Deadly Seduction (21 page)

Did I really want him to know the truth?

“I went by the Clubhouse earlier and told him about how much trouble you could be facing and I guess the reality hit him harder than I imagined it would. Same thing that happened when my dad found out I was pregnant, remember?”

“No, I don’t because you never told me what happened.”

“He had an irregular heartbeat and fell out. They found out he suffered from high blood pressure and he’s had to watch his diet ever since. He was forty years old. I didn’t get a chance to tell you because so much shit was going on at that time. Believe me, I’ve been here before, and I know what you’re going through.”

I don’t know what I expected Cillian to do but when he wrapped his arms around my waist and tucked his face into the crux of my neck, I knew what was coming next whether I wanted it to register in my mind or not.

No matter how tough a guy portrayed himself to be, they were still emotionally weaker than us as women, even big alpha bikers.

Bronaugh had merely left the waiting room.

Cillian, who hated his father as much as he loved him, held on to me for dear life and sobbed silently into my neck.

I couldn’t do anything but help soothe his pain; it’s what I’d always been good at but I wondered in the end, would it be enough?

Chapter Thirteen

Cillian

The following weeks passed quickly and once jury selection was over, Cillian’s case was brought before twelve of his peers—and six alternates—in Carson City Criminal Court.

The weekend after his trial started, a huge barbeque was held at the Clubhouse in honor of his father making a full recovery.

His dad’s good health regime went out of the window when he saw huge plates of sausages, fried chicken and steaks; potato salad, macaroni salad and mashed potatoes; Bushmills, Jose Cuervo and Jack Daniels; Becks, Heinken and Bud Ice.

Cillian had a couple shots of Jack Daniels while Gisela helped with Bronaugh, Naomi, Lola, and Miranda—who’d Kink had persuaded to return after Dizzy’s triple bypass.

“How’s everythin’ goin’ with the case?” Kink inquired after they’d downed another shot of Jack.

“Same ole bullshit. Gisela is a nervous wreck and Kyra is helping out. I’ll probably beat it but not before they put my balls in a sling first.” Cillian poured himself another drink as his old lady came by and kissed his cheek.

“I don’t need to drag your ass home tonight. For my sake, take it easy.”

“What’s she got her thong in a sling about?” Kink wondered as soon as she walked off.

“I’m tryin’ to knock her up.”

Kink’s shot stopped inches from his lips. “Say
what
again?”

Cillian rolled his eyes. “Brianna is being a bitch, demanding more money and sayin’ how expensive it is to live in Reno though I know she works at Bare Privleges so she’s making good money. However, she just wants to be a hard ass. After the case is over, I can divorce her ass and ask for full custody of the kids. That way, I won’t have to pay her shit.”

“Yeah but how do you get from ‘Brianna is actin’ like a skank’ to ‘Gisela and I are tryin’ to have a baby?’”

Cillian downed his fourth shot of Jack Daniels. The whiskey burned his empty stomach and he knew he’d be switching to Bud Ice after that one.

“Listen, I love here. I know that is a hard concept for you to understand but we’ve got this beautiful baby boy out there who is a teenager and he wouldn’t even know us. I want to have a baby with Gisela. A kid we can both get to know and love. I’ve got Declan and you know about Caitlin but…they aren’t Gisela’s, not by blood. I want a child that connects
us
—you feelin’ me, man?”

“Yeah, I am…I just didn’t think you’d be in such a hurry—”

“Why? My ass ain’t gettin’ no younger and if I do go to prison, I want something that connects me with the woman I love. It might be all she has but at least I know I died and left a legacy—a child between us—behind.”

Miranda embraced Kink from behind as Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” began to play. “Come on, you sexy motherfucker. Let’s dance.”

Cillian smiled until the two were out of sight and on the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the parking lot.

Gisela sat next to him and he grabbed her hand closest to his. “Baby, don’t be so maudlin. I swear I will do whatever it takes to get you out of this mess. However, I am pissed at you for not telling me the truth.”

He abandoned his bottle of Bud Ice the prospect, O’Neal, had placed in front of him. “Take a walk,” he muttered in his direction of O’Neal and he abandoned the bar.

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Cillian. It only makes you seem like you have something to hide. Do you?”

“You tell me since you seem to know so much,” he snapped back before he swigged from his Bud Ice.

“Ronan came to see me a couple of months ago. He said he killed Riley—not you.” Gisela’s amber eyes remained emotionless.

“Ronan is full of shit—”

“No, I don’t think so. That night, when you came back from ‘the scene of the crime,’ you didn’t exactly have the look of murder in your eyes…but Ronan
did
. Tell me I’m lying, love.”

He turned away from her and swigged from his beer bottle.

Fuckin’ Ronan, his guilty motherfuckin’ conscience, and his big ass mouth. His head began to swim from too many shots done in succession and the beer wasn’t making his situation any better.

“What does it matter who killed Riley?” Cillian whispered in a soft voice. “He’s fuckin’ dead.”

Gisela grabbed his arm and turned him toward her. “It matters to me, baby, to
me
. I’m not going to tell anyone but I need to know if you murdered a Fed that night; both Ronan and my gut are telling me you didn’t and…I have to believe there’s some good still left in you. I know what kind of person your father is and I’m not asking you to betray him. Hell, I don’t even plan to use it as part of the defense but I need to know.”

He didn’t answer her question but he did face her and wrapped his arms around her neck. “This is all the answer you’re gonna get and if you need more then perhaps you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”

Her arms hung at her sides for what seemed like hours yet eventually, she wrapped them around his waist and buried her head in his chest. “I’m such a fucking idiot. How can I love a man who makes me so angry I just wanna punch you in the nuts sometimes? A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have sufficed, you pompous asshole.”

“Now, now, darlin’, that would’ve been too easy and you do know me, Gisella. I couldn’t go through with it—I was chicken shit. Too many dead bodies I gotta live with already and I couldn’t face another so Ronan took ‘em out. I didn’t want him too and I woulda worked up the nerve to shoot the bastard but Ronan was quicker.”

They separated reluctantly and he started into her gorgeous eyes before she mouthed, “I love you.”

Cillian smiled before he attacked those gorgeous lips and she responded in turn. How could he have gotten so lucky with a beautiful woman and someone who just happened to know him inside out?

The question remained on his mind as Quinn and Bookie walked into the Club house and interrupted them.

“Bro, we got a situation on our hands. You’re ex-old lady just turned up, and she’s drunk out of her head. She’s probably high too and she’s demandin’ to see the kids.” Quinn, always the worrier, glared at him with crystal blue eyes.

“What are you telling us for?” Gisela responded though she knew an old lady’s smart mouth could land her in all kinds of trouble. “Let her in.”

Cillian grabbed her by the shoulders. “Babe, if she’s drunk and high, the kids shouldn’t see her like that—”

“She’s their
mother
. What the hell do we look like turning her away? Plus, half the people out there are drunk and high. Declan and Caitlin miss her and I can’t replace her either. Let them see her but we’ll just keep a close eye on her, all right?”

He hated when she was right but at the same time, he couldn’t help feeling like this was a bad idea.

Gisela grabbed his hand and her soft palm, so small and delicate in his own, gave him the strength he needed to walk out the Clubhouse doors and face the one woman he had no desire to see again.

Someone had let her in and she strolled around in a pair of black daisy duke shorts, which displayed long alabaster legs, a ripped Joan Jett and the Blackhearts tee with a black bra underneath and a pair of black four-inch mules. Her hair was a deep auburn with subtle blondish-auburn highlights and her steel-gray eyes looked around before she finally settled on her two children seated at a picnic table.

Declan dropped the hot dog back onto his plate, stood and ran to his mother while Caitlin also stood but she seemed confused and reluctant. His daughter walked over to him and Gisela before she grabbed the woman who had become her surrogate mother.

“Don’t you wanna see your ma? I bet you she drove all the way from Reno to see you.”

“I talk to her…every now and then.” Caitlin glanced up at her father. “She’s in Carson City now, Dad. I don’t…I can’t…I still love her but Gisela is like a mom to me now and I don’t want her to think I feel something I don’t.”

Cillian watched as Gisela knelt beside her and embraced her. “You’re like a daughter to me too but saying ‘Hello’ to your mother over there doesn’t offend me, baby. She gave you life, and no matter what anyone tells you about her, she’s still your mother.”

“You can say ‘Hi’ to her, Caitlin. She won’t take you away from us, I promise.”

The tone of Cillian’s voice had changed from friendly to a quiet order; both, which Gisela and Caitlin had picked up on.

The young girl smiled with bright hazel-green eyes, “Okay, Dad.”

He watched her walk over to Brianna before she gave her an awkward hug.

Gisela punched his arm. “Way to blackmail a kid, babe. She might not be ready to face her mother yet. She did abandon them, after all, and disappeared into thin air but at the end of the day, there was something vulnerable enough about that woman you made her your old lady.”

He dug out a cigarette and lit it. “Yeah, but my past isn’t exactly something I’m proud of.”

“Understandable but it still happened.”

Cillian remained silent as he watched his ex-old lady and thought it was strange how he felt nothing. After all the years they’d spent with one another, and the two children they shared together, looking at Brianna brought nothing to him except bad memories. He wished he could erase the years between them and start anew with Gisela.

“Listen, Caitlin looks uncomfortable. I’m going to walk over and make sure everything is okay.”

He shrugged his shoulders in apathy. “Suit yourself.”

Gisela began to walk away before she turned on him with lethal amber eyes. “No, I don’t think so. I’m trying to save your pathetic, worthless life at the moment so it’s not ‘suiting myself’ at all. The last thing you need are more enemies, Cillian. You need to make peace with your ex-old lady because this is
never
going to work if you don’t.”

She strolled closer to him and got into his face. “You wanna blame Brianna for everything that went wrong in your life but the onus is on you—not
her
! You dragged her here, and you made her your old lady because you didn’t want to be alone with your demons. You turned into a monster while you two were married but that is your fault. You let your father use you for his benefit and when everything soured, you looked for someone to blame and she was perfect, wasn’t she? What scares me the most about this whole twisted, fucked up situation is if you would ever turn on me just like that—”