Forever - Book 3 (Star Crossed MC Lovers) (8 page)

“There’s my Selene!” My father called with his arms spread wide.

He was dressed in a fine suit with a beautiful burgundy silk shirt and a black damask tie. Being well-groomed, he had a clean goatee, and his salt and pepper hair was neatly coifed.

“Hey, Dad,” I said in the most charming way I could muster. I had to work hard to remove any hint of animosity from my voice, but it wasn’t an easy task.

“Selene, we have company for dinner tonight. Say hello, please.” My father nodded toward Dante, who sat at his left. Dante had been a fixture in my life, and a biting pain in my ass since I started to pledge with the Black Wolves. It was rare for my father to take on a pledge that wasn’t a family member, but he supposedly knew Dante’s father. I’d never met the man, nor did I care to.

Chapter 9

Selene

Dante was a couple of years older than me, and where I’d struggled a little with my pledging to the MC, he’d done it with flying colors. He was devious and dark, handsome and yet I felt nothing for him. I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d feel anything even if Lucky wasn’t in the picture. Dante was a class-A prick, and he wanted me more than he wanted his next breath. I was just glad that he respected my father enough to back off.

I’d hate to have him think he could paw at me, like he’d tried to a few times in the past. I was beyond being a little girl. I’d stab his ass if he tried anything else on me. I pulled from my thoughts and glanced down the table, taking in the likenesses of my cousins and yet noting the various differences among them.

They all sat at the table, dressed sharply in white suits with burgundy shirts and ties. They wore gold rings on their pinky fingers, and stared up at me from hooded eyes. It was as if someone had warned them that I was coming.

“Alright. Here she comes. Prepare your most nefarious, we know you’re up to some shit, look. Got it? Good!”

I smiled politely at each of them, but wanted to scream on the inside. How fucking nice it must have been to live in a house where the people were normal. Here, everyone was borderline bat-shit crazy. I wouldn’t know. I’d lived with my father all my life.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your dinner meeting…” I said with pseudo shyness, and tried to exit the room gracefully.

Mateo stood in the doorway with a serious look on his face. His massive body blocked the exit. “Nope.”

“What the hell? Move!” I whispered roughly almost with my face pressed to his thick chest.

“Actually, Selene, we were hoping you could join us,” Paz said brazenly, and I turned, forcing a look of surprise on my face. I rarely ate with them, and played it off as if I respected the time they needed as men to talk about manly things.

“Yes, Selene. Come sit with us. Alejandra will be along any minute now with supper,” my father explained, beckoning me to come and join him. There was no hope after catching his expression.

There was no escaping his need for control of all things, most of all… me.

I tried to keep my face devoid of the anger that ripped through my body. Turning, I gave my cousin, Mateo, an annoyed glance and poked at his chest just to be an ass.

Mateo stared at me with a cool gaze emanating from his dark eyes, looking very much like the other robot mother fuckers at my back. His earlier  playfulness had vanished, and now his arms were tightly crossed over his broad chest, his face a mask of indifference.

It was  one thing to have a run in with one of the more aggressive, insane members of my family, but having Mateo push me around and act as if he wasn’t going to let me through the door was a bit much. The chunky boy I’d played baseball with and built forts with in the woods was now guarding the door, preventing me from leaving. Something about it left me ready to fight, and yet there wasn’t really anything happening to me other than a little muscle being thrown around.

“I’ll kill you in your sleep.” I winked and turned toward my father, taking a few steps back into the room. I wasn’t going to let the MC know that I was intimidated or suddenly feeling like a deer caught in the hunter’s snare. It wasn’t happening.

“Selene, honey… Come sit down. Don’t be shy,” Rafael said in a genial tone of voice. A warm smile broadened  my father’s face, which was more disturbing than the usual grimace we all got. He could be so damn charming when he wanted to be, and yet I knew him too well.

Something was up.

"So what's this I'm hearing that you stole Lucky Morrison's Harley this morning?" My father chuckled and rose from his chair. He walked around to stand in front of me, and fear rushed through the center of my soul. He had no light left in his eyes, only impending darkness. He’d admitted to killing my mother a few years back, and where I tried to ignore the fact simply because I had nowhere to really go, looking at him now, I couldn’t.

He was a murderer, and I was just another name on his long list.

I forced a nonplussed look onto my face, and gave him the faintest of smiles. He was crazy, but I could play his game as long as I needed to.

My expression was enough to send her father into fits of laughter. He never failed to remind me how much he loved it when I played tricks on the Stone Wolves MC bikers.

"I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about," I said and shrugged innocently. I made sure to make my voice saccharin sweet as I tried to convince my father of my innocence.

"I'm sure," Rafael said. "Imagine that. My darling daughter, stealing a rival MC member's bike. I'd say you were cut from the same cloth as your old man," Rafael quipped as a booming laugh echoed from his mouth.

You wish
.
Different cloth. Different design.

"Dante! Come here, son." Rafael turned and motioned for Dante to join them in the center of the room.

I let my eyes scan the rest of their faces, and found myself a little put off by the stares I got  in return. They should have all been busy talking amongst themselves or playing on their latest electronics, but they weren’t. All eyes were on us, leaving me to feel as if I’d been stripped bare and was being prepared for the mother-lode of all beatings.

Dante Iglesias strolled toward us, languidly wearing a pristine white suit with a crimson tie and shiny leather dress shoes. His black hair was gelled messily into place and he had a sultry look in his eyes. He looked nothing like the biker that he was, and everything like the drug dealer I knew him to be.

The smile that lifted his mouth caused disgust to roll through me. His eyes moved down the length of me, and he licked at his lips as if starving. “Selene. You look lovely tonight.”

“Really? I’m in jeans and a t-shirt.” I let some of the sarcasm slip into my voice that pulsed through me.

"Watch your tone.” My father took me by the chin. “Come, let us sit and enjoy an evening together. Dante was just being nice. You look like shit. Don’t come to dinner dressed as such again. Are we clear?”

I might be a patched member, but my father very much still treated me like a seven-year-old child. He always would. Where I wanted to fight back, to defend my pride, there was really no reason to. Everyone in the room was quite often treated the same by the king -pin. We just nodded and took our lashes, praying like hell that it would all be over soon enough.

Dante winked at me and reached for my hand. There was no need to fight him for something as simple as holding my hand. The man thought he had rights to me, but that was mostly my father’s fault. His large hand felt rough against my skin as he entwined his fingers with mine. Dante paused by the table and raised my hand to his mouth, kissing it ever so gently as he watched me closely.

“I think you’re beautiful no matter what you’re wearing.” He licked at the pad of one of my fingers and I jerked my hand away.

“Behave,” I whispered only loud enough for him to hear me. We’d been through some shit together over the last three years, and where I’d be fine befriending the crazy bastard, I knew he was completely sold out to my father. There was that, and the fact that he hadn’t been shy at all in reminding me that our future would be together. I was his and as soon as I realized that… the better off all of us would be.

Such a crock of shit.

I forced a smile seeing that my father had turned his eyes on me. "Dante, don’t be so open in front of my father. It’s embarrassing.” I said in a facetious tone. My father favored him as a partner to me, but it would never happen. I didn’t care how long I had to play their sick game, nothing would ever become anything of me and the large bastard in front of me.

I wasn't trying to play coy with him and Dante knew it. My father might not, but Dante did. I hated him with the inferno of a thousand fires. Behind each of his smiles, there was a flurry of malicious activity just waiting to play out. I’d seen the same scenario play out so many times over the last three years that I’d lost count.

"Selene, Dante has an important question to ask you." My father glanced back from his seated position. I was ready to tug my hand from Dante’s and take my place at the table, but with the string of events it didn’t seem like it was quite yet time to recline. At least not for me.

"Oh?" I turned and gave Dante a piercing gaze. I knew what question he had to ask, and the answer was no, flat out no. I fully intended to marry Lucky Morrison, and had already said yes only hours before. Even if I hadn’t… Dante wasn’t the man for me. Period.

Dante took his seat, his large, muscular frame filling up the wingback dining room chair . He motioned for me to sit between him and my father. I wanted to flop down in the chair, but it would only speak to my adolescence, and I didn’t need another reminder that I was the youngest patched member of the MC.

Dante took a quick sip of the Chianti wine that sat before him and turned, giving me a charged glance as his bottom lip quivered.

"Selene Delgado, you know how much I care about you. You are a beautiful woman..."

Gulp. I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat and prayed like hell that I was simply stuck in the middle of a really, really bad dream.

No fucking way this is happening. And in front of everyone? No fucking way.

"I have asked for your father's blessing, and he’s given it," Dante said, his eyes wide with emotion. He searched my face as if looking for pre-approval to what he was about to do.

I made sure to purse my lips and narrow my eyes in blatant defiance. He knew me well enough to know that there was no way in hell I was going to say yes to marrying him. I groaned quietly to myself.

Psychopaths. All of them. They all make their acts so damn convincing.

I stared back at Dante as my stomach turned to lead. I had to put a stop to the madness before it went too far. My father wasn’t going to do it, and he obviously agreed with Dante, which was good for the gander, but this goose wasn’t having any of this shit. Not a drop of it.

Without missing a beat, I answered the question before it was ever asked, delivering a cool, swift blow to Dante's ego.

"No," I said as I crossed my arms over my chest.

"It's decided," my father responded sternly. "Selene, you will marry Dante."

Oh, you think so?! Try again mother fucker.

"Who decided? You?! Because the last time I checked, I’m a free woman. I’m not one of your pawns. You can’t  strategically plan out my life! I am a grown-ass woman, and you will not marry me off to whatever Black Heart you want just because you think they'd make a good President some day!" Fury rushed up from the center of my stomach. That was it. I had too much of my father in me to sit idly by while other people decided my fate or my future.

Fuck every one of them and the hogs they rode in on.

"Selene, you don't understand..." Dante pleaded with his hands open toward me.

"No Iglesias! You don't understand! I’m not his to give away, and my answer is no!"

"Selene Maritza Delgado!" my father spat in a voice that was both raspy and menacing.

I turned and stared at my father wide-eyed. I didn't take crap from anyone, but that didn't mean I was foolish. I knew when to tread carefully around my father. This was one of those moments. Just because he believed that he could force me to marry Dante didn’t mean that I was going to go through with it. Starting a war with him over something so fucking stupid was a waste of time and energy.

I wasn’t doing it. I didn’t care what he or Dante, or any of them believed.

"End of discussion, Selene. You will marry him," Rafael said in a calmer voice.

Before I could utter another word, my father had reached for his cherry wood gavel that sat on the table. As my mouth opened in protest, Rafael Delgado brought the gavel slamming down onto the table.

It was decreed. Despite what I wanted, my father had decreed that his only daughter would marry Dante Iglesias, the most dangerous man in Riker County.

Funny how wrong he was.

Chapter 10

Lucky

"Armor the fuck up! Let's go!" Viper screamed as he flagged all of us to follow him.

I was already on my bike in the middle of the yard when the rest of the Stone Wolves joined us. The afternoon with Selene had put me in an incredible mood, but having the girl of your dreams agree to marry you could usually do that to a guy.

"Lucky, I want you to go over to Clivesdale Lake. Johnny Pike asked for our help and we're going to give it." Viper pinned me with a hard stare as my mood slipped.

"Johnny Pike? Is he the one whose kids are all missing?" I hated to even bring the subject up. All of us had been sick over the idea of someone hurting the man’s kids. He’d worked his whole life in Pleasant Valley, and had very little to show for it other than those kids.

"The very one. Do you know why?" Viper lifted his eyebrow at me.

"I have a pretty good idea," I said and lit up the cigarette that was hanging off my lip. Selene hated it when I smoked, so I tried not to do it around her, but I couldn’t help but need the relief it provided during tense moments, and this one was beyond tense.

"Care to fucking elaborate?!" Rusty griped as he struggled to straddle his motorcycle and turned his attention on Viper.

"Johnny found a supply of bad crank in Jason’s bedroom, and it was supplied by Delgado. Wherever those kids are, Delgado knows something about it." Viper rolled his shoulders. “Hurry the fuck up. Get your old asses on your bikes, or get out your damn knitting shit and make me a sweater while we’re gone.”

Rusty laughed and shook his head. “Fuck you. No one has the time to knit a sweater that would cover your big ass. Go get you a woman and stop trying to feel up us men.”

"Let's go. We ride," Viper ignored Rusty’s comments and put his chrome helmet on his head before hitting the gas and pulling his Harley out of the parking lot of the Stone Wolves MC.

Sickness tugged at my insides as we drove over to Johnny’s place. I didn’t know the details of what went down, but I knew that when Selene and I had a few kids, that I would protect them with my life. Realization ran through me as we pulled up to the Pike property.

If we have babies, we’ll have to move. I could never let Raphael know that he had grandchildren. The mother fucker has too much of a sense of entitlement.

I growled at the thought, and then forced myself to quiet down. I needed to hear what the hell had happen to Johnny’s kids. Someone had to help the old boy, and there was no one more prepared than my MC.

"Johnny boy... what seems to be the problem?" Viper said as he climbed off of his bike and closed the distance between the dirt road and the house.

Johnny Pike, a worn down father of five, sat on the porch steps of his trailer as he watched us approach his property. He had a forlorn look on his face. Leaning over, with his elbows resting on his knees, Johnny's face provided no smile nor comfort.

"About the same, man. It's been two weeks since Kim left, and my two youngest kids are mixed up in some shit," Johnny said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

I thought I could see the heat rising off the back of Johnny’s neck.

"Who are they getting mixed up with?" Viper asked, as if we all didn't know.

"Fucking Delgado. That creep Dante that does his bidding for him came around here about two months ago, and he's been getting a lot of the kids in the trailer park hooked. As if that’s not bad enough, there's a rumor floating around that the supply is tainted. It's like they want to try to hurt people," Johnny said with a desperate look on his face. I could imagine that the pain of a real father was tremendous when his kids were in danger. It was written all over Johnny’s face. I’d never seen the look on my old man’s face, but he was a bastard almost as bad at Selene’s daddy was.

"Damn piece of shit," Rusty commented. “Fucking Delgado has no respect for anyone. I swear he thinks this is all a damn game.”

"How old are your kids?" Viper took back control of the conversation.

"Kaley is fourteen, Jason is sixteen. We can't lose any more, man. My wife, she'll go off the deep end for real this time. We haven't seen Kaley or Jason in two days. My wife doesn't know. She's staying at her mother's house in Upper Glenn. She's so broken up over this. I don’t know if she’ll come back," Johnny said with a heartbroken look on his face.

Lucky patted Johnny on the back in a sign of support. "Listen man, we've got your back. We'll keep an eye out for your kids."

Johnny choked up a bit as emotion flooded his eyes. "You have no idea what this means to me. Seriously. Please, just bring my kids home...."

"And Delgado will be dealt with. You can believe that," Viper insisted with a stone-cold look in his eyes. I had to force myself not to shiver. Where the Delgados were scary as hell most days of the week, we weren’t. It wasn’t until someone fucked with us , or the people of our sleepy little town. Then we reared up like a beast in sheep’s clothing, coming out of our calm and laying waste to everyone involved in the tragedy.

Johnny had a nervous look in his eyes as he stared back at us. “I’m almost too scared to hope.”

I nodded, understanding his sentiments all too well. "You can count on us. We’ll take his ass down for you."

"Where was the last place you saw your kids? It'll help us track 'em down," Razor asked, sounding much more sensitive than his name should have allowed.

"Down by the lumber yard. Jason was working down there for the summer. Kaley went down to take him his lunch. I haven't seen them since."

"This might sound like a stupid question," I said as I rubbed the back of my neck. "But have you considered getting the cops involved?"

Rusty rolled his eyes as he glared at me for even asking.

"I'm just saying... They're just kids," I responded, holding up my hands as a sign that I meant no offense.

"They won't help me..." Johnny said with a reluctant look on his face. "Not after those racketeering charges I faced a few years ago."

I gave Johnny a look of understanding as he glared off into the distance. The moment of silence wouldn’t last long though.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Four shots sounded into the night, coming from the location of central downtown where the clubs were located.

"What the fuck is that?!" Rusty asked with wide eyes.

"I don't know, but it came from the vicinity of the club. Let's go." I turned and jogged back toward my bike. We could help out Old Man Pike, but it would have to wait a few minutes. Whatever was going on sounded bad. Really bad.

"Johnny, we'll keep you posted," Razor yelled behind him as he got on his bike and gave me a nod. “Lead the way. Let’s go.”

"What the fuck kind of trouble is Delgado stirring up now?" Rusty asked in protest.

I replied with the icy cold that I felt inside of me. "I don't know, but I don't like it one bit."