JAGGED EDGE: A BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE (ALPHA MALE) (12 page)

Cursed

(Bonus Book)

Cursed

Chapter One

“Mornin, Cutter. I’ve got a job for you.”

Dirk Beaumont had been sitting on his ratty couch, nursing a beer and minding his own business. He liked minding his own business and had intended to spend his entire morning on the couch doing not very much. But when the boss shows up, opens your front door and makes a personal visit to your pad, you pay attention. It wasn’t a matter of being polite. Dirk had given up being polite long ago but just like a straight who wants to keep his job, he had to be nice to the head guy. Bart was the president of his motorcycle club, The Chosen Few. As a senior member and an officer of the club, he had to toe the line when it came to following the few rules and the club code. One big rule was that when the president speaks, you fucking listen. When he comes to see you, that visit becomes the most important thing on your agenda.

Not that it took a rule for him to take notice. Something important was going down or Bart wouldn’t be banging on his front door.

So, as Bart slumped in a chair and put his boots on the cheap-assed coffee table, Dirk got up, went to the refrigerator and got two more beers, taking one to Bart, who stared at the bottle in his hand. “It’s nine in the fucking morning, Cutter.”

“Call it a breakfast beer, Prez,” he said. “If we’re gonna talk business…”

Bart took a sip. “Fine. We’ve got a job that needs your special touch.”

Dirk resigned himself to missing the ball game that was going to be on that afternoon. He had a twenty riding on the Broncos. It would be bad enough to lose the money, but if he didn’t even get to see the game, that really sucked. Still, club business was his main thing. “So what is it? Is Chico acting up again? Doing jobs on his own?”

“Probably, but I haven’t heard any new shit. I think the last talk you two had convinced him to keep a lower profile. At least until the scars heal completely.”

Dirk looked at him and waited to hear the real news.

“It’s a smuggling run.”

Dirk laughed. “You want me to visit sunny Mexico?” That was the closest border. The run up to Canada was too long and besides, the clubs to the north protected their own turf.

“Not this time. This one’s a trip up to Canukville and I need you on it right away.”

“Because…”

“It will bring in cash that the club can use, Cutter. This ain’t some giant, convoluted scheme… pretty easy money really.”

Dirk nodded. A run to Canada could be lucrative, even if you just brought back prescription drugs that you bought legally in Canada. Retirees were happy to pay a premium to get their prescriptions filled where the drugs cost half as much. And it wasn’t even risky—the Canadian government didn’t mind, so the only tricky spot was crossing back into the US.

If the trip had been to Mexico, Dirk would have suggested letting someone else do it, but he was one of the few senior club members without major busts. Bart had one assault conviction and was out on bail for another now. The problem was that felons had trouble getting into Canada—the border agents were picky. Dirk had managed to avoid getting busted since his juvenile convictions and they’d been buried. If the score was in Canada it made sense for him to do it.

“What sort of cargo?”

“A chick.”

He laughed. “You want to smuggle a chick down from Canada? We don’t have enough here?”

“Other way around. You can bring a few things back if you want, to pay for gas, but the job is getting her into Canada.”

Dirk laughed. “So she gets on a bus that takes her to the border and she can walk across.”

Bart drained his beer, then shook his head. “Not this chick. She’s in some shit, a bit of an awkward situation between a fucking rock and a hard place. Her biggest problem comes in getting to the border. She’s gonna have people looking for her.”

“She’s wanted?”

“In a manner of speaking. She’s doing a runner on her husband.”

Dirk laughed. “Like I said, buses leave every hour to Vancouver. Or Amtrak runs from LA to Seattle.”

“That doesn’t work if the husband is Terrence Montrose.”

The name struck a chord. “Montrose?”

“Billionaire dude always in the social media for some shit.”

“You check the social media real often do you, Bart?”

He grinned. “You never know when you might luck out, see some nudie pics of Beyonce or some other hottie, or better yet a sex video posted by some pissed off ex.”

“I suppose.”

“This girl—Audra, is like the dude’s fifth wife.”

“Five wives? Is that at once? Why would he do that even if he’s rich? He a Mormon?”

“Nah. He always has one wife at a time and a bunch of girlfriends. Every so often he sheds a wife and promotes one of the other bitches to that position, or brings in a new one.”

“And this one objects.”

“To being with him apparently. She doesn’t seem to care about his other broads.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“She wants to leave home.”

Dirk’s beer was empty. He got up and went back to the fridge and took out the last beers. He was going to have to wrap up the business, seeing as he was out of beer. He gave one to Bart. “Okay, so how are we involved in the sad, sad story of this little rich bitch?”

“We are working for her. She is gonna pay us, you, to get her out of LA and into Canada.”

Dirk still found it curious. “Okay, so all I do is take this chick on a trip to the Canadian border?”

“And walk her across the border. All the way, you keep her out of sight of whatever spies and muscle her husband has hired to bring her home.”

“Anything else?”

He shook his head. “Nope. That’s about it. Up there she’s on her own.”

“I still don’t see what I’m doing for her. What’s she paying us for besides a bike ride?”

“Protection and paperwork. He’s got her real passport in his safe, so she needs a new identity. So I’ll get her a brand new passport and you’ll provide transport to a place where she thinks she can start her new life, free of the outraged husband.”

Dirk shrugged. It still didn’t make sense. “So he sheds wives like a duck does water, and you can get her a new passport. Why does she need protection?”

“I guess he has a fragile ego. He doesn’t let women leave him. When he gets tired of them, he dumps them, usually with nothing. If she takes the initiative, he’ll muster his troops to drag her ass home and administer punishment. He’s been arrested a few times for the nasty ways he treats women, but somehow nothing sticks. So the girl is scared but she figures they won’t be looking for a chick on the back of a big machine riding with some ugly as shit biker.”

“She tell you all this crap?”

Bart laughed. “No. You know I plan things carefully, man. I wouldn’t take the word of some panicked pussy about the situation. I had some friends in low places confirm this.”

“What else do I need to know?” He looked at Bart. “Assuming you aren’t just setting me up.”

“That the chick is fucking hot.”

Dirk drank his beer. The deal sounded stinko. A girl who had the balls to get in touch with a biker gang with a rep like theirs was no coward. She’d be able to stand up for herself. But Bart thought it was a legit deal.

And the girl was hot. Since Sally left, gotten tired of being his old lady and gone off to be a stripper in Vegas, he hadn’t gotten laid. So it had been a week now and he was horny. Some spoiled, upmarket hot wife would provide some real sport. And he’d have her alone and in a situation where she wasn’t going to raise a ruckus. If she wanted to pretend to be a biker chick, well, he’d make sure she played the role all the way.

“So are you in?”

Dirk smiled. “I’m in, Bart. But I want a fake passport too.”

“Why?”

“If this guy is serious there is no sense in giving him a lead back to the club.”

Bart grinned. “Now that’s why I picked you, Cutter. And everyone thinks you just get by on your good looks. Being the boss as well as someone who knows how you work, I guessed that would be needed and ordered one.”

“Fuck you, Bart.”

Bart’s phone beeped. He took it out and checked the message. “She’s on her way now. If she’s got the money and this isn’t some game, I’ll meet you at the clubhouse in twenty minutes. Pick a few of the guys to take along for support. They can go as far as the border then you take her across.”

“We’re doing this now?”

“You have a full social calendar?”

“Not so you’d notice.”

“Then you might consider leaving before he figures out where she is. Escapes work better that way, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Chapter Two

Dirk sat with Greg at the bar sipping a beer, explaining the gig. When he finished, Greg put on what he called his thoughtful look. “Bart makes this job sound pretty easy, dude.”

“True enough. That’s his style.”

“I don’t think we know the whole story and that makes me edgy.”

“You are wondering why a rich guy would waste time and money chasing a woman across the planet just because she wanted out?”

“Color me skeptical.”

Dirk smiled over his beer. “Me, too. I’d guess Bart doesn’t have the whole story, doesn’t give a shit.”

“You could say no.”

“Fuck I can. I’m supposed to be the club Enforcer.”

“So saying no makes you look bad?”

“Like I care? No, the thing is that he’d get someone else to step up and take over the gig. That would fuck with discipline, then he’d want to use me as a lesson about following orders and I don’t really want to deal with all that.”

“Maybe the job will be easy.”

Dirk laughed. “‘Just keep your fucking head down,’ is what he said. Of course if this rich husband has half a brain and if he is half the asshole he gets credit for being, the moment he knows she ran, he’ll throw money at the job. That means dozens, maybe hundreds of people will fan out to motels, gas stations, bars, and restaurants with pictures of the girl. They’ll offer a reward to anyone who has seen her and make believable threats against people who don’t take the bait. With his fucking money, he might have cops or border patrol in his pocket on both sides of the border.”

“So we go fast.”

“Like the wind.”

The door opened, letting bright light into the dark gloom of the bar. “Here we are.”

They turned and saw Bart and a sexy girl in her early twenties. She had straight coffee-colored hair cut off at shoulder length. Bart hadn’t lied about her being hot. She stepped forward and held out her hand, putting on a brave face. “Hi, I’m Audra. I take it you’re Cutter.”

A quick look at her small, curvy, and rather delicious body pleased him. That sweet body held a lot of promise, maybe even enough to offset his concerns about Bart sending him out on a job where he couldn’t calculate the risks with any accuracy. Her intelligent face suggested that she might know what she was doing. If he worked her, maybe he’d get more of the facts. If he worked her well, he might get some time with her in bed as well. Both would be nice.

He took her tiny hand. “That’s right. I’m Cutter.” He nodded toward Greg. “And this is Wrench.”

Bart turned toward her. “I’ll say goodbye now. You’ll need to leave soon. Good luck.”

He handed Cutter an envelope. “How you play it is up to you, but time’s a wasting.”

* * * *

“So where exactly does he think you are now? Your husband?”

Audra shifted uncomfortably on the bar stool. Everything about her situation was unbelievably insane. Audra Montrose, wife of the rich bastard Terrance Montrose was sitting in her designer clothes nursing a beer in a crappy biker bar at the edge of the city. But then she’d blown up her bridges, both to her life as a rich wife and to reality. Wherever she was now, she’d put herself there and it was up to her to push through to whatever came next.

She took in the two bikers. Dealing with Bart had taken all the nerve she could muster. Letting him drag her into their clubhouse, where she had no idea if he’d just rape her or what, had her jittery as hell. No one had her back. If she just disappeared…

Bikers weren’t exactly a mystery to her and she wasn’t intimidated by stereotypes. Growing up poor in Los Angeles, they’d been part of the environment. She just hadn’t had to deal with them much, and never alone.

Being in their hangout was a lot different from running into them on the street where you could keep your distance, do things to keep them from noticing you. But this was their turf, and she was dealing with them face to face in a disgusting bar. Looking around didn’t make her feel any better, or any safer. The customers all looked like they belonged in a police lineup. There were other women there, but one was a topless waitress who’d seen better days. The others were mostly skinny girls with no hips, long hair and tattoos on their arms or legs. They belonged. They stood around hanging on tattooed guys in jeans and denim vests with ‘The Chosen Few’ embroidered on the back. Some of them looked mean—the girls and the guys. The guys were quite a mix, some with bellies, some with nasty scars. They all looked scruffy.

Just being around them put her on edge. She was glad she’d worn jeans and a sweatshirt. Of course they were designer jeans and a designer sweatshirt, so she still stood out, but if she’d been in a dress she’d have felt naked.

The guy sitting next to her, the one Cutter had introduced as Wrench, but who asked her to call him Greg, had a funny sneer on his face and an evil red scar on his neck that he didn’t get shaving. They all had odd nicknames that probably had some biker meaning. The one she was talking to, the guy who’d asked her where Terry thought she was, had been introduced as Cutter. He had a hard face, but he was good looking in a rough way. In fact, under other circumstances she would have said he was hot, a hunk. A hunk called Cutter.

She put him in his late twenties; he had broad shoulders, dark wavy hair and intense gray eyes that looked surprisingly intelligent. He managed to look at her the way all these guys stared at girls, letting her know that he was assessing her tits and ass, deciding how touchable she might be, while listening to what she said.

In the back of her head she found herself thinking about him—how he might be away from this dump. Her fantasy shaved the stubble off his chin, put him in nice clothes. He’d clean up nice. And the guy was built.

The thought made her wonder at herself. She’d thought her asshole husband Terrence had made it impossible for her to even think about sex without wanting to cringe. Yet here she was, just a few hours away from him, and already fantasizing about a goddamn biker. A guy who was clearly muscle for a motorcycle club was turning her on.

Get a grip, Audra.

“My husband is probably at home. I told him I had a doctor appointment.”

Dirk looked at his watch. “For what time?”

“Noon.”

“Okay, an hour ago. And you went to the doctor alone?”

She laughed, sounding bitter. “I’m never allowed to go anywhere alone. That would mean he trusted me. There’s always a driver and sometimes a guy who tells me he’s my bodyguard. Today the driver did double duty.”

That raised some red flags. “So your husband knew or suspected you were thinking of running?”

She shook her head. “No. Not a clue. I don’t think he believes any woman would leave him. No, the escort is to show the world that I belong to him and probably to make sure I don’t meet some hot guy. He’s not only an asshole, he’s a jealous asshole. Even thinking he might be cuckolded would push him into a rage. Having me watched means he never has to worry about the possibility. He never turns down anything decent looking in a skirt himself so I imagine he figures every other guy is the same.”

She looked at Cutter, seeing him toying with an envelope the president, Bart, had handed him. He fingered it nervously. “What’s this stuff got to do with getting me to Canada?”

“Everything.” He titled his head, measuring her reactions. “I’m trying to find out our status. Bart said you were sure he’d hunt you down, so it helps to know if we have a head start or if we can expect them to crash the door down at any moment.”

She smiled. “I doubt he has any idea I’m gone yet. We’ve got an hour before the clown waiting would even be suspicious, and what doctor appointment is ever on time?”

Wrench smiled at her. “So what happened to your shadow?”

“He’s sitting outside the office in the waiting room. Waiting. The doctor told him I needed to have a mole removed in an in-office surgery and that it would take at least two hours. I paid the bastard doctor to let me out the back door. I had a taxi waiting and left immediately, calling Bart and meeting him as we’d agreed. I paid him and he brought me here.”

“Where did you meet Bart?”

“In a parking lot a few blocks away.” She tossed her head. “He paid attention. We waited until the taxi left before coming here.”

“How did you connect with Bart?”

She looked embarrassed. “A woman my husband brought home. I don’t know the details but she thought he cheated her somehow. I was in the living room when she came out, swearing and unhappy with whatever game Terrance had played with her. When she saw me she told me she felt sorry for me. She wrote his number on a piece of paper and said if I ever wanted to have Terrance beat up and could afford it, I should call Bart.”

“This was recent?”

“Months ago. I came across the paper a few weeks ago and thought up my plan. I called him and talked about… this. I needed to know the price. He needed a week to get the papers done, and I made the doctor’s appointment.”

Wrench started to speak and she saw Cutter gave Wrench a warning look. Even she knew that Cutter was telling Wrench to back out of this. Then he looked at her again. “You didn’t bring your things? Other clothes…”

“I couldn’t risk it. If I brought anything the driver would be suspicious.”

Watching the big man’s face, she caught sight of something that flickered in his eyes. It didn’t entirely disturb the strange calm she saw there, but it was a flicker. She had to hope it was of hope, or approval of what she’d done, or something else positive. She was putting herself in this man’s hands and she wanted something to go right for once.

“You have a cell phone?”

“Sure.”

He held out his hand. Wondering what was going on, she took hers out of her pocket and handed it to him and watched as he opened it and took out the SIMM card, then smashed the phone. One of the other bikers and his old lady were headed out the door and Dirk waved at them. “Bobby, you heading home to get ready?”

“Yeah.”

Dirk held out the phone and card. “Do us all a favor and take this crap down to the cop shop and drop it in the dumpster out back.”

Bobby smiled and took the card.

“What’s that about?”

“Your husband gave you the phone, right?”

She nodded.

“Phones can be fixed to make them easily traced. He could be on the way now.” Dirk reached over the bar, fumbling under it and brought out a cell phone. “Besides, biker chicks have club phones. There are some pictures of bikes and people in it, and your contact list has the burner cell number I travel with and Wrench’s. That’s it, other than some tweaks the club geek puts in them. That way you have a phone in case we get separated and because it would seem weird you not having one. Someone gets a hold of this phone they don’t really have shit. They’d never trace them back to this place.”

She looked at it. “Whatever.” Acting tough was important so she tried not to show how much his thoroughness gave her a sense of relief. These guys might actually know what they were doing. Then she watched him open the envelope Bart had given him and shake out two passports. He opened one and showed it to her. It was her face and birth date but with another name. “Heidi?”

He shrugged and opened the other passport. She saw his face. “I got Burt, so suck it up.”

“Why do you need a fake passport?”

“I have no interest in your old man knowing who I am. I’ll be taking you across the border; if they spot you somehow, then they’ll be interested in who I am. This gives them a name and I’d just as soon he chased a phantom.”

That made sense. “Fine. So let’s go. We can be in Canada tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “Not the way we’re going.”

“It’s a straight shot from here.”

“No way we’re going direct.”

“Why not?”

“Because the man is after you. As soon as he finds out you ran, he’ll check the paths that run straight to safety, the routes that seem to take you out of his reach. So he’ll blanket the airport, bus stations, train stations and border checkpoints. If he’s any good at all, by tonight he’ll be sure you didn’t go to Mexico, at least not Tijuana or between here and Yuma. He’ll also have a good idea that you didn’t hang around here unless you have someone who could hide you. If you do, they are in deep shit.”

She shook her head. “No. No one.”

“That sort of leaves Canada. If I were him, I’d turn my attention on every motel and rest stop along I-5 north, and the Pacific Coast Highway. Meantime, he’ll turn to any connections he might have with border patrol people on either side. If we head straight up to Vancouver they will be looking for you to cross, maybe circulating photos to people with instructions to grab you.”

The idea staggered her. She’d been running only one hour and suddenly her clever scheme was falling apart. She wondered if she’d even get past this sleazy bar. “So what do we do?”

“We take a scenic route. We meander, take a roundabout path. If we are lucky he gets bored and quits looking for you, or just the enthusiasm of his troops slackens and they give up. And we cross a long way from here.”

“Where are we going?”

“Buffalo.”

“Buffalo?”

Wrench smiled at them both. “Buffalo. As in New York.”

“And then cross to Toronto or London,” Cutter said. “I hear it’s nice there this time of year. Shitty in winter though.”

Wrench scratched his head. “Except for the elk.”

She laughed. “Elk?”

“They walk out in the road and stop. Big fucking critters, elk. A bike hitting one of them gets totally messed up. Hard to fix.”

“It’s easy to cross the border at Buffalo,” Dirk said. “Not many elk there.”

* * * *

You sit in a bar to hang out and drink. Now Dirk sat in the clubhouse bar drinking in this girl, Audra, making no secret of running his gaze over her body. It was a nice body and she had to be used to having guys checking her out. Bart was right, saying she was hot. She was a fox who suited his weakness for petite, curvy girls. As he ran his gaze over her hair, she touched it selfconsciously. “I cut it yesterday.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Terrace insisted I keep it long, and I was pissed off at him.”

“So he knows you are pissed.”