At the top of the stairs, he found Eva laying Ivy down in her crib. Leaning over the railing, softly stroking her hair, she kissed their daughter good night and whispered, “I love you.”
Watching them, his woman and his daughter, Deuce’s chest started to ache. He missed them both. He missed all of it. Coming home to his family, watching his kids interact with each other, the laughter, the bickering, even the yelling, just taking it all in and enjoying everything he hadn’t had growing up. Then later, after Ivy was asleep, Danny in her room on her phone and Cage gone for the night, he would take Eva upstairs, strip her naked, and fuck the hell out of her.
“You’re home.”
His eyes flew open.
“So are you,” he said, hating that his words came out sounding like an accusation.
“For some reason Danny hasn’t been going to the club at all lately,” she said softly, nodding toward Danny’s closed bedroom door. “And like you said, she shouldn’t be home all alone.”
Guilt swamped him. He’d said that and yet he’d done nothing about it.
“Are you leaving?”
He glanced back at Eva.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Demon delivery.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
She waited a moment, expecting him to offer up more information, and when he didn’t, she nodded and turned away. He followed her down the hallway and into their room, watching as she bent down to pull open her bottom dresser drawer. She emerged with a pair of ratty sweatpants and an old T-shirt, both his, tossed them on the bed, and started undressing.
He kept watching until she was naked, taking it all in. The flower tattoos down her arm, the natural slope of her heavy breasts, the hills and valleys of a body he’d never tired of, the slight bow of her stomach, the ring through her belly button, the tattooed stars encircling it, her perfect, heart-shaped ass.
Everything hit him at once: the little girl he’d met in the family visiting room at Rikers, singing Janis, wearing Chucks, stealing what was left of his broken-down, battered heart. And when she was older, listening to her ramble on about Halloween costumes, thinking no kid as sweet as she was should be living in this life, and wanting better for her. After that the memories changed, as had his feelings for her. Fondness and adoration turned to lust and he’d taken that first kiss, that first taste and touch. Two years later, lust turned to need and he took that pussy first too. Four years passed, and he claimed not just her body but her. Because need had turned to love.
He had her now, he owned her—her body, her baby, her future—it was all his and knowing that, having that, had made every chance meeting over the years, every fuck, every fight, every letdown…
It had made it worth it.
Deuce was rock hard by the time she’d finished dressing. Hard and aching for her.
She took one look at him and knew, she always knew. Those damn beautiful eyes traveled down his body, flaring with heat when she came to his hips. Those juicy lips parted, sucking in a sharp breath, a sound he knew very well. A sound that made him crazy.
“I miss you,” she whispered.
“Babe,” he said quietly. “Yeah.”
She took a small step forward, then stopped. “Can…can I touch you?”
He didn’t like this version of Eva, this timid, unsure woman who was nothing like the quirky, outgoing kid she’d been, or the teenager who didn’t give a fuck about what other people thought, or the young woman who’d refused to take shit from him or anyone else.
But now, that kid, that teenager, that young woman…they were gone.
He couldn’t fault Frankie for this, or the life. This shit was his fault. True, the life had taken its toll on her and Frankie had beat her down, pounded on her something fierce, but she’d persevered through it all.
It had been him, by refusing to let it go, refusing to love her the way a man should, who’d thrown the killing blow.
Deuce could fix it, he knew he could. He could bring the woman he loved back to life. He held that precious power in his hands.
He wanted to fix it.
“Come here, darlin’,” he said hoarsely. All of a second passed before Eva was in his arms and he was carrying her across the room and dropping her on their bed and her hands were in his hair and her mouth…
“This is my fuckin’ mouth,” he growled, kissing her roughly. He tore at her clothes, stripping her violently, grabbing her breasts, telling her over and over again that every part of her was his. Had always been his.
Fuck, he needed her, he needed to be inside of her again. He freed himself and pushed against her; she was ready for him, wet and whimpering, needing him just as badly.
It had been so long since he’d been inside of her, since he’d been able to take what was his, it had been since…
Her breath caught, her eyes rolled back even as tears streamed down her face. Her legs quaking, she went face first into the pillow, crying out softly through her orgasm. Frankie followed her down, groaning loudly, his body jerking.
He fought against the memory, fought it with everything he had. Eva was his. She was motherfucking his. Frankie was dead, gone, he couldn’t take her away from him anymore. She was his. She was his…
Then Frankie turned to him. And grinned.
He hadn’t fucked her since before Frankie. Frankie had been the last man inside his woman. Grinning. That’s all he could see, was that fucking asshole grinning.
“FUCK!” he roared, pushing off the bed and turning away.
“Wait,” she cried, reaching for him. “Baby, wa—”
Anger and pain had him slapping her hands off him. “Shut up,” he growled, yanking his jeans up. “Just shut the fuck up.”
“Deuce—”
“No!” he bellowed. “You liked it, you fuckin’ liked it! You got off on bein’ raped!”
Her fists came down on the mattress. “I loved him!” she screamed.
Rage bubbled up inside him. “You loved him? You loved a man who did nothin’ but hurt you? How long had he been hurtin’ you, Eva? You fuckin’ tell me how long.”
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “He’s gone now.”
He stared down at her. “Gone?” he asked hoarsely. “He ain’t fuckin’ gone. He’s still standin’ right between us, laughin’ his fuckin’ ass off.”
In a flash she was off the bed and shoving at him. “Only because you’re letting him!” she screamed. “You’re not letting me fix it!”
Deuce grabbed her wrists and held her still. “Shoulda never been nothin’ to fix,” he growled. “Ten fuckin’ years ago you showed up here wantin’ me and, bitch, you knew I wanted you, you knew you didn’t ever have to go back to that shit! It didn’t have to go down this way, Eva, ’cause you fuckin’ had me, you always fuckin’ had me!”
He shook her hard. “You tell me why I should fuckin’ care ’bout you tryin’ to fix anything, when you spent your whole fuckin’ life tryin’ to fix him and not us? Was it because you loved him more? Did you love that motherfucker more than me?”
“He needed me,” she whispered.
With a hard shove he pushed her off him. “BITCH,” he roared. “SO THE FUCK DID I!”
Storming across the room, he punched in the code on his wall safe, grabbed what he needed, and got the fuck out of there, doing his best to ignore Danny glaring at him from her bedroom doorway and Eva’s soft sobbing coming from his own bedroom. He practically ran down the stairs and burst out the front door because, fuck him, he couldn’t deal with this shit, he didn’t know how to deal with this shit.
He suddenly wanted out. He wanted out of the club, out of this mess with Eva, out of being a father, out of all of it because if he were gone, in the long run they would all be better off. His boys, Eva, his kids…they didn’t need some angry, fucked-up asshole in their lives. They needed stability, someone who was going to be there for them no matter what.
Someo
ne who could put aside their own problems and put the people he loved first.
And that someone wasn’t him.
It had never been him.
He’d been kidding himself all these years thinking shit was going to get better. He’d had only brief moments of “better.” Teases of happiness, fucking with him, dangling what he wanted in front of him, but leaving it just out of reach.
It was just like his old man had always said…he was a fuckup.
CHAPTER NINE
Ripper, Tap, and Cox cut their engines a small ways away from an old abandoned group of condos on the edge of town. Warily they eyed the dark, decrepit scene before them.
“You trust this bitch?” Tap asked Cox.
Cox laughed coldly. “I don’t trust any bitch, least of all this one, but she contacted us when she coulda just snagged our shit from Marcus and split.”
Fucking Marcus. One of their main distributors. They got a shipment in, then they cut, bagged, and tagged it and sent it packing with several different runners. Only Marcus had fucked up. Got himself ganked.
By a fucking woman.
Looking off in the distance, Cox squinted. “There she be.”
Ripper followed Cox’s finger to an attractive young black woman with an afro the size of a house and an ass to match, who was sauntering their way.
“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me,” he growled, looking her over.
Skintight leather jacket. Skintight jeans. And thigh-high leather boots with what he was guessing were six-inch heels.
“Holy shit,” Tap breathed. “Holy fuckin’ shit…look at that ass.”
Cox laughed. “Calls herself Mama Vi.”
Mama Vi? Shit. Why the fuck did that sound so familiar to him?
“Boys,” she greeted them, flashing a white smile, stark against her bright red lips and deep chocolate skin.
“Diana fuckin’ Ross,” he shot back, staring in horror at her hair. “Where the fuck is our shit?”
Tsk-tsking him, she grinned. “Gotta proposition for ya first,” she drawled.
“I’m listenin’,” Tap said, staring the bitch up and down with a dumbass smile on his face.
“Ain’t you a sweet-lookin’ little white boy,” she cooed, stepping forward and placing her hand on Tap’s chest. Ripper caught sight of her nails, three inches long, curved like claws, and also bright red.
Sweet-looking little white boy? Tap?
Grabbing Mama Vi’s wrist, Tap slammed her hand down over his cock. “Ain’t nothin’ little ’bout me,” he growled.
Her grin grew.
“Ta think, Big Jay had said bikers weren’t nothin’ but sheep-fuckin’, honkey-tonkin’ rednecks.”
Ripper’s heart skipped a beat.
Big Jay.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Cox growled. “I look like a fuckin’ redneck to you?”
Stepping away from Tap, she glanced over at Cox. “No, boo,” she said silkily. “You lookin’ like a mighty fine piece of pandillero meat to Mama Vi.”
“Gracias, niña,” Cox said, dipping his head.
“El placer es mío.” She giggled.
Ripper glanced between a love-struck Tap, and Cox, who seemed to be having some sort of an identity crisis. “What the fuck is wrong with you assholes?” he demanded. “Did you not just hear what the bitch fuckin’ said? Big Jay! She works for motherfuckin’ Big Jay! She ain’t no bitch of his, either. She’s his crazy-ass little sister, Vivian Jones. Gotta rep a mile fuckin’ long, most of it for killin’ white boys who fuck her brother over.”
Both his brothers turned to him, confused.
“Who?”
“What?”
Mama Vi’s deep, silky laughter echoed throughout the empty parking lot. “You homegrown, white boy, ain’tcha?”
“Yeah,” he growled. “Born and fuckin’ raised and still workin’ the Cali territories. Now start fuckin’ talkin’. What’s a boss from LA like Big fuckin’ Jay doin’ messin’ with my club?”
“Word’s out,” she said. “Preacher done dropped science on the Horsemen. You boys hit the big time and you gotta start payin’ the piper.”
Preacher. Another thing he could lay at Eva’s feet. If it weren’t for Deuce’s alliance with the Demons, this shit wouldn’t be happening.
“I’m guessin’ we ain’t gettin’ our shit back?” Cox growled.
“Not this time,” she said. “You been chin-checked. Think of it as a good faith payment.”
“Fuck that!” Cox shouted. “We don’t gotta to listen to some fuckin’ hood rat—”
“No,” Ripper interrupted before Cox got himself killed. “We’re not interested.”
“You sure about that?” Mama Vi asked sweetly, her dark eyes on him. Appraising. Assessing. Scaring the ever-loving shit out of him. The stories he’d heard about her… Her skills and finely honed specialties were right up there with Frankie’s sick and twisted bullshit.
“I’m sure,” he said, already knowing Deuce wouldn’t play ball with street gangs, no matter how high up on the food chain they were. Most of them were unorganized, their distribution messy, full of snitches and junkies, making it too easy for the law to get the drop on them.
“You’re makin’ a mistake.”
Tap’s jaw clenched. “You threatenin’ us?”
Mama Vi smiled nastily. “I am. You don’t play it our way, Deuce is gonna have a war on his hands.”
Fuck. Deuce was going to be pissed. First, because he was in New York and not able to deal with this bitch himself, and second, for threatening the club. No one threatened the club and got away with it. Deuce was going to want blood. And speaking of wanting blood…
“You want a war, bitch, you fuckin’ got one. Now, where’s our boy?” he asked.
“White boy, you are makin’ a mistake.”
He pulled his piece mere moments before she pulled hers. Half a second later both Cox and Tap had their guns trained on her, but he wasn’t under the false impression that any of them were safe. The bitch had deadly reflexes and was more than likely armed with an entire arsenal.
“Bitch,” he growled. “First, you’re gonna learn right the fuck now that no one is gonna threaten my prez, my club, or any of my brothers and get away with it. Second, I ain’t white, I’m motherfuckin’ tan. Third, you tell me where our fuckin’ boy is or I’m puttin’ a bullet in your big black ass.”
For several heart-pounding moments, no one moved until Mama Vi tucked her gun back inside her jacket.
“Scarface,” she drawled. “First, if Deuce don’t think Jay can take him down, he’s one sad, sorry mothafucker.”
She glanced toward the condos. “Second, your boy’s tied up inside.”
Then her dark gaze turned back to him and she smiled just a little too sweetly. “Third, honey, ain’t no man ever pulled a gun on me and lived happily ever after.”
She leaned in a few inches. “I will hurt you,” she whispered. “Count on it.”
As they stared at each other, it took every ounce of his willpower not to pull the trigger and blow this bitch straight to hell.
“Lookin’ forward to it,” he growled softly.
No one said a word as she walked off.
“Tap,” he barked. “Stay out here in case she comes back.” Glancing at Cox, he jerked his chin in the direction of the condos. “Let’s go, chief.”
“This is fucked,” Cox muttered, stepping in line beside him.
“Yeah.”
“You think Prez is gonna go to war?”
“Yeah.” Deuce didn’t mess around. It was how the man had gotten where he was today. That and most people were scared shitless of him. Had been for a long time now. Ripper hadn’t been around when Deuce had his old man, Reaper, offed, but the circuit still buzzed about it. Fuckers were still whispering about how Deuce had posted the hit with the explicit instructions to make Reaper’s death as long and as painful as possible.
Ripper couldn’t picture wanting to kill his own fathe
r, but then again, his old man had been a good guy. Both his parents had been quality stock. He often wondered where he’d be if he hadn’t lost them at such a young age. Still surfing? Skating? Beach bumming it with his friends and an endless supply of blonde-haired, blue-eyed hotties?
A wave of longing hit him, a homesickness he hadn’t felt in years, and suddenly he found himself thinking about home, eating his mom’s pot roast and apple pie, watching TV with his old man, listening to him bitch and moan about the declining morals of modern society. Both of them constantly complaining that his hair was too long, that skating was too dangerous, but he saw the secret smiles when they’d thought he wasn’t looking. They’d been proud of him.
He was fairly certain if they were still alive, they wouldn’t be proud anymore.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck was wrong with him lately?
He needed to find a way to turn off this all of a sudden “give a shit” switch that had been turned on inside of him.
“Shit’s gonna get messy,” Cox mused.
“Yeah.”
Reaching door number one, they pulled their pieces, glanced at one another, and Cox kicked open the door. There was Marcus. The dumb as shit, hairy, Italian motherfucker was tied up in a corner. Dumbass.
“Please,” Marcus said hoarsely. “Please…”
“Please fuckin’ what?” he yelled, stalking forward. “You lost an entire shipment! To one fuckin’ woman!”
“The bitch jumped me,” Marcus rasped, struggling against the ropes. “Took everything, took the rest of the shit, took all the cash. Did you know she’s got throwing stars?”
Eyebrows raised, Cox glanced at him and he shook his head in response. Marcus had made a big mess and he had to go to ground. It didn’t matter if Mama Vi had used a motherfucking cannon to gank him, Marcus had one responsibility and he’d failed. Now he was deadweight.
Sighing, he bent down and pressed the muzzle of his nine to Marcus’s temple.
Knowing he was worm food, Marcus began thrashing in earnest. “Dude! Please! Gimme two weeks and I’ll make back what I owe ya! Please, man, I got fuckin’ kids!”
Ripper snorted. Marcus knew the game, had been living in it his whole damn life, and knew having kids didn’t mean jack fucking squat.