“Blake doesn’t talk to me about those things. Club business,” she mocked, her voice deep and grouchy. Sounded just like him, if you asked her.
“Yeah,” Ginger said, her sails deflating, “Garrick is the same way. He thinks I should just mind my own business and worry about the bar. But it’s hard to do that when you know shit is going down, but they don’t want to talk about any of it.”
“I know right? I mean, what’s the harm in it really? It’s not like we’re going to run off and spill their secrets all over town.”
Ever since she and Ginger and Talia had paid a visit to The Tavern last year in search of answers and in hopes of helping their men, Gabby told her how Blake had been even stricter with his words when it came to the club and its business. It hurt her that he didn’t seem to trust her anymore—not that she demonstrated much of that before when it came to the club, in Ginger’s opinion, but Gabby took it to heart now.
“No, but we can claim innocence if it were to come to blows with the legal end of the stick. They’re just protecting us and their interests, but it would be nice to know a little something now and then.”
Ginger understood that too, she really did, but sometimes she just wanted more than what Garrick was willing to offer. It sucked being kept in the dark, but she knew what club life was about for a woman ages ago. It didn’t come as a shock now that she was tied to one of the members. She’d been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt already with her ex-husband, so complaining about the injustice of it wouldn’t fly with Garrick. As a woman, she knew her place in the club well, and he was always quick to remind her of that.
“Well, I hope they know what they’re doing. I hate the idea of them working alongside someone they can’t trust. It gives me the willies every time Blake walks out the door just thinking that this could be the day that kid turns on them.”
Ginger understood where she was coming from. She worried about that, too. Working with a traitor was bad for your health. “Well, at least they know who to keep an eye on.”
“Yeah…”
As their conversation began to wind down, Ginger’s thoughts turned back to their earlier conversation. “So, you really think Bambi might of run off with Taco’s kid?”
FOUR
Beer and bitches. That was Taco’s idea of a good time. It used to be anyway. Now he just kinda…went with it. He didn’t want anyone to think he had gone soft or that he was being a bitch over a bitch, but he was feeling pretty damn salty as of late.
Bambi was still fucking with his head, no matter what he did to try and shake her. No amount of bars, booze, strip clubs, tits or ass, fast cars or blazing a path down the highway on his bike—the one thing that had always worked to clear his head—was able to set him straight. In a word, Taco was well and truly fucked.
Yet here he was, sitting at another round table with his brothers in a darkened bar surrounded by neon lights and pulsing music while a girl with a big booty and a pair of itty bitties ground herself against his dick.
He wasn’t even close to getting hard.
Still, he smiled, laughed at all the right times, and kicked back beers like he was having a fan-fucking-tastic good time while his insides dried to a husk. It was a bad habit, he was aware, but so was sitting at home on a Friday night, alone, wallowing in self-pity. It was always better to get back on the horse than sink into depression, no matter what the cause was.
Taco was staring at the tanned ass cheeks rubbing against his dick when he caught a snippet of the convo going on beside him. Turning his attention to his boys, he asked Cricket, “Say that again?” He could almost swear he’d heard Bambi’s name come out of his mouth, and if it had, he’d better have a good-ass explanation or he was going to catch a fist in his mouth.
Like his nickname suggested, Cricket got real quiet real fast. His nervous gaze darted to Taco and back to Wayne and Fish, a couple of prospects who were likely going to be patched in sooner than later. It was his tone of voice that made him nervous, Taco realized, and he tried on a smile that felt as plastic as it probably looked.
But that look Cricket had given him was how Taco knew his ears hadn’t deceived him, and he felt his pulse quicken and his patience shorten.
“Wasn’t nothin’, bro,” Cricket assured him, except the hesitation in his voice was saying otherwise. He wasn’t sure how Taco was going to respond because he could sense Taco’s distress but he couldn’t understand why it was there to begin with.
Taco didn’t give a shit. He gave him a narrow-eyed look that told him to start singing like a canary before he started breaking things—namely, his fingers. Brother or not, he would talk. It was just a matter of whether he’d do it the easy way or the hard way.
“Then why are you clamming up?” Taco inquired, staring all three of them men down. He knew he needed to dial it back, but he was having a hard time. The alcohol he’d consumed wasn’t helping any either.
Cricket spoke for all of them. “Wayne was just telling me how he and Fish were put on Gabby’s detail, and they ended up at one of the grocery stores outside town.”
“Yeah…” Taco said, rolling his hand in the air for him to continue and hopefully get to the point before his ball hair turned gray.
“Apparently, they saw Bambi there.”
Taco tried to ignore the way his stomach dropped at the sound of her name again. It wasn’t a good sign, but then he knew nothing about the way he was feeling when it came to that woman was good. Seeing her meant that she was nearby. She’d left, but she hadn’t gone far—a few dozen miles at best.
“And,” Wayne cut in, displaying no signs of nervousness, but rather excitement, “she had a baby with her.”
Taco’s stomach flipped again at the same time his head swam with confusion. What was she doing with a baby? Was it hers? Did she run off to fuck around with another man and end up getting herself knocked up? Was that the deal? Or was it even hers? Maybe it was a friend’s kid. Shit, he was hoping it wasn’t hers. If it was, then he was going to kill the bastard who’d dared to touch her.
Gritting his teeth, he asked, “Was there anyone else there with her?” Like a man, his thoughts snarled.
“No, she was alone,” Fish told him. “But I overheard her saying the kid wasn’t hers. She was babysitting.”
Wayne made a face at that, which sparked Taco’s intrigue. “You don’t believe it?” he asked him, needing to understand what that look was about.
Wayne reached out as Angel, a young, cute waitress, passed by and ordered another pitcher for the table. Once she was gone, he shrugged. “I don’t want to start any rumors, but I don’t know. It just didn’t sit right with me.”
The woman on his lap was distracting. Tapping her thigh, Taco indicated for her to leave, ignoring her put-upon frown. He wasn’t worried about it. She was in another guy’s lap in the amount of time it took for him to blink.
“Explain,” he bit out, refocusing on the prospects. He wanted every detail, and he didn’t give a damn if that made him a gossip or not. When it came to Bambi, he found that he wanted to know every last thing.
While Wayne explained himself, Taco grew increasingly agitated, lighting up cigarette after cigarette, plowing through them faster than Country could light ‘em.
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“So…what are you saying exactly?” Taco asked, trying to keep his shit tight. He didn’t want to flip out in public—or at all. It wasn’t his thing. He was known for being cool under pressure, and right now he felt like a carbon atom turning into a diamond. He had to remind himself that no one knew he and Bambi had been together, so if he lost his head, they’d put two and two together, and there was no telling how that would end. He trusted his brothers, but he trusted himself more.
“I’m not really saying anything,” Wayne said. “Just hypothesizing.”
“In manspeak,” Cricket said lightly, “that means gossiping.”
“Are you calling me a woman?”
&
nbsp; “Hey, if the shoe fits, Cinderella.”
“So what you mean is,” Taco interrupted, needed some clarity, “that you think Bambi was hooking up with someone here and got herself knocked up.”
The men turned their attention back to him, blinking slowly.
Fish was the first to speak up. “Well, yeah, that’s what it looks like to me.”
“So…say that’s true. Who do you think it could be?” Taco asked casually, trying to gauge the atmosphere between them. Did they suspect…?
“Well, I would say Country,” Wayne offered logically, followed up by a nod from Cricket, “but he dropped her for Talia, and I don’t take him for stepping out on her.”
“Nah, those two are solid.” Fish interjected.
“Or she was pregnant before he moved on to Talia,” Wayne added, “and she hid it from him. It’s not like we saw her around after he disowned her.”
“That would be some shit,” Fish said. “Can you imagine? Country would flip his shit. Anyway, I think it was someone else, a rebound.”
Taco gritted his teeth at the mention of that word. He wasn’t a damn rebound. They’d had a thing going. At least he thought so. Then again, she’d dropped him faster than a hot potato and left him behind to rot, so there was that to consider.
“Well, if that is her kid, whoever it was, the bitch moves fast,” Cricket said with a chuckle.
Taco’s hand smashed down on top of the table, rattling the glasses and startling his friends. Laughter forgotten, they stared at him like he was crazy. Probably because he’d also shot to his feet and was breathing like a dragon over the table, looking as if he were about to breathe fire on them. “Watch your fucking mouth,” he growled. It took a moment for him to realize what he was doing and how he sounded. He looked at his brothers, at their stunned expressions, and a smile twitched at one corner of his mouth.
But he wasn’t in the mood to smile, so he dropped the pretense just as fast. Screw it, they had to know now that he was the man in question.
“Bro, what the fuck,” Cricket said, his voice a low rumble.
“Just…” Taco held up his hand. “Just don’t talk about her like that. Look,” he said, scrubbing a hand down his face, “I think I’m done for the night.”
After a moment, Fish and Wayne laughed off the outburst. Taco noted that Cricket didn’t chime in. “Can’t hold your booze, bro?” Fish prodded.
“I didn’t take you for a lightweight,” Wayne added.
Taco smirked. “Ain’t nothin’ light about me,” he said, giving his dick a squeeze. “Just ask half the women in here.”
“Only half?” Cricket asked, his tone light and teasing.
Taco was glad he was speaking. Maybe he wouldn’t think too heavily and would chalk his behavior up to having had too much to drink. That’s exactly what he was hoping for. “You know I don’t like sloppy seconds.”
“Just thirds and fourths, right?” Wayne winked at him then saluted him with his beer stein.
“Hey, you dickheads stick it to every pussy in the tri-state area. I can’t keep a map of where ya’ll have been.” Taco backed off the table, leaving a couple of bills behind to cover his part of the tab. “Catch you guys later. Try not to trip over your dicks on the way home, huh?”
Taco drove home carefully, glad he only lived a couple blocks away and the streets were deserted at this time of morning. He had no business being on the back of his bike, he knew that, but he also wasn’t about to leave it behind. Besides, he’d made this trip a hundred times, and even though his head was a little foggy, he was just buzzed. He’d be fine.
And he was. He made it home all in one piece, but he promised himself that next time he planned to drink with the guys, especially in the dark mood he’d been in, he would make sure he had alternate transportation. The last thing he needed to do was trash his bike or kill himself or someone else.
That just wasn’t responsible adulting.
Especially if he had himself a kid floating around out there.
Holy shit. A father. Taco had never seen himself as one of those. He wasn’t exactly confident he could be one of those. Him with a kid? He’d ruin that little human before it could even learn to talk.
But he was putting the cart before the horse, wasn’t he? He didn’t have any proof that Bambi even had a kid, let alone that it was his. He was going off the chatter of a couple drunken brothers who were “hypothesizing.” He needed a hell of a lot more to go on than that if he was going to start shitting bricks over something that may or may not be real.
But it did give him a solid reason why he needed to track Bambi’s ass down and find out if what they’d said was true. At least now he could roll up on her and have something to say that wasn’t going to sound as crazy as, “Hey, you left without saying goodbye.”
And it was with those words foremost in his head that Taco shunned sleep and instead spent the remainder of the morning hours hunting Bambi down on the internet.
FIVE
Lucina Cruiz was the devil. Wow, how many times had she heard that sentiment before? It always made her laugh though. She so enjoyed the fear in a man’s eyes before she cut them out. Even more, she enjoyed their screams, especially those last frantic pleas for mercy. The only thing she loathed was the constant lack of creativity.
One would think that staring death in the face would inspire some originality. Hell, it always inspired her, but then, she was the one doling it out, so maybe that was the difference. Still, she was a little bored with the whole “devil” nametag. It was becoming…cliché.
Perhaps she could hold a seminar about it.
Dressed in a brand new white satin negligée, Luciana stood over Manuel’s sleeping form. In her hand was the push dagger he kept in the top drawer in the table beside the bed. He had another under his pillow and a gun to go along with it.
Manuel had toys stashed all over the house…and she knew where every single one of them were hidden. No one did anything under her nose without her knowing about it.
As she did almost every night, Luciana waited for Manuel to fall asleep, and then she took out that dagger and stood over him, watching him sleep as she wondered how and when she’d do it. Kill him, that is.
It was on her to-do list, and so it would happen. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
Just as she did every night, she lost track of time. Hours passed while she stared at him, memorizing his lithe form, those thick, muscular thighs and tight abs. He had the most beautiful face she’d ever seen on a man, but he was a killer. Just like her.
Two killers, both with ambitions, couldn’t coexist side by side. One day, it was going to come down to survival, and Lucina was determined to come out on top. She wasn’t called the Mantis for nothing.
But for now, he was a good lay, and he did his job well. As her own personal mercenary, Manuel got the job done quickly and efficiently. And at home, he did the job even better. She’d never had better sex with a man than him. Manuel was just as dark, dangerous, and devious as her.
And just as untrustworthy. Just like a child, give him an inch, and he’d take a mile. Luciana wasn’t giving him shit. On the surface, she let him think he was making headway in his endeavor to climb to the top, to her position, but beneath the dermal layer, she had him under total lock and key at all times. If he thought he was going to overtake her throne, she was going to show him what happened to overachievers.
He was a fine specimen though. It was a shame she’d have to get rid of him soon. Such was the circle of life though.
Manuel stirred, rolling from his side onto his stomach and giving her a solid view of his fantastic ass. It still bore marks from her fingernails, little angry red crescents on both round, bronze cheeks. Mmm, she certainly did enjoy their time together. He knew how to work her over like a pro, knew how to make her moan in three different languages. She was going to miss that too.
But as with those who came before him, those memories would be more than enough to keep her
warm at night in her four-poster bed in the mansion in the valley. Queens ruled the throne alone, after all. Men were just the inferior ball and chain that attempted to hold them back.
Women were going to rule the world someday, and Luciana planned to forge the path.
Her hand flexed against the hard steel, her fingers gripping it so tight her knuckles blanched. She fantasized over where she’d plant that blade first. Maybe in the back, just below his neck, severing the spinal cord so she could stare into his eyes as he died and know who was responsible for his death.
Or she could take the longer, more torturous path, carving her name into his body, mind, and soul, giving her ample time to explain her reasons for ending their partnership. Although, since they were virtually one in the same, she figured he already knew their time together was limited and why.
She was under no illusions, after all, that he wasn’t thinking the exact same thing whenever he looked at her. Manuel was just as clever and just as ruthless. If given the chance, he was going to try to take her out. She’d have to be exceptionally careful not to allow him any wiggle room.
He stirred again, this time grunting a little as his hand went out to search her side of the bed. Luciana hid her hand behind her back and put on a soft smile as he lifted his head and searched her out, his eyes finding her standing at the foot of the bed.
“Hey,” he said groggily, “what are you doing over there?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said demurely. Her fingers flexed around the dagger once more, but she resisted the urge to plant it deep in his chest. He was stronger than her, quicker too. She’d have to plan carefully. Besides, she wasn’t done with him just yet. A little longer…
“So you watching me sleep?” he said with a light laugh, as if he found it cute.
He wouldn’t think it was cute, she mused, if he knew what was running through her mind.