Ransom: Dead Ringers MC Book 2

by Deja Voss

  “Romeo, you know I trust you with my life, brother. You’ve been more of a father to me than my own dad. But I don’t trust you with her life, and that’s more important to me,” I say. “For all I know, you’re setting me up.”

  “Boy, you really think we would’ve let you keep her at her house if we were going to fuck her up? God, you look so much like your sister,” he says, taking a step closer to her. “Look just like your mama, too. The both of you.”

  She takes a step back, but he grabs her face in his hands, studying it as she stands there trembling. “You knew my mom?”

  “I was just a young buck back then. The couple times I met her, I thought she was really great. That shit Stoney and your dad said about her never added up.”

  I don’t like him touching her, but I realize I’ve been so caught up in the chaos, I lost touch with who I am. Who my club is. Who my brothers are. I lost touch with my reality. This man took me off the streets. He might look like a dirty old pirate, but he has a heart of gold. Five daughters of his own that he protects fiercely. Not the enemy.

  “Those two had a lot of skeletons in their closet, Stoney and Vinnie. Vietnam fucked up em up real good. No matter how much the club tried, those two were always off in their own world, doing their own dealings. We all just kind of let it slide, thought maybe it had something to do with the war. I don’t think they ever thought their shit was gonna come up and bite them in the ass, but damn girl, you bit. You bit hard.”

  He has a certain look of admiration about him, and even though her face is coated in tears, I can see her relax.

  “What did they tell you? About why my mama went away?”

  “They said she was into some heavy drugs and got herself wrapped up with the Diamond Cartel. They had a heavy presence in town back in the 80s, mostly dealing in cocaine, it was a really different time. Nobody knew about their main business, selling skin. At least, none of us. They said she ran off to be with Ivan Dorborman, their leader. Said your dad had to pay them a pretty penny to keep them away from Pearl, that they threatened retaliation if they didn’t.”

  “And that didn’t set off any red flags?” I shout. “Since when is Stoney the kind of guy who let his club get shaken down?”

  “It’s different when you have kids, boy. Pearl was the apple of Vinnie’s eye. Stoney loved her, too. Treated her like his own. Maybe someday you’ll understand. We just never knew you existed, Annabella. Nobody did.” He pulls her in and hugs her and she immediately shatters in his arms, bawling her eyes out. “It’s gonna be alright, girl.

  “How did you find all this out? Did Kid talk to you?” I ask. I’m sure he was mad as hell when Annabella wasn’t there for the pick up. It’s probably for the best he’s behind bars.

  “Actually, Anita was the one who came forward. She had a bunch of paperwork of Stoney’s that she thought we might want to look at. Him and Vinnie sold Lucy to the Diamonds to get out of some sort of bad deal.”

  I want to fucking kill him myself. I have no empathy for this man who caused so many people so much pain. I feel like I’ve been living a lie, following his leadership for all these years. I can tell by the dejected look on Romeo’s face, he feels the same way.

  “I can’t lose you, Ransom. I know running away is a lot easier than facing whatever this shit is, but I promise you, both of you, you’ll be safe. I won’t let anybody put hands on her. We’ll leave you alone til this all gets sorted out. You need to come home.”

  “As long as he’s alive, I can’t be a part of the MC,” I say. “I don’t work for traffickers.”

  “Well, I think you should let her finish him,” he says with a shrug. “Only seems fair in my book seeing as you got in her way the first time around.”

  “You’re calling a hit on our president?” If this goes sideways, if anybody has any objection to this at all, Romeo will certainly die. Us too, if anybody finds out we’re involved. “You wearing a wire?”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders and shakes his head. “I don’t work for traffickers, either, son. You think this is hard on you? This club’s been my life for the last thirty five years. When you wake up and find out you’ve lived a lie that long, there’s only two options. You lay down and die, or you do whatever you can to make it right. Us Dead Ringers don’t lay down and die. We fight for what’s right. You know that by now.”

  “I’m sorry I left without saying anything,” I say. “I should’ve trusted you. The shit Kid said about her being an informant, though, it could’ve got both of us killed.

  He laughs and rolls his eyes. “The shit Kid says always needs to be picked apart a little bit before you can take it as word. I love the boy, but he’s got nothing but time on his hands right now.”

  “He was just trying to protect me,” Annabella says. “He was just trying to give me a chance at a new life.”

  “And what do you want?” Romeo asks, tapping his finger off his chin. “Anybody ever ask you that?”

  She looks all around the room, at her feet, at the ceiling. She taps her fingers off her lips and sighs. I feel a little tug at my heart like I’m a complete piece of shit because I just assumed I knew what was best for us. I just assumed I could make everything right if I loved her hard enough. Up until this second, I guess I didn’t know any better. “That’s kind of a loaded question.”

  “Well, let’s go get some dinner and we can talk about it,” he says. She smiles and nods and it all starts coming back to me, the way Romeo took me in under his wing, took me out for pizza and made me feel like for once in my life somebody actually gave a shit about me, somebody actually thought I was more than just some hood rat with a drug problem. The reason why I ever aspired to become a Dead Ringer to begin with. He’s one of the best people in the world. The salt of the earth. Like a true father figure. “You can come too, Ransom. I am disappointed in you, though.”

  Like the dad I never had. I laugh and flick him off and he goes outside and waits while the two of us get dressed. Annabella doesn’t say much as she blow dries her hair and dabs some makeup on her face.

  “Tell me what you’re feeling right now,” I say into the mirror, wrapping my arms around her waist, feeling her close to me.

  “I’m thinking I’m starving.” She pokes her stick of mascara onto her eyelashes and I squeeze her tighter. “And I’m thinking you’re a lucky man, Ransom. You have so many people who love and care about you. I’m thinking you’re insane for running off with me and leaving that behind.”

  “None of that matters anymore. That’s how serious I am about you, Annabella. If you’re not happy, it doesn’t mean shit.”

  She turns to me and pecks me on the lips. “You make me very happy.”

  28

  Annabella:

  The fact that we’re the only people in the Chinese restaurant is one part unsettling and one part kind of nice. If Romeo wanted to take me out, there wouldn’t be anyone there to witness it, but I feel like it’s a lot easier to talk about the things we need to talk about without having to worry about who might overhear.

  Romeo orders a full spread for us, a little bit of everything, and my eyes grow wide as the waiter brings out plate after plate of food and sets it before us. I don’t even know what half of it is, but it smells amazing. My stomach growls loudly under the table as I

  “You feeding her?” Romeo asks. “If you want to keep her around you gotta keep em fed and fucked.”

  “The fuck do you know about keeping a woman, old man?” Ransom teases.

  “I can’t help I like to have options,” he says, grabbing a spoon and scooping a little bit of everything onto his plate.

  “You can’t help you like to give away 90% of whatever you make to child support. This man’s got five daughters to five different women.”

  I raise my eyebrows and Romeo shrugs and smiles. “Your boy is just mad I wouldn’t let him within ten feet of any of them. No offense, love.”

  “None taken. I guess I should probably thank you for your vi
gilance. If Ransom was married to one of your daughters where would that leave me?”

  “You would look just fine on the back of my bike,” he says with a wink. I crack up as Ransom reaches across the table and punches him in the shoulder.

  “If you even think you’re claiming her with me, you’re high off your ass, old man.”

  Romeo looks at him and starts laughing so hard, tears roll down his weathered face. “I’m way too old for that shit, son. I don’t even like looking at my dick. This poor girl’s been through enough. She doesn’t need any more trauma in her life.”

  I grab a whole dumpling with my chopsticks and shove it in my mouth. I have no idea what they’re talking about, but I’m pretty certain I’m safe for now. I know better than to ask questions I don’t want answers to, and Romeo is right. I could go the rest of my life without being anywhere near his dick.

  Ransom grabs my knee under the table. “I think we’re all too old for that shit, Romeo. There ain’t no reason for it. It was just a sick game Stoney made up so he had an excuse to fuck everybody’s old ladies one last time.”

  “Who are you and what did you do with the Ransom I knew?”

  He squeezes my knee tighter. “I ain’t sharing her, boss.”

  I don’t like the way this conversation is going. My muscles get tense and I feel suddenly trapped. I don’t like being on the outside of this joke, especially if it has anything to do with me. “I don’t like being talked about while I’m sitting right here, so I’m going to go to the bathroom,” I say, standing up from the table.

  “Sit down, Annabella,” Romeo says. This man is super intense. I feel like his eyes are burning holes through me when he talks. He reminds me so much of Ransom, only older, harder, darker. His demeanor has shifted from laughing to full blown serious in a matter of seconds. “There’s something that you need to learn about us if you’re gonna keep hanging around. You got a problem, you need to bring it up. We don’t just run away. Our old ladies aren’t just doormats. If you haven’t figured it out for yourself, we need a voice of reason every once in awhile. I can’t help your boy has kind of been a bad example here.”

  Ransom rolls his eyes at him, and I can’t help but feel like I’m getting scolded by a father figure, but whatever he’s saying is working. I realize I don’t want to disappoint this guy. He’s a good person, and he came all the way out here to support Ransom and I.

  “We gotta stop with the dancing around shit we don’t want to talk about. That’s why we’re here right now to begin with,” Romeo says.

  I sit back down at the table and drape my napkin over my lap, pretending like I’m super engrossed in the pile of noodles in front of me. I have plenty of shit I don’t want to talk about, and they both know it.

  “I’m not gonna grill you, girl,” Romeo says, as if he can read my mind. “I know the shit you went through ain’t probably something any of us are qualified to unpack. I do need to know, though, for the safety of the club and for your own safety, are you certain nobody from the Diamonds is still looking for you?”

  I drop my chopsticks to the plate. They both stare at me with intent eyes. “I wish I could tell you yes. It’s not something I ever really thought about. I know Kid brought us to West Virginia from Atlanta. I know Ivan constantly told my mother and I we were too old and too ugly to be worth anything,” I say. It sounds cruel, but honestly, that might have been our saving grace. “I don’t know much else. I guess I just always had this optimism that maybe they forgot about us. It’s been over twelve years. Nothing really ever happened back at my old house. I just took Kid’s word and did what he said.”

  “Well, you’re safe now no matter what,” Ransom says, reaching for my hand. “The Diamonds aren’t even on our radar anymore.”

  Romeo grimaces. “They might be now when word gets out about Stoney. Gonna be a lot of people circling as soon as they smell blood.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want anyone to get hurt on account of me. I was just doing what Kid and I agreed on. I thought I was making things better. You gotta understand, that man saved my life. If I could do anything to help him out, I’d do it without a question.”

  “I know that,” Romeo says. “I’m not pinning this shit on you, Annabella. Nobody is. Stoney brought this on himself when he went rogue. He got everything he deserved, and now we’re gonna get everything we deserve for being complicit. That’s why I need both of you to come back home. We’re gonna need all hands on deck if we’re gonna build our club back where it needs to be.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “You sure?” Ransom asks, squeezing my hand. “You don’t gotta go anywhere you don’t want to go. We can make you disappear. You don’t have to come fight with us.”

  “He’s right. You been through enough to last you a lifetime, child. You can disappear tomorrow, no questions asked, and I’ll see to it personally you never have to worry about anything for the rest of your life.”

  The offer is tempting, but not tempting enough for me to let go of everything Ransom and I have. Truth is, no matter what, if I’m not near him, I’d probably spend every day of my life worrying about him… if he’s happy, if he’s healthy, if he has another girlfriend who’s ten times better than me. “I want to come with you guys. There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be.”

  Romeo smiles and lifts his glass, toasting to the future. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing how much Ransom means to him, knowing he was willing to put everything he knew aside to fight for the people he cares about. Maybe Kid wasn’t the anomole, but really what the Dead Ringers MC is all about.

  “Pearl is really torn up about all this. She really wants to talk to you, Annabella. She’ll be so happy to hear you’re coming back.”

  I suck down my sake and cringe. I hadn’t really given much thought to Pearl. It’s not so much that I think Riley was telling the truth, that she knew about me. “It’s a lot,” I say. “I don’t know if I’m ready. You go your whole life thinking everything you know is a certain way, and then it all gets ripped out from under you. Why didn’t my mom ever tell me about her? If my mom knew how bad my dad and Stoney were, why didn’t she do everything she could to make sure she was safe?”

  “Because she was,” Romeo says. You can instantly tell he regrets the words by the way he stares down at his plate.

  I’m jealous of her, and I shouldn’t be, because it’s not her fault she was born first. It’s not her fault my dad and Stoney spent their whole lives lying to her, spent their whole lives overcompensating to make up for what they did to my mom. It’s easier to hate her than to let her in. I don’t know if I can handle that yet.

  “There’s no reason to hurry,” Ransom says and in that very moment, I know everything is going to be alright. “We have the rest of our lives.”

  29

  The ride back to Ransom’s house feels good. It feels right. I don’t know why, but something about that winding driveway and the light shining from the living room makes me feel like I’m home.

  He parks the truck and walks around to open my door for me. I whoop in delight as he tosses me over his shoulder, and Juniper jumps up and down at our feet as he unlocks the front door. It looks like nothing’s changed, but everything has. With the promise of safety from his sponsor, we are basically just two people in love, two people starting their lives together, two people who are normal as hell.

  Everything’s happening so fast. I still have so many questions that I’m halfway afraid to ask, only because I don’t want to push him away. I don’t want to come down from this high and deal with reality, but our hideout honeymoon has come to an end.

  “You were really gonna abandon all this forever for me?” I ask. “Your home is so beautiful, and I can tell you put so much work into it. I can tell you really love this place.”

  “It was definitely a shit hole when I bought it,” he says. “All I cared about was the land. You can fix up a house any way you want.” I trace my fingers over the layer of d
ust that’s formed on the mantel. It’s completely barren, no photos, no relics of who he is as a person. Pretty much all the walls are bare, too. I guess maybe it’s a guy thing, and not everybody cluttered up every square inch of their home in knick knacks and crystals like my mom did.

  “It’s a lot of house for one person,” I say. “And it’s not exactly close to the clubhouse.”

  He walks over to the panel on the wall and dims the lights a little bit. Then he turns a knob on the side of the fireplace until it lights up with a poof. “That’s pretty slick,” I say. “Nothing like the wood burner I used to have to feed.”

  He puts his hands on his hips and I can see my reflection in his dark eyes. He leans in to plant a kiss on my lips, and I kiss him back gently, relaxing into his arms. The more we kiss, the more I start feeling this weird twinge inside me.

  He can tell by the way I pull away. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “You want some wine or something? You’re super fucking jumpy.”

  “Ransom, you know I’m falling hard for you. I’ve never been in this situation before. Never felt this way.”

  He pulls me tighter and brushes my bangs out of my eyes. “But?” he asks.

  “I don’t know you.”

  He takes me by the hand and guides me over to the couch, and I sit down next to him. He puts his hand on my leg and sighs deeply. I can tell he’s exhausted from the drive home by the bags under his eyes. I almost feel guilty prying when I know in my heart everything I want to hear from his lips.

  “I don’t know you, either, babe. But I know enough to know this is right. This is what it’s supposed to feel like, when you find your person. Feels like no matter how close I am to you, even with you sitting across the couch from me, I miss you and I want to be closer. Feels like I can’t even close my eyes to go to sleep without thinking about what’s going on in your mind, if you’re happy, if you’re thinking about leaving me. Feels like when I think about the future I don’t know what the fuck it even looks like, but it doesn’t matter as long as you’re a part of it.”