a chair, puta, not a throne. Be grateful I’ve kept you fucking breathing.”

  “Fuck you,” I said with cold calm.

  Inside, my body fired like an overheating furnace, sheer terror building the flames too high. I was in overdrive, desperate to flee but literally stuck to the chair. My hands kept trying to jerk away from the pain but it only ripped them open wider.

  “Fuck me?” His laugh was like tearing sheet metal. “Fuck me? You are the one tied to a chair. One of my men already tried to have a go at your sweet white pussy. You want me to let him back in?”

  I glared at him. I knew who he was, Luis Elizondo, the President of the Nightstalkers MC, and I knew what he wanted, information about The Fallen. This knowledge comforted me because it gave me an edge. He didn’t expect me to know him just as he wouldn’t expect me to stand up to him. He wanted my submission, but I’d become the kind of woman who only gave that gift to one man. If Luis wanted King, wanted the men of The Fallen MC, he’d have to go through me to get to them.

  My bravado faltered when Luis lost his patience with me and snarled, an inhumane sound that echoed through the mostly empty warehouse. “Shut the fuck up. Sander, muzzle the bitch.”

  The fire inside me roared, then died altogether. Ice water flooded my veins as a new kind of terror descended on me.

  The body waiting patiently behind my chair stepped closer.

  Ice crawled quickly over my skin, inside my ears, nose and gaping mouth to invade my brain, to stop the thoughts that led to only one conclusion.