Angels and Ashes (Heaven's Rejects MC Book 2) (9 page)

Before moving out of traffic, I check the tracker link and find that the car has stopped in a popular bar scene in town.

Why the hell would she come down here to get a damn drink? She could get the same tequila or piss beer at home. Something has led her to this hellhole to leave the kids behind.

Cruising on the bike, I make it to the bar district of town with relative ease. I cruise up and down the street until I spot Jagger’s car parked directly in front of a bar. Veering into the spot directly behind it, I kill the engine of my bike and pull the keys from the ignition, stowing them in my pocket.

I step onto the sidewalk and chuckle quietly to myself. Darcy booked it to Mexico only to end up in a place called The Devil’s Pussy. This seems more like a place Jagger would haunt than Darcy. I peg her for more of a wine and cheese party kind of girl rather than a shitty beer and Montezuma’s revenge type.

Walking through the doors, an older Mexican man stands at attention behind the counter, wiping it down with a rag. I stalk over to the bar and slide onto the empty barstool in front of the bartender.

“What can I get you, Señor?” he asks as I note the nervousness about him.

“Yeah, I’m looking for the woman who showed up in that beauty of a car parked outside. You see her in here?”

His head shakes back and forth before he quickly turns and reaches for what I can only assume is a pistol underneath the cash register. Pulling one of the long, combat knives from my shoulder hostler, I twirl the sharp blade in my hand and slam it down on the bar top, which sends the man spinning on his heels to face me. His hands rise in the air in surrender.

“I don’t want any trouble, Señor.”

“There won’t be any trouble if you tell me where I can find the woman. I can tell by the way your eyes automatically looked at what I can guess is a gun underneath the barthat you know exactly who I am talking about, and I’m for damn sure betting that she means something to you.”

“Yes, I know who she is. Her husband used to be one of the regulars here. What do you want with the Señora?”

My fingers slowly trace up the sharp edge of the blade before I stow it back into the hostler. I need to show him that no harm will come to her if he gives me the information I want.

“Let’s just say that I was a good friend of her old man. You gonna tell me where I can find her, or do I need to get my knife back out and cut the information out of you slice by slice?”

His eyes grow wide as my hand slides back under my cut toward the knife.

“She’s in Señor Jagger’s apartment upstairs,” he says, pointing toward the back of the bar. “I think she’s looking for something.”

Removing my hand from inside my cut, I stand and walk toward the direction he indicated and quietly make my way up the stairs. Banging rings down the stairs when the room comes into view. The door stands slightly open with Darcy standing in one corner of the room holding a crowbar high into the air above her head.

“Do you want to explain to me why the fuck you are in a bar in Tijuana with a crow bar and a gun?”

The crow bar falls from her hands and lands on the floor next to her. Darcy stands in shock as I walk into the room, leaning down to pick up her discarded tool. I extend the crow bar back to her, and she snatches it away from me.

“If you needed a vacation, darlin’, you could have just said something instead of running away.”

“I didn’t fucking run away, asshole. I came here for a reason,” she snaps at me. “Why the fuck are you here?”

She’s filled with rage yet again in my presence, and my cock springs to life in my pants. Why the hell does she have this effect on me, and why can’t my cock just stay soft around the one person I can’t have? I’ll go so far as to admit that I’ve always been attracted to her, and even that sassy mouth of hers affects me, but she is my brother’s widow. Crossing that line isn’t exactly looked well upon in our club, and I, for damn sure, won’t be crossing it any time soon, even if she ever did offer herself up to me.

“Dani called and alerted me to the fact that you were taking off with a gun tucked into your jeans. Care to tell me why you didn’t fucking call to tell me why you needed to escape to Mexico? I doubt you had an overwhelming need to get a warm beer in a town like this.”

Her eyes roll back at me, which only makes the growing problem in my pants harder.
Calm the fuck down. She’s not the pussy you want to be chasing right now.

“I came here because of you and my Goddamn husband.”

I stare back at her with a confused look as she stomps over to her bag and rips a folded piece of paper from it. She walks over to me and shoves it in my hand.

“This was on my door this morning, and before you even ask, yes, that’s his handwriting.”

I quickly read over the letter and stare at the faded words.
She’s right. This is his handwriting. How in the hell did she even get a letter from him after all this time?

“You know I’m right. I’m only here because of that little request he made in the P.S. portion of the letter. I’m here because he asked me to come find whatever the fuck he has hidden here for
you
.”

Folding the letter back, I hand it back to her and let the words of my fallen brother seep into my mind.
What traitor would be in our club?
Jagger’s words don’t make a lick of sense, but at the same time, the need to find what he has hidden here exponentially grows. I grab the crow bar back from Darcy and move her aside.

“You think whatever he’s got stowed here is under the floor?” I question.

Her finger points to the newer section of wood directly in front of me.

“That part right there,” she says while pointing to the spot where she was kneeling, “echoes back when I knock on it. It’s hollow underneath.”

Stripping my cut off, I hand the worn leather to Darcy while I kneel down onto the floor and place the tip of the crowbar between the seams of the wooden panels. It takes me a few tries before the wood releases from the seal and pops up. Breaking the board free from the other sides, I lift it up and set it down next me. Reaching my hand into the dark hole, I feel around before my fingers graze a smooth packet lying in the farthest corner. I slide it from its hiding spot and pull it back into the light. The thick manila envelope is covered in dust but has remained sealed. Darcy’s eyes lock on the packet in my hand while I blow the dust off of it. I turn it over only to see my name scribbled in Jagger’s familiar script on the front. Darcy steps closer to me with her arms outstretched, but I pull the packet away from her grasp.

“Now, darlin’, Jagger told you point blank that this packet isn’t for you. Don’t you dare be getting any ideas about taking it away from me.”

The fire from her anger flits over her skin like a burning log while she crosses her arms in a huff. I rise from the ground, tucking the packet under my arm while using my free hand to wipe the dust from my leathers. I walk right past Darcy, grabbing my cut from her hands as I start to exit the room.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going with that packet?” she angrily questions me.

“Well, darlin’, me and this packet here are going back home. If this is as bad as I think it is, then I am not about to open up what could possibly change the fate of my club in some shit hole bar in Mexico. Now, get your shit and put that pretty little ass of yours back into that car parked outside and head home. Your role of seeker is done now, and it’s time you get back to those kids who need you more than the curiosity you have about the contents of this packet. If it’s something you need to know, I’ll share it with you, but until then, this packet is now club business and none of yours.”

The entire drive home from the bar, he was hot on my tail. He mimicked every lane change I made and even stood guard while I pumped gas into Betty. Maybe his suspicions about me high-tailing it out of there were warranted, but I still didn’t like his eyes following me everywhere I went. His gaze made me feel uncomfortable and oddly aroused all at the same time. It’s not that I’m that attracted to him. Well, maybe just a little bit, but that’s not going to happen. He is my husband’s pseudo-brother, and I won’t cross that fucking line even if I go so far as to admit that watching him ride behind me up the freeway was arousing and exciting. His muscles flexed and curled when he leaned into turns and watching his shirt ripple in the wind nearly set my panties on fire. I would have pulled over into the median and let him take me there in the dirt with all those cars passing if I would have seen those fucking dimples of his while he followed me. More than once I had to remind myself that while he looked damn good, he was the enemy. He was the person standing between me and my goals, and the man my body had suddenly decided it wanted a taste of.

I forced myself to focus on the way he suddenly dismissed my involvement in the apartment to help curtail the crotch fire that was smoldering down below. That son-of-a-bitch had the nerve to shove me out with his dismissive boy club mentality. Assuredly, anything that had to do with my husband is
my
business. I risked everything traveling to Mexico on my own to get that envelope for him, so you’d think he’d let me in on whatever he would find in it. But, that patch on his back will keep the information from me, which gives me just another reason to hate that fucking club. He was right that I do need to get back home to the kids, but I’m not going to let sleeping dogs lie. It’s time I call in someone I thought I’d never have to turn to again—a Heaven’s Rejects’ member with a checkered past and loose morals when it comes to the right amount of money.

As the last few miles tick away, my mind wanders to the level of control that Raze seems to have over his rag-tag team of misfit bikers. I honestly don’t understand why the men and women of the club just bow to his will without a second thought. Well, I guess the men I understand more because he is their leader, but that is not the case for the women. Sure, he’s got the looks that would make most women rip their panties off and beg to be taken hard. His defined, strong arms and muscled legs make me want to climb aboard and fuck him, but my attraction to him means jack shit when it comes to avenging my husband. I need that information, and I’ll get it one way or another.

Shit, if my mind keeps thinking about Raze like this, I need to get new batteries for my vibrator because he is the last man on this Earth that I would fuck—even for relief.

Pulling into the drive as the sun rises into the sky, the neighborhood is quiet. I am not surprised to find a familiar bike parked next to Dani’s car, since wherever she goes, Hero is usually not far behind. After everything that has happened to them in just a short amount of time, I don’t blame him for basically being her own personal stalker. At least she gets some good benefits out of the relationship, or so I assume. I quietly sneak into the house and find Dani and Hero snuggled up on the couch with Roxie asleep in her bassinet. I wish I could have a smidgen of the peace these two have found in each other. Maybe it’s jealously that Hero is still here to hold her, but it pains me to see someone so happy in this house. After just a year’s time, happiness seems like it will never live here again.

I try to quickly walk past the couch to check on Roxie, but Hero’s eyes fly open, his hand reaching for the gun holstered on his hip. Instinctually, I raise my hands in the air, hoping that he realizes it’s me. His hand falls from the gun and back to his face, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Shit, Darcy. You’re too fucking quiet for your own good. I didn’t even hear the door open.”

“With a new baby in the house, you tend to figure out how to walk quietly in and out of a room,” I say while casually lowering my hands. “I’ve had to master ninja baby skills.”

Dani mumbles and shifts in her sleep as Hero pulls his arm out from under Dani’s head. He gently repositions her head against one of the cushions before rising from the couch. I peek into Roxie’s bassinet and find my little angel bundled tightly in her blankets and sleeping soundly. Hero steps up next to me and cocks his head to the side, looking down at the sweet child snoozing soundly.

“I don’t know how you do it, Darcy. Raising the boys and now Roxie all on your own.”

I turn to face him while he continues to stare down at Roxie. “It’s not hard to be a mother, or in your case, a father. You just have to try your best and remember that if you can give them a happy and better life than you had, you’ve succeeded as a parent.”

He sighs, turning toward me. “You make it sound so damn easy. I don’t think I’m ready to be a dad yet.”

I smirk at him and stifle a quiet laugh. “You can never be ready to be a father, Hero. Trust me, until you have your children in your arms, you’ll never understand the bond between parent and child. Would it make you feel any better to know that Brent was a hot mess when Colt was born?”

Hero laughs as Roxie coos in her sleep.

“No shit? He was scared?”

I laugh whole-heartedly thinking back to the early days of Colt being in our lives.

“Hero, he woke up every five minutes to make sure he was still breathing and refused to change a diaper unless I was there to supervise. There was one time I went to Albertson’s for more formula and he called me panicking because Colt had sneezed twice in five minutes. He was bound and determined that he had the swine flu and that we needed to go to the emergency room.” Hero laughs with me while my hand slides to his shoulder in my attempt to reassure him. “Fatherhood doesn’t come with a guide. You just have to trust your instincts and be the man they need. Support Dani through the bad nights and the good ones. One day, you’ll look back on the day the twins were born and desperately wish they were still that little.”