Bad Girls Do It Better (Bad Boy Billionaire Romance) (36 page)

“I’m still holding my purse. What do you think?”

My tone was hostile but only because I was tired of playing his games. Chaos had filled me in on plenty of tidbits about Matty to make me realize there was another side of him—one I didn’t like. Before I’d started talking to Troy, I thought Matty was the sweetest guy on earth, even though I’d friend-zoned him right off the bat. Knowing what I know now, he just seemed like a creep. An annoying creep who was obsessed with me. Even though I couldn’t prove that he was watching me or following me, I got the sense that he knew more about my personal life than he had any right to know.

“I’ll give you a few minutes to get settled in. See you in the lab.” His cocky poise and nonchalant demeanor pissed me off.

“Gee, thanks.”

Sliding my purse into my bottom desk drawer, I saw the red light flashing on my office phone indicating I had a voicemail.
I’m gonna take my sweet ass time getting out to the lab, Matty. Kiss my ass.
I plopped down in my tall, sleek office chair as I removed the phone from the receiver and pressed one on the keypad before entering my pass code. Listening to the automated operator saying, “You have one new voicemail. Press three to hear the message or press one to return to the main menu,” irritated me more than usual. I punched the number three and listened to a raspy voice leave a chilling message.

“Look bitch, I don’t know who you think you are but there’s no such thing as playing both sides of the fence,” he hissed. “Better mind your business before you end up in one of those body bags.”

Oh my God.
Every hair on my body stood on end. It felt like I was in an electric forcefield. Not realizing I’d been holding my breath, I gasped for air as my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. This shit was scaring me. After collecting myself for a few moments, I dialed my voicemail again and replayed the message. There was no telling who it was; I didn’t recognize the voice.
Shit. I gotta tell somebody.
But who was I going to tell? I was torn between telling Matty, the man behind the badge or telling Chaos, the man behind the patch. If I tell Matty, maybe he can trace the call and it’d give him some insight who’s behind this—which obviously isn’t his prime suspect, Troy. On the other hand, I trusted Troy with my life more than I would ever trust Matty—cop or not. If Chaos knew about the message, he’d start an investigation of his own, and I had more faith in him finding whoever did this than letting Matty.

A sudden knock on my office door startled me as I grabbed onto my desk.
What the hell is grabbing hold of the ledge of this heavy desk going to do? Save me from catching a bullet?
“Come in.”

“Sorry to bother you, but Matty won’t leave the lab until you come in.”

“Amber, who was here when you came in this morning?”

“Just Mr. Evans. He was making copies of death certificates for the guy’s family who died from that drug overdose last week. Why?”

“What time did Matty come in?”

“About 10 minutes before you.” She stared at me. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.” I replayed the message one more time so I’d have the option to listen to the time stamp that it was left on my voicemail. The automated voice system replied, “Message left at 1:58 AM, today.”
I better get my ass out there.
Saving the message in my voicemail, I put on my lab jacket and marched into the lab.

Matty was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, holding a cup of coffee as usual. Amber was busy setting up the cart with instruments for the autopsy; a body bag already on the table, our first autopsy of the day.

“I’ll let you get to work before I say anything.” Matty sipped his coffee slowly, letting it gurgle as he drank it.
God I wish that it’d dribble down the front of his shirt and burn the shit out of him.

Unzipping the bag, I almost fell flat on my ass when I saw who it was. His signature hair gave him away. Closing my eyes, I silently prayed that I was wrong.
Oh please don’t let it be him.
Folding back the top of the body bag, I realized it was him instantly. Wearing his cut, his hair was a matted bloody mess. I stepped away from the table, trying to catch my breath before I fainted and hit the floor.

The prez had been blowing up my phone the whole time I was at Raven’s house. I knew it’d piss him off that I was ignoring him, but I had more important things on my mind like dipping into her sweet honey pot. Besides, I knew he was still pissed at me from the night before. Had I known that her friend was giving the guy head, I wouldn’t have been a cock block. But with Princess pulling her shit, there was no telling who she told what to. I was only protecting what was mine. After I left her place, I headed straight to the clubhouse. When I walked in, everyone was gathered around the table, waiting on me for church to start.

“About fucking time you got here.” Duke’s voice commanded the room’s attention. All eyes were on me. “As the enforcer, I expect you to answer every damned call that I
ever
make to you.” He turned his attention to the rest of the MC. “Now that our Sergeant-at-Arms is here, we can go ahead and get started.” He waved his hand at my chair, demanding I take a seat.

I lit up a smoke as the meeting got underway. Judging by the look on his face and the tone of his voice, I knew we were gonna be here a while. Lecturing us about my mishap the night before, he moved onto more pressing matters. One of the guys from the Chargers had heard some news on the street that was of interest to all of the clubs.

“Where’d he hear this shit from?” I interrupted the prez.

“Let me finish!” he snapped.

Listening to him go on, the prez went on to explain that one of their big-time buyers overheard one of his cronies talking about a new MC that was trying to make headway in our area.

“That doesn’t mean they’re behind these killings. You gonna believe a bunch of dope heads?”

Zipper, our veep, shot a look at me that said shut the fuck up, but I wasn’t backing down. If this new MC, the Dirty Dozen as they were calling themselves, was behind this, I wanted a piece of them first.

“Sometimes word on the street is the wisest. The cops aren’t any closer to cracking the case and neither are we.” He looked down his nose at me as he snarled his upper lip. “Unless that crypt keeper old lady of yours has shed any new light on the situation.”

Never in my life have I wanted to punch our prez in the throat until he said that last sentence that came out of his yellow-stained teeth.

“She’s not a fucking crypt keeper. My old lady said the cop’s keeping her out of the loop with the investigations. He got wind that me and her were a thing so now he’s operating on his own.”

“We’ll need to do some investigating of our own. If the Dirty Dozen is behind this, we’ll wanna get to ‘em before the law does. Veep, this is your cue.”

Zipper looked around the table, ensuring he had everyone’s attention. “Duke’s right. Now from what I was able to dig up on these guys is that they’re based out of Shaver Lake. After doing some research on these guys, looks like they’ve killed quite a few men before and dumped their bodies in the water near their clubhouse. Local law enforcement in their area has never been able to pin a murder on ‘em though, because by the time the bodies wash up—if they wash up—they can’t determine cause of death, and any evidence was cleaned up. If that’s who we’re dealing with, they’re some slick motherfuckers.”

“And you’ve been able to confirm that they wanna set up shop here?”

This was the first time I’d ever heard of a new MC wanting to relocate to Fresno. Everyone knew that we had worked out deals with the Chargers and Warriors and this wasn’t a free territory. If they were going to try to set up shop here, they’d better clear it with all three of the local area MCs and bring something to the table that would be worth our while. And I still didn’t have that warm cozy feeling that their info was on the up-and-up.

“That’s what we’re trying to look in to,” Duke took up for Zipper. “If what we’ve heard is correct, we have got some serious trouble on our hands. Tomorrow, I want all of my men getting a feel on the street. Word has it they like to sell meth. If that’s true, we shouldn’t have any problems shaking down Fifth Street.”

“That ain’t no shit, it’s where all the dope heads hang out.” Drew said, lighting a joint to pass around the table.

After church was over, we headed to the bar for a few drinks. While everyone was kicked back getting blow jobs from the club whores, I got to thinking about the situation at hand. If what the MC had heard was true, I didn’t want to wait another day to find out. Walking into my room, I opened the top drawer of my dresser and started gathering my own supply of weapons and ammo. As the enforcer of this club, it was my job to get to the bottom of shit while Zipper played suck up to the prez. I didn’t need protection like Duke did—I
am
the protection. Once all of my guns were loaded, I slid one into my shoulder holster, one in the back of my pants and another in my boot. Heading out of the clubhouse, Drew stopped me.

“Where you goin’ brother?” he followed me out to the parking lot.

“I got some shit to take care of.” Lying to a brother wasn’t something I normally did, but tonight is an exception.

“Want me to come with you?”

“Nah, man. You go back inside and have a good time.”

Slipping on my brain bucket, I climbed on my Harley and spread my gloves over my enormous hands. I fired up my bike and rode past Skeeter and Griffin who were manning the gate, heading out on a mission. The streets were clear except a few hookers working the corner near Toadies, a local bar. I recognized one of the girls, she used to be a straggler at the clubhouse but she couldn’t hack it. Heading down to Fifth Street, I saw a group of bikers parked outside a liquor store. Pulling onto the lot, I didn’t recognize any of the bikes; though, they were all the same color: black and orange. Lighting up a smoke, I waited in the parking lot as I watched them through the large glass front. The leader of the bunch stood near the counter while his men hauled liquor to the register. Within a few minutes, they were in the parking lot loading up their saddlebags with the booze they’d just bought.

Keeping my distance, I followed them to an old warehouse where it looked like they’d set up shop. The busted windows allowed me a clearer view of the inside through the dark night sky. A large generator hummed, supplying electricity to the spotlights they had set up on the lower level of the abandoned building. My Spidey senses kicked in and I got the feeling someone was watching me. Looking around in all directions, I spotted one of the prospects—Skeeter—sitting on his bike, hidden behind a bus stop at the end of the block.
Fuck me
.
I got off my bike and walked right up to him.

“Glad you could make it, but the fucked up thing? I don’t remember inviting you.”

“I, uh…I was seeing what you were up to. If you needed some help or somethin’.”

“Goddamn, Skeeter, you can’t tail a guy and park right out in the open and not expect to get caught.”

“Drew told me to follow you. Just doin’ what the patch told me to do.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll tell you what.” I turned my head from side to side, popping my neck. “Now the patch—this patch—is going to tell you something else. You wanna play games and follow me? I gotta new job for you tonight. I’m gonna head home and you’re gonna babysit these assholes. Seeing that you wanted to watch people tonight, this seems right up your alley.”

The only reason I was letting him babysit these guys was because it didn’t look like much was going on. If they were here to sell drugs, they were lacking customers. From the looks of things, all I could tell was that they were priming the abandoned warehouse for something to come.

“Okay, and what should I do if I see anything?” his voice cracked, sounding like he was going through goddamned puberty.

“Didn’t you hear me? Watch ‘em. Report back to me tomorrow and don’t let the others know where you trailed me to. This is between us—at least for now. And if you play your cards right, this might earn you your top rocker.”

“Really? You think so?”

“What are you? A giddy fucking school girl? Keep your eyes open.”

Walking to my bike, I could hear the Dirty Dozen laughing and drinking. With Skeeter watching them, he could let me know if they started moving things in or if it was just a party night for the guys. Riding home, I thought about Raven. I never thought anyone could tame me, but her pussy was like a good line of coke. Each time you got your fix, you couldn’t wait to get the next hit. She had a good head on her shoulders. Brains and looks are a rare combination, especially when you’re talkin’ about chicks walking into a MC, but she had ‘em both. By the time I got home, my dick was hard after thinking about her. I looked at the clock, it was too late to call her or head over to her house.
Guess I’ll have to rub one out.
Sitting at my desk, I searched for some hardcore porn, grabbed my bottle of lube and got to work. Since hooking up with Raven, it had been a long time since I had to pleasure myself and I remembered how bad it sucked. After I finished up, I walked over to the fridge, opened a beer and channel surfed until I fell asleep.

My phone blowing up woke me from my sleep. A little hungover, I glanced at the clock next to my bed.
Fuck, 10 AM?
Reaching for my phone, I knocked it off the night stand. It quit ringing, but only temporarily. Feeling around on the floor, I found my phone, looked at the screen and saw it was Raven.

“Hello?” I croaked into the phone.

“Chaos! Oh my God, you have to get down here. Now!”

“Where? What’s going on?”

“Come to my lab.” The phone went dead.

Shit.
Whatever it was, it sounded urgent. I slipped on my pants, hopped on my bike and drove down to her work.

§

“Look at you. Mr. Sin himself.” Matt tipped his hat.

Studying his eyes, I could see the hatred in them. The glacier stare he was darting back at me was returned with a cold stare of my own. I didn’t have shit to say to him. Never did really. When he backed out on the MC, that was the last time I had anything to do with him—when he wasn’t up my ass booking me for some bullshit charges. Silent, I walked right past him. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of answering him. An old man was sitting up front, running the copy machine.

“Can you tell me where to find Raven?”

“Raven?” he sounded confused.

“Raven Harris.”
Fuck me.

“Oh, yes, Raven.” He cocked a half smile as he looked at me, his eyes slightly crossed. “She’s most likely in the lab. Come, I’ll take you to her.” The old guy walked with a limp as I followed behind him with Matt in tow.

“You can’t go back there,” Matt protested.

“Oh, Chaos! I’m glad you’re here.” Raven walked out of the lab. “I wanted you to be the first to know.”

Know what?
I was afraid to ask because I had a feeling I already knew the answer. Trailing behind Raven, my chest tightened and my whole body tensed as I prepared myself for what I presumed was a body. Matt mumbled something as he followed behind us, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Everything was hazy. Amber was standing on the far side of the room with a clipboard in her hand. Her saddened facial expression wasn’t welcoming.

“He came in this morning. Before I show you—”

“Babe, I’ve seen a lot of shit in my day. Quit pussyfootin’ around. Who’s in the bag?”

“Hm. Tough talk for a tough guy. You used to seeing dead bodies, Troy Atkins?” Matt started taunting me.

“Shut the hell up before I rip you a new asshole!”

“Guys! Chill the fuck out. It’s Skeeter, and he might not look the same as you remember him.”

Watching in magnificent, slow horror, she pulled back the body bag. His spiked red hair was matted in thick clumps of dark, dried blood, his face unrecognizable. Both of his eyes were at least four times their normal size, his nose was completely split in half. I looked at the rest of his face. His lower jaw was barely hanging in place, separated from the rest of his face, most of his teeth were missing—bashed out and broken. Both of his lips were disguised by the loose flesh of his face, completely severed. It looked like someone took a meat cleaver to his face and had a fucking hay day with it. His head slumped in the body bag, his neck broken. She continued unzipping the body bag, he was fully clothed but the prospect patch on his cut had been ripped off. Skeeter was a good kid, loyal to the club and it was my fault that he was laying in that bag on the table. My stomach started to churn while a hard lump in my throat constricted my breathing. The already cold lab seemed chillier than it did a minute ago.