Corrupt Honor: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Rough Jesters MC Book 3)

by Brook Wilder

  She made a sound and I laughed. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. Seriously though, what do you need help with?”

  “Who is she?”

  We both looked at Mary, who eyed Alisha with distrust. “Hey, little girl. This is my friend, Alisha.”

  Mary stared at Alisha who was equally surprised to see the little girl.

  “Mama says that is what people say when they don’t want to tell someone the truth.”

  Alisha burst into laughter. “Smart girl. She can’t be yours.”

  “She’s not,” I answered, surprised she would think I’d have kids. Hell, mine would be ten times worse. “I watch Mary and her brother two days a week.” I turned back to Mary. “Hey, where’s your brother?”

  “He’s over there,” Mary said, pointing to the swing set. “He wouldn’t let me swing.”

  I motioned for her to come closer, leveling my gaze to the five-year-old. “What did I tell you about that?”

  She scrunched up her nose, deep in thought. “You told me to push him off the swing.”

  Alisha let out a bark of laughter and I frowned at the little girl. “That’s not… I didn’t say that.”

  “Yes, you did. You told me not to take any shit.”

  Oh God. “Don’t use that word, your mom is gonna kill me. Go on, tell Luke it’s your turn.”

  She flounced off and I turned back to a laughing Alisha, my face red. “I didn’t tell her that.”

  “Sure, you didn’t,” she said, trying to hold back her laughter.

  I rubbed a hand over my face. “Mama Bear is gonna kill me if her daughter comes back to her saying ‘shit.’”

  “Mama Bear?”

  I heard the note in her voice, nearly laughing aloud. “What?”

  She frowned, looking away. “Nothing. Listen, when are you going to drop the kids off? Maybe we should meet up then.”

  I lounged against the bench, stretching my arm along the back of it, my fingers just inches from her shoulder. “Why? Do you have anything else to do besides watching kids play, Alisha?”

  “I have a ton of things to do.”

  “This is going to be the only way you get to talk to me today.” I didn’t want her to leave, not yet. For the first time in a long while, I was enjoying myself.

  Alisha let out a breath. “So, you are trying to hold me hostage?”

  “I’m trying to get you to take a breather.” She looked like she needed to take a load off. “Enjoy the hot Texas air.”

  Alisha was quiet for a moment, giving me a chance to steal a glance at her beautiful profile. She was watching the kids play, a wistful look on her face and I knew what she was thinking about.

  Or at least I hoped she was thinking about it.

  ***

  “Seth?”

  I wiped my hands on the rag, hearing Alisha’s voice ring through the house. “I’m in the garage.” My bike was leaking oil and before I paid an ass load of money to have someone else fix it, I was giving it my best shot.

  Alisha appeared in the doorway and I grinned at her. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she said, not returning my smile. “Um, something happened.”

  I was already on my feet, walking toward her. “What? What is it? Did your dad say something again?” I was going to have a heart to heart with that man one day. He was always riding her back, telling her that being with me wasn’t the best thing for her.

  “No,” she said, tucking a curl behind her ear. “I’m late.”

  My breath seized in my lungs. “Y-you’re late, like… your… period?”

  She nodded, her face pale. “Two weeks.”

  Shit. We had always been careful in that department, but I guess our luck had run out.

  A kid. What the hell was I gonna do with a kid?

  “Seth?”

  I took her into my arms, pulling her against me. “It’s alright. I’m not going anywhere. We will handle it together, alright?”

  Alisha shuddered against me and I buried my face in her hair, breathing in her scent. If she was pregnant, then we would deal with it.

  ***

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  I shook my head, attempting to clear my mind of the memory. Alisha hadn’t been pregnant back then, a relief to both of us, but it hadn’t stopped me from thinking about one day when she would be.

  “Nothing.”

  That dream seemed so farfetched now.

  Chapter 7

  Alisha

  I stepped out of the truck and opened the back door so Mary could hop out, finding it hilarious that Seth had two car seats in the back of his truck. A big bad biker toting around toddlers who weren’t even his.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  Mary stopped and looked up at me, her curious eyes giving me a start. “Are you Seth’s new girlfriend?”

  My tongue was suddenly thick in my mouth. “I- no I’m just his friend.”

  “Oh,” she answered, scrunching up her little face. “Too bad. Mama says Seth needs someone to take care of him. He’s lonely.”

  I opened my mouth, not sure how to reply to her observation. Seth was lonely? Oh, why did she have to tell me that?

  “You alright?”

  Swallowing, I nodded, following Seth up to the door. He carried a sleeping Luke, his little head on Seth’s broad shoulder. The sight tugged on my heart, especially the way that Seth’s hand rested on Luke’s back so he wouldn’t disturb him.

  Despite Seth’s bad boy attitude, he would be a great dad.

  Where had that come from?

  Drawing in a breath, I followed him into the house, where a beautiful woman waited, tricked out in scrubs.

  “Oh no, he won’t sleep tonight,” she said when she saw Luke. “I guess he played too hard.”

  Seth grinned and a spurt of jealousy bloomed in me when I saw the look on the woman’s face. This was Mama Bear?

  “You want me to put him in the bedroom?”

  “Please,” she said, looking over his shoulder at me. “Who’s this?”

  “Alisha,” he answered. “Be nice.”

  Seth left the room before I turned back to the woman who was clearly sizing me up.

  “Well now,” she finally said after a moment. “What’s a Jester doing with a fed?”

  The badge. I matched her stance. “That’s none of your business.”

  She arched a brow. “Whenever it deals with Seth, it is my business.”

  Interesting. “You two together?” The moment the words were out of my mouth, I realized how strong they were, tainted with jealousy from long ago. I could see Seth with this woman; she was his type.

  With a ready-made family. Why the heck was I so jealous about it?

  She let out a rusty laugh. “Why? You jealous, fed?”

  I was, horribly so. “I’m not, we aren’t-”

  She waved a hand at me. “Don’t worry about lying to me. I can see it on your face. Seth has that way about him, making us all fall in love with him without even realizing it.”

  “I’m not in love with him,” I ground out, knowing immediately I was lying to myself. Seeing Seth after all this time brought back feelings I thought had long died off.

  I wasn’t in love with Seth.

  We couldn’t be together.

  The Seth and Alisha from years past no longer existed. That love no longer existed. It had died with my sister, along with any future we had planned to have together.

  “Listen,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and Seth, but if you hurt him in any way, I will hunt you down and cut your lying tongue out, got it?”

  I looked at her, seeing a glint of jealousy in her eyes. “If you care about him so much, then why aren’t you with him?”

  Something crossed over her expression and she looked away this time. “Been there, tried that. I think you are the reason he can’t have any sort of relationship with any other woman, to be honest. Ruined a good man for the rest of us.”

  The soun
d of Seth’s boots on the wood floor caught both of our attention and he ducked out of the hallway, looking at us. “I didn’t hear any gunshots, so I take it everything is good.”

  Mama Bear gave me some strong side-eye and I refused to shiver at the glint in her eyes. “Everything’s good. Thanks for bringing the kids home.”

  “Anytime,” he said, touching her shoulder as he walked past. I wasn’t going to lie, it felt good that he was leaving with me and not staying behind with her. “Ready?”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking at the other woman. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” she said as we walked out the door together. It was good to know someone had been looking out for him all these years, but damn I was glad it hadn’t worked out between them.

  Seth pulled open the passenger door. “After you, madam.”

  “Thanks,” I said, pulling myself up into the cab of the truck so he could shut the door. When he had first offered for us to ride together, I had thought about saying no. Just the thought of being in close quarters with him caused me some concern. I had to remain professional with Seth, remembering who I was and who he was.

  And after my conversation with Mama Bear, it was going to be harder to keep that line drawn in the sand. I mean, I didn’t even know the woman and I was already acting like a jealous girlfriend.

  Seth climbed in and fired up the truck. “You hungry?”

  I was. “I don’t think it’s good for us to be seen together, Seth.”

  He grinned, throwing the truck in reverse. “That’s why we aren’t.”

  ***

  I pulled the wrap off my burger and took a bite, the flavors bursting in my mouth. “Oh my God, I forgot how good these were.”

  Beside me, Seth laughed. “I bet you can’t get these in Virginia.”

  “Not even close,” I said, my feet swinging back and forth. Seth had driven us down to the river, a secluded spot we visited many times before in our past lives. It was a place for couples to have some alone time, and in the middle of the day, it was deserted, which was exactly what we needed to have this conversation.

  But the nostalgia of having this burger and being here, like we used to, almost made me not want to bring it up. Reaching over for my drink, my fingers collided with Seth’s, who was doing the same thing. The fission of heat that shot up my arm was instantaneous, and I jumped back, nearly falling off the tailgate.

  Seth reached out to steady me, his fingers warm on my forearm. “Whoa. It’s okay. I’ve had all my shots.”

  I let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry, I’m jittery from the caffeine.” At least that was what I was going to tell him… and myself.

  “It’s okay,” he answered, taking a bite of his burger. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  Back to business. I folded the paper over my burger, looking out over the lazy water. It would be a perfect day to take a dip. “I need your help.”

  “I gathered that,” Seth replied. “But in what way?”

  “Lopez,” I blurted out. “And the Aztecas. I need the Jester’s help to halt their operations.”

  “You’re asking for a hell of a lot, Alisha.”

  “I know,” I said, looking over at him to find him staring at me. “But in order to stop this war, I have to cut off the head of the operation.” I had thought about it all night, wondering how I would infiltrate this war and stop it before anyone else could get killed. I read the files, saw how many people the Jesters and the Hell’s Bitches had lost, not to mention any civilians who had gotten in the way.

  We couldn’t lose anyone else.

  Seth shook his head. “I can’t do that, Alisha.”

  “But why?”

  “I’m working on something myself,” he finally said after a moment. “Trust me. This war will be over in the matter of weeks.”

  Surprised, I leaned against the side of the truck bed, the metal biting into my shirt. “I didn’t come down here just to have you fix everything, Seth. The ATF are not going to be satisfied with that angle.” I had been ordered not to walk away until we had a resolution, a resolution of our own making.

  That meant we needed people held accountable in prison for this. I didn’t want to put the man before me, or any of our former friends, in prison if I could help it. I wanted the Aztecas there instead.

  But I couldn’t do it without Seth’s help. “Listen, they are talking about prison, Seth. I don’t want to do that to any of the Jesters.”

  He looked over at me, those green eyes of his hidden behind a pair of sunglasses he favored when he rode his bike. “Do you still care about us, Alisha? Or are you worried we will retaliate against your family?”

  “I still care,” I fired back, throwing my hands up in the air. “Why do you think I took this assignment to begin with?” I couldn’t stand to think about the other guys who would come down here and lock them all up without blinking an eye. Not all of the Jesters were bad people. They had families, dreams, ambitions to make this town a better place.

  They just thought transporting guns and drugs was the way to do it. “Let me do this the right way,” I pleaded. “The legal way. I can protect you and the rest of the club, but we have to work together to do so.”

  “You abandoned us before,” he said in a quiet voice. “How do I know you won’t do it again?”

  He was right. I had abandoned them, technically. “That was different, and you know it.”

  Seth chuckled. “I wish I could tell you I agree with you, but I can’t. I’m sorry your sister died, but I hope this isn’t some wild goose chase for you to find some revenge for her death. There’s more at stake than the loss of one person, Alisha.”

  Angry he would even think I would put them in harm’s way, I hopped down from the tailgate. “I’m trying to help you.”

  Seth jumped down as well, his boots kicking up the dust on the riverbank. “You are trying to destroy us. I know how the feds think. We are expendable, just like the Aztecas, and it won’t matter who’s in that jail cell as long as it calms things down. Can you live with that, Alisha? Can you live with the fact of slamming those bars in my face?”

  I couldn’t. Just the thought of having to testify at his trial made me nauseated. While his life wasn’t completely clean, I knew Seth didn’t deserve to be there.

  He was what my mom had said long ago, a good guy with a dark lifestyle. I hadn’t believed her until this moment, faced with the fact that I could be the one to ruin his life.

  Seth slid his glasses off his face, his penetrating eyes raking over me. “There was a time I thought I knew you, Alisha. I would like to go back to that time.”

  I wanted to as well. I wanted Janie to not be dead in the ground. I wanted Seth to take me into his strong arms and transport me back to the time where all there was each other.

  When we loved each other.

  “Immunity.”

  The single word buzzed by my ears. “What?”

  Seth looked over my head, his jaw clenched tightly. “That’s going to be the only way we cooperate with the feds. Immunity for the Jesters in exchange for our help with the Aztecas’ capture.”

  Immunity. That was a strong word in the fed scene. It meant we wouldn’t be able to touch any of them, never able to prosecute a hair on their heads.

  And if they decided to go rogue, we would have to stand by and watch it happen. “That’s something I will have to discuss with my superiors.”

  He nodded and I wanted to reach up to touch his strong jaw to soothe him. Seth was tall, the top of my head barely scraping his chin, and we had often joked the reason he was with me was because he could use my head as a chin rest.

  “There’s no negotiations with this one, Alisha. That’s all we want.”

  “Got it,” I breathed, wrapping my arms around my waist. I would have to work hard to even get them to listen to me, but if I could pull this off, it could be the pinnacle of my career.

  I could save this town.

  “Can I ask you one que
stion? Just you and me talking?”

  “Sure,” I answered, meeting his gaze.

  His expression softened and I remembered how he used to look at me like that, like I was the most important person in the world, in his world. “Would you have ever come back?”

  What a loaded question. I wanted to say yes, to say I had wanted to come back. The months afterward, I had desperately wanted to come back. I had imagined throwing myself at his mercy and begging him to take me back, not realizing how much I would miss Seth until he was no longer there.